Unfortunately, this week’s State of the Union debate remains too hidden in what Brussels jargon calls ‘the community bubble’. And it is a shame, because at that meeting the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, gave a speech before Parliament that represents a great vantage point from which to contemplate what is happening in the world. After listening to her and verifying that – in that search for the “soul of Europe” to which she referred, recalling the words of Robert Schuman – defense occupies an increasingly central place in a global atmosphere of ultra-competitiveness between great powers, hybrid threats and neighborhoods. increasingly conflictive, there is no room for doubt: in the midst of the tide, the Atlantic umbrella is no longer the reliable pillar on which European security is based, and it is imperative to develop its own military response mechanism.
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According to Von der Leyen, we need industrial autonomy, reduction of vulnerabilities in global value chains and the ability to create semiconductors until we have a well-muscled self-defense industry. Strategic autonomy has to do with the climate, with energy, with having your own tools. And is this possible? It is if, as Macron said, we share a common diagnosis about the world and what happens to us. The president’s speech helps to create this narrative, that ideological work necessary to become aware of what until recently was unthinkable: a European sovereignty based on strategic autonomy, to avoid falling into irrelevance in the middle of the US-China duopoly or in vassalage to any power.
Trump put us out in the open, but in reality it represented a trend that had been announcing that our security scheme, supported under the orbit of the United States via NATO, was no longer reliable. This deep sea gave rise, under Macron’s leadership, to the will to build that strategic autonomy that basically means having one’s own positions and capabilities in the world. Perhaps Biden was able to provoke the mirage that the debate could be parked, but Afghanistan has reminded us that Trump represented not only Trumpism, but deep tectonic movements in international relations. While Biden may be a kinder ally, we know that the US will continue to make its decisions in its own interest and in competition with China. It will not be a grotesque and noisy “America first“, But yes a”America first”. The recent military agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia to contain the rise of China without counting on Brussels and stepping on France further accelerates the need to fit into the soul of the Union the so-called “Europe of defense”, the option more effective to continue asserting our voice and our values in the world.