THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Reforming Europe in a time of war

93 The European Union on the global stage. European strategic autonomy Christos Katsioulis European security is in tatters and the European Un- ion is (again) trying to find its role. That could somehow summarise the situation after the unprovoked Russian war against Ukraine brought the reality of major inter- state war back into the European neighbourhood. The first impression was rather clear: the hope, that the Un- ion might be able to achieve “strategic autonomy” and align its status as an economic superpower with more robust capabilities in the realm of security and defence, experienced a major blow. Whilst Washington and Lon- don reacted decisively and NATO was revitalised as the main defence for Europeans, the EU struggled. But that might be a premature assumption, based on very recent events. Strategic autonomy for the EU is still in the books after Russia attacked Ukraine, however, under the new conditions, there are still a few obstacles to overcome. To examine these obstacles, there will be first a look at the concept of Strategic Autonomy and the develop- ments towards achieving that in the EU up until the war. In a second step, the focus will be on the situation of the EU in security and defence before the outbreak of the war. The last part will concentrate on the changes war has triggered and delve into the possible repercussions for a strategically autonomous European Union after the Russian war against Ukraine. 1 1  1. It has to be noted at this point, that this article has been finished in September 2022. Developments after that date cannot be taken The concept of Strategic Autonomy The idea of being autonomous or acting autonomously has been used in a rather inflationary manner throughout Europe in the last years. From the purely defence aspects of the matter – building a European army – to the more broadly defined issue of supply chains in a post-pandemic world (Fabry and Veskoukis 2021), strategic autonomy seems to be the way forward. Mauro (2021) describes it thus as an “obscure object of desire”, pointing towards the vagueness of the term. Because to attain analytical clarity and help define clear political aims, strategic au- tonomy needs to be specified and applied to the issue at hand: security and defence. Here again, there is no clear agreed meaning available. Instead the debate of the last years show, that there are different understandings around. That leads too often to parallel monologues and serial misunderstandings, since the participants of the debate concentrate on different aspects of autonomy (see also the wonderful example of the debate between Emmanuel Macron and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer provided by Mauro 2021: 6ff). But not only politicians diverge in their understand- ing of Strategic Autonomy, academia and think tanks also take different routes in approaching the subject. For the into account, although they might have important influence on how the EU develops.