Strategic autonomy as a competitive opportunity

The challenges from Putin, Trump, and Xi have led Europe – including the United Kingdom – to formulate a policy, which has been called "strategic autonomy," that will have consequences for the competitive framework in which our companies operate, both those that exist and those that may come.

We could define the meaning of the expression "strategic autonomy" as the will to avoid Europe's extreme dependence on products and services produced by non-European companies, which are of critical importance for political sovereignty and not substitutable at a moderate cost. This extreme dependence is today very real in areas as decisive as energy (gas), digital services (think of those related to security), and defense. The situation is so unfavorable that it becomes evident that in many cases we can only aspire to improve our starting position in international negotiations, since the result of these negotiations depends on what we have to offer, but also on the suffering that disagreement entails.

Beyond setting a line, what can the EU do to promote strategic autonomy? Well, it can use two instruments: economic power and regulatory capacity.

Regarding economic power, everything points to the negotiations of the coming weeks and months in the European Council (and the Parliament) on the European Commission's budget for the 2028-34 period being disappointing. It will be little more than the 2021-27 budget plus inflation. The issuance of Next Generation debt will not be repeated. Moreover, they will want to reduce the debt to zero.

In short: the Commission will not be a direct economic driver, although levels will be maintained which, in the case of Catalonia, both in terms of the public and private sectors, have been transformative. We have known how to compete well for European funding and, partly due to this flow, we have reached a point where companies and research and innovation centers are prepared for the next leap forward. But we must know that we will not be able to make it if we only think in terms of attracting European funds.

The Commission is aware of its limits, and will naturally shift its political weight towards the capacity to regulate and deregulate. It is foreseeable that activism in industrial policy will increase in multiple directions. The program is set out in the Letta and Draghi reports, which will be implemented at a pace that is, alas, too slow. Many measures will affect the competitive opportunities of our companies, for example in innovative public procurement. On this point, a clarification: if the Commission proposes to make it a dynamic element of European technology, it will do so primarily in the context of an aspiration to boost a large European market, and only secondarily in the context of regional policy. To supply ourselves locally, we will compete a little less with American and Chinese companies, but we will compete on equal terms—here, in Germany, or in Sweden—with German or Swedish companies.

Our companies –start-ups or consolidated ones – must sharpen their competitive prowess in the markets that the policy of strategic autonomy may open up. A key aspect, however, is that strategic autonomy is largely a matter of advanced technologies, in the development of which public institutions (universities, research centers) play an important role, which are short on flexibility. They should not go there if we intend for the licenses, start-ups, and advisory agreements to be generated that allow for learning, reproducing, and also leading the best European experiences. In short, competing well. Hopefully, public authorities will know how to provide them with the necessary margins of flexibility.

I end with a more generic consideration. The degree of strategic autonomy to which Europe can aspire—realistically—also depends on the world in which we anticipate we will have to live. It is not the same if we think that Putin-Trump-Xi are transitory phenomena as if we don't. The splendid results of the midterm elections in the US give us a breather, but they could relax us more than we should. That would be a mistake. Europe must not act as if it were impossible for another Trump to be president in 20 years. It has happened once. For it to happen to us again by surprise and poorly prepared would be unforgivable.