How can Europe become a strategic power?

I asked Lucie Béraud-Sudreau (European Defence Agency, EDA), Kaja Karlson (NATO), Yves Maisonny (European Parliament), Pauline Massart (Forward Global) and Federico Santopinto (IRIS – Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques) this question.

Thank you all for taking the time, despite your busy schedules, to participate in this round table and share your thoughts with the students of the Master’s programme in European Studies at UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles. Thank you also to the students for their interest in these issues and their stimulating questions.

In accordance with Chatham House rules, we will not say any more here. However, we can share some of the advice given to students in order to reinforce good practices and useful professional reflexes for entering the job market:
> Read, read, read, (to) be creative
> Understand the question behind the question (why this question)
> Being wrong is not a problem
> Always check sources ; you need to rely on solid sources
> Everything goes really fast, so be really organized
> Having a solid knowledge of history is an asset when it comes to understanding current issues
> Intuition matters
> Listening the others
> To be well prepared in order to answer questions for which you don’t have the answers
> Adaptability to circumstances and people
> Learn to speak in public

We will continue our European and strategic reflections with a second round table next month. In the meantime, we will learn how to write and present a policy paper and thus how to formulate policy recommendations.

On this 11th of November, it is time to combine the present and the past. #armistice

To go further:

> Jean-Vincent Holeindre, « Notre salut stratégique passe par une européanisation de notre défense », interview conducted by Gaidz Minassian, Le Monde, https://lnkd.in/e3-tbfWg

> [On-site and online event] Anne Fort (European Commission), Ethan Kapstein (Princeton University), Guntram Wolff (Université libre de Bruxelles), « Europe’s dependence on the US defence industrial base : source of transatlantic strenght or geopolitical vulnerability? », Bruegel, 12 november, 13:00-14:00, https://lnkd.in/eEAgp5Rd

> In connection with this event, read, Jonathan Caverley, Ethan Kapstein, Léo Péria-Peigné, and Élie Tenenbaum, 2025, « A Transatlantic Defense Industrial Base? Two Contrasting Views », Ifri – Institut français des relations internationales, https://lnkd.in/eEUb5d5m