What global geopolitical environment for the EU in 2020?

The issue: the European Union is becoming a world power.

It is already a regional power in practically all fields and it is progressively becoming a global power in many sectors. What is the EU going to do with this power? How is it going to utilise it? How will its partners react? What challenges or dangers await the EU over the next two decades?

These questions were at the heart of the two days of debate that brought experts from various sectors together for this fourth Europe 2020 seminar, which took place in London in collaboration with the IISS and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

As with the other Europe 2020 seminars, this summary is an attempt by Prometheus-Europe to present a coherent overview of the extremely rich and varied debates detailed in the following report.

The geopolitical environment should be understood in its widest terms, meaning the EU’s interactions with all the various dimensions of its international environment (economic, demographic, technological, institutional etc). In a globalised world geographical distance is no longer a determining factor. Similarities in levels of development, affinities between value systems, society choices etc play a role that is at least as important.

Within this environment, the European Union is gradually establishing itself as a power. It is already a trading power, controlling around 1/3 of global trade. It is also a power in many hi-tech technology fields (mobile telephony, high-speed trains, aerospace industry etc). It is a power in terms of global wealth (also approximately 1/3). It is starting to be a monetary power and is attempting to organise itself as a military power.

But paradoxically this power is for the time being an objective one that has difficulty in perceiving itself as such. The reasons for this are many but we can pinpoint two fundamental ones:

. the two world wars, and more particularly the second one, for obvious reasons led many European peoples and citizens to fiercely reject any tendency towards flirting with the concept of “power”. Europe almost died because of the fascination exercised by the desire for power.

. the EU construction initiated from the 1950s has been founded on the very principle of “inhibition of the desire for power” in order to reconcile mortal enemies and historical adversaries. The entire EU project is an immense process striving towards a unique goal: to organise a structure in which compromise and co-operation are winners and the quest for power is inevitably the loser. A radical and necessary therapy applied to a sick continent by its (particularly American) doctors and efficiently served by the continent’s political and administrative elites. In a cruder and less visionary way the Russians also operated a similar inhibition in central and eastern Europe.

A difficult, complex exercise which has nevertheless born fruit, to the extent that today war between the players responsible for the two world conflicts would seem unimaginable. But today we are at the start of a totally different era and for one fundamental reason: from 1945 to 1990 it was a question of administering a remedy to a Europe that was effectively powerless because it was divided, had a very low level of integration and was concerned with reconstruction followed by access to economic modernity.

Whereas today and particularly over the next two decades, it is a Europe that is powerful because of its integrated economy, human resources, defence, currency and cultural diversity that has to retain this message of “inhibition of the desire for power” which is still and perhaps more than ever topical, for today there are very few, if any, remaining “doctors in the house”, through lack of possibility, desire or inclination.

No amount of medium- or long-term thinking on interactions between the EU and its regional and global environment can bypass the need for this debate, without which we condemn ourselves to retreading those same paths which have already twice led Europe down into the bottomless pit.

So an era is commencing in which Europe, and at its heart the EU, its most accomplished political form, is going to have to invent and apply a dual process:

. organise its power, so as not to see it exercised inefficiently or worse, diluted and turned back de facto against the European project (the trade sector is a good illustration of this evolution, as is civil aeronautics), for few Europeans want a weak Europe when their sector or interests are at stake.

. simultaneously transpose the imperative of “inhibition of the desire for power” into this new context: how to be powerful without giving in to the classic temptation to exercise this power for and by itself.

Some may pose this question in a more evocative way: how to avoid the Empire temptation?

And this point brings us directly back to the first fundamental element identified during the London seminar: to provide the European Union with a global, forward-looking vision. The EU has become a de facto player of global stature but in numerous fields it has no vision of the world enabling it to identify its strategic choices and priorities, as opposed to the United States, for example. Let us take Asia as an example, a key region in the world of 2020 for which the EU has no strategic vision. So if in the years to come Beijing attacks Taiwan or China experiences severe internal tensions or India and Pakistan start a nuclear war, what would the EU want to do about it and what could it do? How could it act to prevent or limit the consequences of such developments? For the time being there is no European response to this type of question (not even one of “do as the USA does”, which at least constitutes an expression of choice) for the questions have not even been posed since for decades they were purely theoretical exercises.

When you represent a third of the world’s economy and its research capacities and you are one of two major blocs upholding democratic values, it is very dangerous to think you can disregard your real influence. In a globalised world evolving very rapidly, it is essential to anticipate problems in order to be able to prevent or limit their harmful consequences. To intervene at the time or afterwards simply results in powerlessness. This global vision of the EU should therefore be accompanied by an anticipation capacity in order to enable efficient action. New powers appear bringing new challenges and risks; the EU must learn to think about them and incorporate them into its strategies.

From this need for a global and anticipatory vision is very naturally born another requirement that was heavily emphasised during the work: which role(s) does the EU want to play in the world of 2020?

Will it gradually, with no real conscious decision, give in to the empire temptation and the desire for power? Or will it project outside itself a historic and innovative approach inspired by its internal history of the European community process and by post-war American experiences (Germany and Japan)?

In short, will it transpose the first half of the European 20th century into its relations with the rest of the world? Or the second half?

The moral choice would seem obvious, but just like all obvious ideas, it has not been thought out and appears “natural” when in fact it is not. If Europe wants to be a catalyst of modernity in international relations and global organisation (combine classic methods of intervention – diplomacy and force – with new approaches: humanitarian action, multilateral organisations, global treaties, integrating new powers including regional integration zones, new tools such as Internet, new problems such as pollution, insufficient resources, demographic imbalances etc and new players in international relations such as civil society and business), then it is going to have to devise objectives, strategies, methods, tactics and instruments. Without which its arguments can only be relayed by classic diplomacy and force.

The EU should also opt for this approach in its relations with its neighbours. Does it see itself between now and 2020 (when responses will have to be reconsidered in the light of the actual situation) as having a vocation to integrate its more culturally, economically, politically and geographically peripheral neighbours (Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco etc)? Or choose to adopt an organised system that does not automatically lead to member status (which we might call PNS, Privileged Neighbour Status) in order to manage its relations with these countries? This question, which straddles the EU’s internal and external policies, is a direct result of the vision of the EU’s role in the world of the next two decades. Which solution is the most useful (and attainable) for the EU and these countries 20 years from now?

Lastly, and this came up in all the debates, the EU should establish its role with regard to a friendly USA and more especially NATO (but not exclusively, since the military aspect of transatlantic relations is only a partial one); the transatlantic partnership has evolved considerably in 50 years and will continue to do so, with the present European defence efforts illustrating this. Here again the question of its role is posed. The transatlantic link should remain a central one since it is the only organised link for transcontinental stability in the world and it has developed between the two richest continents. However, Europe’s increasing power within this partnership should be accompanied by a redefinition of the respective roles. And on both sides progress will be slow, if not chaotic. It is not inconceivable that in 2020 the United States may have a vision of its strategic interests that differs radically from that of the EU (demographic changes, new regional integrations, cultural transformations). In fact it is essential to believe this in order to hope we will be able to avert what would be a planet-wide catastrophe. The European debate on what Europe wishes to do with its power should find a counterpart in the United States, without which there may be some very unpleasant surprises in store.

Convergence is however possible, for the EU certainly has no vocation to equip itself with twelve groups of nuclear aircraft carriers such as those the United States possesses today. In military terms European power will certainly be regional. Beyond that, the beginning of this 21st century offers a whole gamut of new issues and objective challenges for which the EU, through its history, cultural diversity, mastery of transnational networks and cultural open-mindedness, can devise and contribute assets to make the future of strong transatlantic relations viable.

To sum up, the short-term requirements for the EU are clear:

develop organisations and human resources capable of building the global vision and anticipatory function that it needs, before the middle of this decade (European networks of analysts, transnational foundations, joint integration unit)

. analyse and understand the possibilities for transposing the intra-European experience outside the EU (regional integrations in the role of future pillars of global organisations)

. progressively organise public debate around the EU’s role in the world and clearly define the terms of that debate: towards an Empire with its desire for power or towards an innovative community approach that will catalyse modernity?

. inform its external partners, first and foremost its privileged neighbours and the United States, of its evolution and its problem areas in order to initiate a dynamic and interactive process

. integrate the new objective challenges into its external relations imperatives

. provide itself with the military status of a regional power over the 2010 decade because the world has not yet become peaceful by nature.