Supranational Security and National Security in Light of the EU Strategic Autonomy Doctrine: The EU-Member States Security Nexus Revisited

Even though security issues are structural elements of the EU legal order since a while, it is undisputed that the reorientation of the EU’s approach towards a more assertive stance in defending its values and interests has determined a relevant reshaping of the way in which the Union and its Member States interact in security matters – the EU-Member States security nexus. The present paper aims to identify both the reasons and the legal implications of this phenomenon, moving from a reconstruction of the doctrine elaborated by EU institutions to support this new approach, that is, the Strategic Autonomy Doctrine (SAD). Building on the assumption that the Union is now facing evolving threats, requiring a stronger capacity to protect the supranational interests and values, the paper argues that the reshaping of the EU-Member States security nexus has led to the creation of a buffer zone, where EU’s and Member States’ prerogatives for the protection of both (supra)national security and sovereignty are significantly blurred. This, in turn, produces significant consequencces for the EU constitutional framework, namely a hybridization of both the supranational competences and legal instruments concerned.