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Democratisation / Op-Ed/Article

Europe's potential as a force for international ethics

03/10/2007 By Mark Leonard, Richard Youngs

While everyone has been obsessing about European weakness and divisions, the European Union – without anyone noticing – has been developing a new kind of power that is uniquely suited for an era of global interdependence.

In many ways it is the mirror image of American power and might be labelled 'transformative power'.

At its best the EU has transformed the world by placing its assets – its market, its aid budget, its military, the possibility of membership – in the service of its values, codified in law.

The last few years have seen some impressive examples of this approach. Enlargement was the biggest programme of peaceful regime change in history. On Iran, the EU has been pushing a non-military solution based on conditional engagement, in support of an international treaty.

In Macedonia, Congo and Acheh, ESDP interventions have supported political peace processes. On Kyoto and the ICC, the EU has pushing international co-operation against opposition from the Bush administration and used its economic and political weight to persuade others to sign up.

So the EU has the potential to use its transformative power to become a force for the global open society. But at the moment – throughout the European neighbourhood and on the world stage, Europe is underperforming: struggling to adapt to a new global environment characterised by a weakened US, resurgent Russia and Rising China.

Read the full version of this article in Foreign Policy Spanish Edition (Spanish).

Keywords

EU Foreign Policy European Union Multilateralism Rule of Law

Bio author: Mark Leonard

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Democratisation programme at FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.