European Security and Strategic Autonomy

Strategic autonomy commands attention in European policy circles, although agreement on the phrase may conceal different expectations of what it entails. We surveyed 864 respondents in 18 jurisdictions to investigate those differences, asking about Europe's security priorities, its external relationships and the distribution of responsibility between national and European institutions. The paper examined the substance beneath the terminology: which capabilities respondents considered essential, what forms of cooperation they favoured, and where ambitions for greater independence encountered competing political or economic considerations.