The European Union’s Geopolitical Ambitions: Enlargement, Neighbourhood and Necessary Institutional Changes
Five years ago, European Commission’s President-elect Ursula von der Leyen declared in her address to the European Parliament the ambitious goal to have a geopolitical Commission and geopolitical European Union.1 Despite repeating this declaration several times, it remained far from fulfilled. However, its importance is even greater today given the ongoing war in Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, the assertive policies of non-democratic regimes, the undermined multilateral political, security and economic order, and isolationist and protectionist tendencies of the incoming second Trump
Administration in the United States.
Increasing the EU’s geopolitical role requires well-designed and coordinated actions in several important policy areas, including the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), building European defence capacities, trade, environment, preventing and mitigating climate changes, enlargement, and neighbourhood. In this short analysis, we concentrate on enlargement and neighbourhood policies, and EU institutional changes enabling progress in those and other areas important for the EU’s global role.
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