It would be difficult to deny that in recent years a sense of emergency has taken hold of the European capitals. The world seems to be entering a period of increasing instability and fragmentation, an era of transition in which the values and principles that guided the behavior of the international society in recent decades are being questioned more and more each day. A break —for some irreparable— of the international order based on rules that had been built little by little since the end of the Second World War.
Across the planet, violence is once again a legitimate instrument for resolving disputes, wars are proliferating, and international law, sovereignty, and the territorial integrity of states are increasingly less guaranteed.
The European states, which trusted that we were already living in Perpetual Peace, found themselves disoriented by the (not so) sudden break of this order. Europe was able to build prosperous welfare states largely thanks to the peace dividend, taking advantage of the economic and social benefits derived from the reduction of defense spending.
In colloquial terms, it chose butter and forgot the cannons; and today it pays the price in front of a world where raw power seems to be returning, if it ever left at all. The continent lacks the material and immaterial capabilities to face the threats of this new scenario, more unstable and unpredictable than any it has known in recent decades.
An autonomous Europe
That the concept of strategic autonomy enjoys such popularity today is no coincidence. Beyond the military plane, recent years have witnessed various crises that have unmasked the risks of globalization and excessive interdependencies. Russia's aggression against Ukraine and, more recently, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, highlighted the continent's energy vulnerability and the need to accelerate the energy transition, develop new technologies, and diversify suppliers, no longer just as an environmental necessity, but as a strategic imperative.
The Covid-19 pandemic exposed China's dependence on pharmaceutical supplies and medical equipment. And the fracturing of the alliance with the United States since Trump's arrival in power revealed the enormous shortcomings of the Union in technology and military equipment, a dependence in matters that would take decades to remedy.
The current context pushes Europe to fight for its strategic autonomy. As Von der Leyen stated in her speech on the future of the Union in 2025, Europe is in the midst of a struggle for a free and independent Europe, for our values and our democracies, and for our ability to determine our own destiny.
The succession of crises has shaken European leaders from the lethargy in which they found themselves and has made it clear that if we want to make our own decisions and live under our own values, we must develop the institutional, political, and material capacities to do so, cooperating with partners when possible and acting alone when necessary.
The race against time
However, the path to strategic autonomy is not without obstacles. Regarding security, the main problem is time, and it arises from the gap between the timelines of the defense industry and immediate strategic needs. Europe must reconcile a threat that exists today, Russia, with industrial cycles that are measured in years, if not decades. Furthermore, strengthening defense implies increasing budgets in economies with modest growth — a 1.1% is projected for 2026 in the Union —, with fragile governments in the main European powers and with citizens demanding answers to equally urgent problems such as employment or housing.
For the European Union to achieve its long-desired strategic autonomy, it must bet on improving competitiveness, closing gaps in innovation and infrastructure, and must reformulate its external action in search of new reliable partners and a diversification of its dependencies. Autonomy does not imply autarky. Europe cannot, nor should it, close its doors and pretend to isolate itself from the world. As Carney pointed out in Davos, the path involves building coalitions that work, topic by topic, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.
However, we must not fall into the pessimism that seems to have taken hold of public opinion across Europe, as if it were the first time the continent faces great challenges. The reality is that the European Union has strengthened from each crisis it has gone through, and it depends on Europeans, once again, to demonstrate that same capacity for adaptation in the face of the new geopolitical scenario.
From Team Europe, we want to contribute to this debate. Europe is at a crossroads where taking the right steps can be decisive. The Forum for the Future of the European Union, which will be held from November 20 to 22 in Madrid, is a space where important actors from civil society and future generations exchange visions and build together responses to the great challenges we face as Europeans.