The EU's Turn to 'Strategic Autonomy': Leeway for Policy Action and Points of Conflict.

This article examines the European Union’s (EU) evolving policy emphasis on "strategic autonomy," defined as the EU’s capacity to make independent decisions aligned with its interests and values amid intensifying geopolitical rivalry, technological disruption, and economic dependencies. It develops a taxonomy of strategic autonomy’s three main objectives—furthering European values, promoting economic interests, and ensuring security—and analyzes their legal foundations and tensions within EU Treaties and international law. The study highlights inherent conflicts between openness and protectionism, multilateralism and unilateralism, and supranationalism and intergovernmentalism, emphasizing challenges posed by diverse Member State preferences and institutional constraints. While strategic autonomy reflects a shift toward a more assertive geopolitical stance, the EU Treaties provide legal leeway for its pursuit, contingent on proportionality and adherence to rule-based principles, with ongoing risks of friction in trade, investment, and security domains.