Achieving Strategic Sovereignty for the European Union

On 23 March 2021, the EU Institute for Security Studies and the Foreign Affairs (AFET) Committee of the European Parliament jointly organised a webinar on EU strategic sovereignty. The webinar brought together over 80 Members of the European Parliament and other participants for a debate on digital sovereignty, strategic partnerships and multilateralism. The webinar was organised to stimulate debate and raise awareness in the European Parliament about some of the key themes related to strategic sovereignty. In particular, the webinar was an occasion for three think tank experts commissioned by the EUISS to present three papers on each of the aforementioned strands of the debate. Guntram Wolff (Bruegel) presented a paper on digital sovereignty and semiconductors, Jana Puglierin (European Council on Foreign Relations) presented on strategic partnerships in security and defence and Riccardo Alcaro (Istituto Affari Internazionali) presented on multilateralism and the Iran Nuclear Deal.

The webinar was introduced by the Chair of the AFET Committee, MEP David McAllister, and each panel session was moderated by the Vice-Chairs of the Committee including MEP Zeljana Zovko, MEP Sergei Stanichev and MEP Urmas Paet. EUISS Director, Gustav Lindstrom, started the debate with a keynote speech touching on the main aspects of the strategic sovereignty debate. He made clear that the notion of strategic sovereignty is today broader than security and defence. Rounding off the EUISS’ participation in the webinar, Daniel Fiott served as a discussant on the digital sovereignty panel. Finally, the EUISS had the pleasure of welcoming Hervé Delphin and Ellis Mathews from the European External Action Service as discussants for the partnerships and multilateralism panels.

For a recording of the webinar, click here.