EUROPE’S STRATEGIC AUTONOMY: - THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE

We have also seen the constitution, on the very day of the publication of the EU’s “Strategy for Cooperatio n in the Indo-Pacific”, of a tripartite alliance between the United States, Australia, and Britain with no communication whatsoever with the European Union. [...] Going back to the root of the concept, i.e., the St Malo declaration,19 it seems more accurate to present strategic autonomy in the form of an equation to capture the essence of the concept: STRATEGIC AUTONOMY = POLITICAL WILL x ABILITY TO DECIDE x CAPACITY TO ACT As the formula indicates, strategic autonomy results from a multiplication, not from an addition of composite elements. [...] In the St Malo declaration: the “readiness” to use the capacity; the “means to decide” to use the capacity, and the “ capacity for autonomous action” itself. [...] In this domain, the main flaw of the current European defence and security architecture is that it places defence in the hands of diplomats, whereas, when it comes to the use of force, the strength and the reactiveness of the politico-military chain of command are decisive factors since every hour, and sometimes every minute, counts. [...] The latter could be composed of the aggregation of the national Members of Parliament and members of the European Parliament of the participating countries.