From prosperity built on integration to the need for genuine strategic autonomy: the European Union’s challenge in the new geopolitical order
Abstract: For decades, Europe based its prosperity on open markets, economic integration, shared rules, and a security system largely guaranteed by its alliance with the United States. This model fostered growth, stability, and cooperation, transforming the European Union into one of the world’s leading economic areas. Today, however, changes in the international environment require a broader reflection: economic strength does not automatically translate into political power. In a context in which economics, technology, energy, security, raw materials, and foreign policy are increasingly interconnected, traditional economic dependencies can turn into genuine strategic vulnerabilities. Europe thus finds itself caught between the global competition of the United States and China while simultaneously confronting an internal weakness of its own: political and strategic fragmentation. The central issue is neither closing markets nor returning to autarky, but building a common European capacity based on diversification, economic security, the protection of strategic infrastructure, and the strengthening of shared sovereignty. From this perspective, European strategic autonomy does not mean isolation, but rather the ability to choose, defend its own interests, and remain open to the world without becoming excessively dependent on it.
Keywords: #Europe #European Union #strategicautonomy #geopolitics #politicalpower #economicsecurity #EuropeanSovereignty #interdependence #StrategicVulnerability #UnitedStates #China #newinternationalorder #PaolaLaSalvia #EthicaSocietas #ScientificJournal #SocialSciences.
When interdependence becomes vulnerability
For many decades, Europe built its prosperity on an equilibrium that seemed destined to endure: open markets, economic integration, shared rules, and security largely guaranteed by its alliance with the United States. This model produced extraordinary results, fostering growth, stability, trade, and cooperation, while enabling the European Union to become one of the largest and most advanced economic areas in the world.
Today, however, that landscape has changed profoundly. International competition is no longer determined solely by the ability to produce, trade, and attract investment. Economics, technology, security, energy, critical raw materials, and foreign policy are now closely intertwined, and it is precisely within this transformation that one of Europe’s principal weaknesses emerges: being a major economic power does not automatically mean being a political power.
Europe certainly continues to carry enormous weight in international trade. It possesses advanced industries, scientific and technological expertise, substantial financial capabilities, and a market comprising hundreds of millions of consumers. Nevertheless, in numerous strategic sectors, it remains dependent on external decisions, technologies, resources, or security systems.
The central question, therefore, concerns more than economic growth. It concerns power: the ability to protect one’s interests, reduce one’s vulnerabilities, and, above all, make autonomous choices when fundamental interests are at stake.
For a long time, economic interdependence was regarded primarily as an instrument for stabilising international relations. The more states traded with one another, the greater their presumed interest in preserving peaceful, stable, and predictable relations. This assumption has not entirely disappeared, but the geopolitical reality of recent years has revealed another dimension of globalisation: economic dependencies can become instruments of political pressure.
Energy, technologies, digital infrastructure, semiconductors, critical raw materials, and logistics chains are no longer merely components of the global economy; they can become genuine strategic levers. A dependency becomes particularly risky when it concerns essential resources and when the actor on whom we depend does not necessarily share our political and strategic interests.
This is one of the most sensitive issues in the relationship with China, which over recent decades has established a decisive presence across numerous segments of global value chains, from critical raw materials to the technologies required for the energy transition.
In this respect, however, European vulnerability does not concern Beijing alone. In security and defence, Europe continues to depend significantly on the United States. The result is an apparently paradoxical position: economically powerful, yet strategically exposed.
Globalisation accustomed governments and businesses to assessing economic decisions primarily in terms of efficiency: lower costs, higher productivity, market access, and production specialisation. Today, this criterion is no longer sufficient.
A supply chain is no longer assessed solely on the basis of economic efficiency, but also according to its reliability and resilience. An investment is no longer examined exclusively in terms of the return it may generate, but also in relation to its potential strategic implications. A technology is not merely a commercial product: it can become an instrument of influence, control, or national security.
International trade is therefore acquiring an increasingly geopolitical dimension. For Europe, this means confronting a delicate challenge: remaining open to the world without becoming dependent on the world in essential sectors.
Nevertheless, the answer cannot be autarky. A return to economic self-sufficiency would be unrealistic, costly, and, in many cases, even counterproductive. The most credible path is diversification: reducing excessive dependencies, strengthening European production capacity in strategic sectors, and building reliable partnerships with countries whose interests are compatible with Europe’s own.
Between the United States and China
Competition between the United States and China is progressively reshaping the international system. Washington seeks to preserve its technological, economic, and military leadership. Beijing, meanwhile, aims to consolidate its position as a major global power and has developed industrial, technological, and commercial capabilities capable of influencing entire markets.
Europe stands between these competing powers. If it continues to act predominantly as a collection of individual nation-states, it risks seeing its negotiating capacity progressively diminished. No European country, considered individually, today has the economic, demographic, technological, and military scale required to compete on equal terms with the world’s major powers.
Collectively, however, the European Union possesses extraordinary resources. Its strength lies in the scale of its market, its industrial capacity, its scientific heritage, the solidity of its institutions, its regulatory power, and its ability to establish standards that are frequently adopted far beyond European borders.
Yet if this economic strength is to be fully transformed into geopolitical influence, something more is required: genuine common decision-making capacity.
Europe’s real weakness is fragmentation
Europe is strong in those areas in which it has accepted the exercise of shared sovereignty. The Single Market, the Common Commercial Policy, competition policy, and monetary policy are clear examples. In these fields, the European Union can speak with a sufficiently unified voice and negotiate with the world’s major powers from a position of strength.
The situation changes when we enter the domains of defence, foreign policy, economic security, strategic industrial policy, or certain financial decisions. Here, divergent national interests, vetoes, differing political sensitivities, and uncoordinated strategies still prevail far too often.
Yet these are precisely the areas in which a fundamental part of Europe’s future will be determined. A common trade policy accompanied by twenty-seven different security strategies inevitably creates a contradiction. Similarly, a European industrial policy cannot be fully effective if every state continues to regard infrastructure, technology, and production capacity exclusively from a national perspective.
European sovereignty does not mean abolishing nation-states. It means enabling them to exercise together a degree of power that they no longer possess individually.
For a long time, European integration focused primarily on building the market, and that project represented a historic achievement. Today, however, it is no longer sufficient. A market can be wealthy, attractive, and competitive, but if it is not accompanied by adequate political and strategic capabilities, it risks becoming merely the arena in which other actors exercise their influence.
From economic strength to political power
Being a power means more than having a large GDP or a vast market. It means being capable of protecting one’s infrastructure, securing supply chains, developing strategic technologies, defending one’s economic and digital space, safeguarding essential industries, and making common decisions when fundamental interests are at stake.
Above all, it means not being systematically forced to choose between strategies devised by others.
This is where the concept of European strategic autonomy acquires its significance. Autonomy should not mean isolation. It should not mean distancing Europe from the United States, nor should it mean turning China into a permanent adversary. It should mean, more simply, having the capacity to choose.
An ally is more credible when it is capable of contributing to its own security. A trading partner is stronger when it is less exposed to dependencies that can be transformed into forms of pressure. An economic power is genuinely autonomous when it possesses the instruments required to defend its interests without abandoning international openness.
The objective, therefore, is not to build a European fortress. It is to build a Europe strong enough to remain open without becoming vulnerable.
Europe is built by deciding together
Finally, there is a political dimension that cannot be underestimated. It is often argued that Europe should wait until it becomes more united before taking more ambitious decisions. Yet the history of European integration frequently demonstrates the opposite: unity has been consolidated precisely through shared decisions.
Institutions grow stronger through the exercise of responsibility. Solidarity also emerges from the ability to face together the consequences of common choices. Shared sovereignty is not the final outcome of integration; it is one of the instruments through which integration itself becomes possible.
Europe, therefore, will not become stronger simply by waiting for ideal conditions to emerge. It will become stronger if it succeeds in progressively building common instruments in decisive sectors.
Defence, economic security, technology, energy, industrial policy, critical raw materials, and the protection of strategic infrastructure are today among the areas in which the Union’s ability to transform itself from a primarily economic space into a genuine geopolitical actor will be tested.
The question, then, is not whether Europe should abandon its nature as a major market. The real question is another: can a large market remain prosperous and secure for long if it does not also possess the political capacity to defend its interests?
Europe’s problem is not that it is too open. It is that it is open without being sufficiently prepared to defend its autonomy.
The European Union still possesses the resources, expertise, economic scale, and human capital required to play a decisive role in the emerging international order, but it must decide how to use this strength. It can continue to be primarily the arena in which major powers compete, invest, and negotiate, or it can itself become one of the actors capable of shaping that competition.
The difference will not depend solely on economic growth, technological innovation, or industrial capacity. It will depend on the political will to transform dispersed national resources into a common European capacity.
Because, in the new global landscape, genuine strategic autonomy does not mean standing alone. It means being strong enough to choose.
Essential bibliography
Borrell, J. (2020), Why European Strategic Autonomy Matters, European Union External Action.
European Commission (2021), The European Economic and Financial System: Fostering Openness, Strength and Resilience.
European Commission (2023), European Economic Security Strategy.
European Commission (2023), A Strategic Approach to the EU’s Economic Security.
European Council, Strategic Agenda 2024–2029.
European Union (2022), A Strategic Compass for Security and Defence.
Farrell, H., Newman, A. L. (2019), Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion, International Security, 44(1).
Leonard, M. (2021), The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict, Bantam Press.
Tooze, A. (2021), Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy, Viking.
World Economic Forum, Global Risks Report, recent editions.
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