The European Union and the pursuit of global governance in a multi-polar, fractured world

It is said that the liberal, rules-based international order that was constructed in the ‘West’ during the Pax Americana following World War II, and which was successfully extended during the 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, is now seriously under threat—for many reasons. These include the war launched against Iraq in 2003 by the United States (US) and its allies; China's search for alternative institutions for international cooperation (via its Belt and Road Initiative and the expanding BRICS bloc); Russia's war against Ukraine since February 2022; the war in Gaza, Lebanon and to some extent, the West Bank, prosecuted by Israel in retribution for the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack; and last but not least, the re-election to the American Presidency of Donald Trump on 5 November 2024.

To be sure, war and ‘eliminationist assaults’ (Goldhagen 2010)¹ did occur repeatedly during the second half of the 20th century, sometimes led by the US and the Soviet Union (respectively, the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan), sometimes as more local tragedies (like the exterminations of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia during the 1970s or the Rwanda genocide in 1994). Nor was Europe entirely spared horror after 1945, as the collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s brought with it ‘ethnic cleansing’, the Srebrenica Genocide and rape camps. Moreover, the Balkan wars led to a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, to prevent Serbian assaults against the people of Kosovo. While this action was successful, it took place without a mandate by the United Nations (UN) Security Council and paved the way for further use of force in Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011).

Yet, despite all these serious violations of international law, it was thought by many through the 2010s that the international rules-based (liberal) order and global governance were still intact. So, it was with the European Union (EU or Union), which has been the most profound expression of this order, whereby nationalist and potentially bellicose rivalries are set aside and make way for cooperation and competition, framed within the rule of law, democracy and the respect of human rights, in the service of peace. This world seems now largely to be fading, which raises profound questions for the EU and its 27 Member States in pursuing international cooperation and about the very nature and identity of the Union itself.

For the EU, the immediate threats it faces are substantially aggravated by the arrival of the second Trump administration in January 2025. During his election campaign, Donald Trump proposed significantly raising tariffs, widely flagged his lack of interest in NATO and reiterated his disdain for international institutions. A protectionist and isolationist America, deepening its confrontational relationship with China, raises fundamental challenges to the future of the EU, economically, militarily and geopolitically. It raises existential questions about how the Union will be able to defend itself collectively, and about how it will position itself in the intensifying economic rivalry between the US and China, while dealing with its relative economic decline.

At the same time, the EU as a model for international cooperation beyond its borders and as a force for global governance is under considerable pressure. Domestically, populist nativism is intensifying across the continent, and the Union is sometimes seen as a nationalist-regionalist ‘imagined community’ grounded in ‘Eurowhiteness’ (Kundnani 2023). However this may be, it cannot be denied that the EU and its Member States are taking an increasingly strident stance on migration, often with horrific consequences for migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Also, the EU and especially Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have been strongly backing Israel in its war in Gaza, despite the widespread destruction and ever-rising death toll. Overall, the EU's reputation as a peace project and as a model for supranational cooperation is severely tarnished.

The articles in this special issue of Global Policy nevertheless try to point to areas in which the EU retains experience in cross-border economic and political cooperation, and how some of its policies still strive to deepen international law and multilateral cooperation. Other contributions, however, show how the Union is asserting itself in the competitive struggle with other powers. These contributions were initially presented at a hybrid conference held by Una Europa's Global Governance Research Group in Paris on 8 December 2013.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.