Pendulum. EU’s Geopolitical Choices and the West-East Relationship

We are living in turbulent times which pose us serious risks, ranging from the crises of many European political regimes to the disintegration of the EU and the decline of the Western world itself. As always, however, these international transformations may also provide us with important opportunities. It is at these that I look in this chapter. To navigate these circumstances in the most expedient way, in order not to miss these potential gains, we need to think again, and think harder, about the strategic positioning of the EU in the world context. In geopolitical discussions on world order, the EU is often a missing actor. This is striking for two reasons at least: first, historically speaking the geopolitical discipline was born in Europe. Second, and most importantly, the EU is an important player in world politics, and as I will argue, a player that is needed and wanted by almost all other partners. The EU is basically confronted with a fundamental choice about its future geopolitical orientation: either sticking to an exclusive partnership with the US to competitively balance Western decline, or, setting out a negotiating table with the rest of the world and trying to build up a cooperative system which is inclusive and beneficial to other re-emerging powers as well. For the EU, there is currently a window of opportunity for reducing the ongoing trend of polarisation at the international level. Brexit on the one hand, and the Trump election on the other, provide a convenient context to push for a de-polarising phase at the international level by relaunching dialogue with Russia, deepening interaction with China, and enhancing partnership with other thus-far marginalised strategic actors, such as the African continent. But in order to better understand this opportunity, we need to look at the EU’s strategic positioning and at the global trends.