Fortress of Caution: The European Union as a Risk-Averse Global Actor

This paper argues that risk aversion constitutes a defining structural and ideational trait of the European Union as a global actor, nowhere more visible than in its regulatory statecraft. Rather than acting as a classical geopolitical power willing to accept controlled risk for strategic gain, the EU systematically governs the future through anticipatory, precautionary regulation - a “fortress of caution” approach that privileges resilience and harm prevention over innovation speed or market dominance. Focusing on three high-stakes regulatory domains between 2018 and 2025 - artificial intelligence, food safety, and banking/financial stability - the paper demonstrates how the same risk-averse logic reproduces itself across sectors despite radically different material stakes and external pressures. In artificial intelligence, the EU AI Act (2024) established the world’s first comprehensive risk-based framework, banning unacceptable-risk applications and imposing strict conformity requirements on high-risk systems, deliberately accepting slower domestic innovation to minimise societal harm. In food safety, the precautionary principle remains hard-wired: the 2023–2025 debates over New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) and the prolonged refusal to authorise certain gene-edited crops—even when deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority—illustrate continued prioritisation of public trust and zero-risk perception over agricultural competitiveness. In banking and finance, the post-2008 regulatory wave (CRD IV/V, BRRD, Basel III implementation) and the cautious 2023–2025 Banking Union completion efforts reveal an enduring preference for capital surcharges, strict resolution regimes, and de-risked balance sheets that limit European banks’ global risk appetite compared to American or British competitors. Drawing on risk-society theory, strategic-culture literature, and process-tracing of key legislative dossiers, the article shows that EU risk aversion is not incidental but institutionally embedded through unanimity or super-majority requirements, powerful precautionary principles in the Treaties, and a political culture that punishes perceived recklessness. While this disposition has generated unparalleled regulatory influence (the “Brussels Effect”), it simultaneously constrains the EU’s capacity for strategic risk-taking in an era of technological and geopolitical turmoil, raising fundamental questions about the sustainability of precautionary power in a more predatory world.