Brussels Edition: Living By Your Own Rules

Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.

European Council President Charles Michel will give his third keynote speech on "strategic autonomy" in as many weeks today, a concept that will be identified as a "key objective" of the EU when its leaders meet on Thursday. Michel's interventions highlight a concerted effort to clarify what these two Greek-derived words mean, and why they should become "the goal of our generation." Judging by the summit's draft communique, they partly describe the ambition of relative self-sufficiency in certain industries, as we explained here. In literal terms, autonomy means living by your own rules, and there's growing fear that this can't happen if the EU remains a digital laggard. "We are hopelessly behind,'' UniCredit's chief economist, Erik Nielsen, said in a note, warning that the EU is "at the mercy of U.S. and Chinese companies."