Over the last decade, strategic autonomy has become a key tool for structuring the EU’s external action. This Insight examines the evolution of the concept in EU discourse and practice, explores its consequences on the emergence of the notion of "European sovereignty", and analyses how strategic autonomy is used to streamline both hard-power and soft-power contemporary EU external relations. The central role of strategic autonomy – in turn an ambition, an objective, a process or even a method – sheds new light on core issues surrounding EU external action law, such as power, sovereignty and the articulation of the EU-Member State relationship.