K2SP 3215 - Governing Technology for European Strategic Autonomy

This course examines European strategic autonomy as an evolving policy project situated at the intersection of security, industrial policy, and digital governance. The course is framed as an analytical inquiry into policy mechanisms and instruments rather than as a normative endorsement of EU policy.

Particular care is taken to distinguish among cognate but non-equivalent concepts, such as “strategic autonomy”, “open strategic autonomy”, “technological sovereignty”, and “digital sovereignty”.

The course examines how these concepts travel across EU policy domains, which instruments operationalise them (regulation, industrial policy, investment vehicles, procurement, standards), and where declared ambitions diverge from industrial and fiscal reality. A central analytical thread is the interdependence between public and private actors: strategic autonomy is neither purely a state project nor a market outcome, and its pursuit recasts the boundary between the two.

Students are expected to arrive with working knowledge in three areas.

EU institutional architecture and legal instruments. Familiarity with the ordinary legislative procedure and the respective roles of the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, and the European Commission as co-legislators is assumed. Beyond procedural knowledge, students should be able to distinguish among the principal categories of EU legal acts—Regulations, Directives, Decisions, Commission Communications, and Council Conclusions—and understand what each form signals in terms of legal bindingness and institutional authorship.

Foundational concepts in international relations and international political economy. Students should be familiar with core IR concepts including interdependence, alliance structures, and the use of economic ties as instruments of statecraft. No advanced theoretical background is required; familiarity at the level of an introductory IR or international political economy course is sufficient.

EU agencies. Students should have a basic understanding of the mandate and institutional position of EU agencies within the broader EU architecture. Sector-specific agency knowledge (ENISA, BEREC, etc.) is not assumed and will be introduced where relevant.

Individual oral commentary (30%): short presentation based on a document or development connected to that session's theme

Group policy project (70%): composed of different elements which have to be submitted all along the semester (initial statement, preliminary analytical framework, transcripts of interviews with relevant actors, full policy paper)

2-4 hours weekly