THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Towards a new legislative term

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 16 Open strategic autonomy The EU’s response in the new geopolitics is to ensure its open strategic autonomy - on which the Spanish Presi- dency of the Council has worked intensively in 2023 - understood as the ability to establish both its own long-term objectives and the way and means to achieve them independently, based on the political will of Eu- ropean citizens and the objective needs of the Union, with alliances, coincidences, discrepancies and, in any case, interactions with other countries and international organizations. To be strategically autonomous implies contemplat- ing a dialectic in which to coincide with those who con- sider themselves closest (such as the allies mentioned above) in search of a correlation of forces favourable to the Union. And to recognize the ability of all to indepen- dently establish their foreign policy within the frame- work of respect for international law. The EU’s open strategic autonomy is directly linked to the promotion of cooperative multilateralism, which should continue to guide the EU’s external action. Questions and answers The questions raised by the new geopolitics call for an- swers based on the European identity as defined in the Treaties and by the EU’s history, building its open stra- tegic autonomy. Find a concise list of possible answers below: 1. Peace and security: they should be indivisible goals for the EU and mean building a shared security ar- chitecturein the continent; 2. World order: it should be based on rules, essentially those set forth by international law; 3. Military spending:its usefulness should be maxi- mized by promoting synergies between those of each of the Member States of the Union and al- locating the necessary resources in the Community budget for the common security and defense policy; 4. Nuclear weapons: if using them is inconceivable, we must advocate their total prohibition and the dis- mantlement of all existing arsenals; 5. Multipolarism: the EU must not promote a unipolar world, but one that operates under cooperative mul- tilateralism; 6. Globalisation: regulated globalisation is imperative to development; recreating two parallel economic worlds is inconceivable at this point; 7. International trade: its promotion must take place according to rules set by the WTO; 8. Democracy and human rights: for the EU, promot- ing them must be as inalienable as their universal nature, so every treaty or agreement signed by the EU must provide for mechanisms to defend them; 9. Climate change: it is an absolute priority and the EU must call on its friends and partners for action; 10. Global South: the EU must make the utmost effort to further dialogue and strengthen the alliance with its leading exponents; 11. Mediterranean: key region for the EU in which to continue strengthening and improving the regional association initiated with the Barcelona Process, bi- laterally articulated with the Neighbourhood Policy and instituzionalized in organizations such as the Union for the Mediterranean; 12. Middle East: the EU must continue to demand re- spect for international law and defend the two-state solution, living together in peace and security; 13. Development: we must continue to champion sus- tainable and not unequal development; reducing poverty must be a priority for the EU; 14. Regional conflicts: the difficulty in finding a solution to the most longstanding examples does not free the EU from involvement in achieving it, observing international law; 15. Double standards: every instance of double stand- ards is as reprehensible as it is damaging to the Global South’s trust in the EU; 16. Historical memory: Europe must shoulder its respon- sibility for colonialism, the consequences of which continue to hamper many countries’ present and future development; 17. International law: it must be the touchstone of Euro- pean foreign policy; 18. United Nations: so essential that its reform must be undertaken once and for all, starting with the Security Council;