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Beyond Autonomy: Rethinking Europe as a Strategic Actor

Strategic autonomy has become the buzzword of the European policy scene in recent years, with a slew of reports and policy proposals dedicated to the subject, and high-level support among European leaders. But big questions remain about what the concept actually means and what its implications are for Europe and the EU. Drawing on contributions to a recent high-level workshop as well as the five briefings contained in this volume, this report seeks to make the case for moving ‘beyond autonomy’ in five key respects - conceptually, thematically, geographically, temporally, and politically. Only by doing this are we able to move the debate on autonomy forward and highlight a number of key debates and issues on which greater attention from policymakers is needed.

This report from ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ IDEAS and the highlights new directions for policy debate and academic research on the concept of strategic autonomy, all of which take us into new domains.

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Beyond Autonomy

This report was published on 7 February 2022.

Meet the contributors

Andrew Cottey is a Professor and an EU Jean Monnet Chair in the Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork, Ireland. An expert on European security, his publications include Security in 21st Century Europe (Palgrave Macmillan), The European Neutrals and NATO: Non-aligned, Partnership, Membership? (Palgrave Macmillan) and articles in journals such as Journal of Common Market Studies, International Affairs, British Journal of Politics and International Relations and European Security.

Raluca Csernatoni is visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where she leads the European security and emerging technologies workstreams. She is also guest professor on European Security with the Brussels School of Governance of the Free University of Brussels. Her articles have appeared in academic journals such as European Foreign Affairs Review, European Security, Critical Military Studies, and Global Affairs. She has co-edited the book, Emerging Security Technologies and EU Governance: Actors, Practices and Processes, which was published by Routledge in 2020.

Jeroen Dobber is the Head of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation‘s Global Security Hub. Based in Brussels, he follows political developments in the European Union and NATO, with special focus on global security policy. He regularly publishes reports and political analyses and facilitates dialogue among experts and stakeholders in this field.

Daniel Fiott is Security and Defence Editor at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), where he heads the Institute’s work on security and defence. He is also a Visiting Professor on European Security with the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Brussels School of Governance of the Free University of Brussels. He is a Visiting Lecturer at the Brussels School of International Studies at the University of Kent. At the EUISS, his work currently focuses on the EU’s forthcoming Strategic Compass.

Payam Ghalehdar is a Research Fellow in the Centre for International Security at the Hertie School and the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His research interests span US foreign policy, EU foreign policy, grand strategy, and the role of emotions in foreign policy decision-making. His book The Origins of Overthrow was recently published by Oxford University Press.

Gerlinde Groitl currently serves as Interim Chair of Political Science with a focus on Comparative Government at the University of Passau and is an Associate Professor of International Politics and Transatlantic Relations at the University of Regensburg, Germany. Her work focuses on US, German and European foreign and security policy, transatlantic relations, strategic studies and the dynamics of great power politics between Russia, China and the West. Committed to policy-relevant scholarship and cross-professional exchange, she is, among others, an alumna of the “Young Leaders in Security Policy” program of the Federal Academy for Security Policy, Berlin.

Benjamin Martill is Lecturer in Politics and Inter- national Relations at the University of Edinburgh and an Associate of ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ IDEAS, the foreign policy think-tank of the London School of Economics. He has published widely on European security and the post-Brexit UK-EU relationship and is co-editor of the recent volume Brexit and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe (UCL Press).