A Geopolitical EU in a Multipolar World? Visions and Practices of Geopolitics in EU Foreign Policy

Abstract

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced that one of the guiding principles of the new college will be making the EU more geopolitical. This reflects ongoing discussions both at the policy-making and academic level on the need to adapt EU foreign policy strategy and practice to a world which is allegedly less multilateral and more fragmented, as well as to internal political dynamics that can eventually put into question EU foreign policy from within. This panel will look at the multi-vocal visions and practices of how the EU is situating itself in a multipolar world and how this renewed geopolitical thinking affects its global and regional relations. It will do so by presenting different conceptual visions of geopolitics beyond the classic confines of formal and critical geopolitics (Dodds, 2007). In terms of global relationships (macro geopolitics) the panel will analyse the growing (geo)politicization of different worldviews in European Parliament debates on Russia and the US and their implications for the EU foreign policy. In terms of regional relationship (micro-geopolitics), the panel will focus on the EU’s southern neighbourhood, where the EU constructs an ideal identity vis-a-vis an imperfect Mediterranean other while, at the same time, intends to leverage its Southern partners to secure cooperation in mobility, migration and asylum. By applying innovative conceptual approaches to these case studies, the goal of the panel is to shed new light on political dynamics, trends and ‘mind-scapes’ underlying the debate on the geopolitization of the EU foreign policy in a multipolar world.

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