Democratisation / Policy Brief
The financial crisis and EU foreign policy
14/11/2008 By Richard Youngs
With a host of major banking-sector bail-outs having been agreed across Europe, attention is beginning to turn to the broader political impact of the financial crisis. The question arises of whether the crisis will affect the EU's broader foreign policies - and if so, how.
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Many voices are already suggesting that the crisis is likely to mark a turning point in international relations of the same magnitude as those produced by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attacks of 9/11. Many predict a weakening of support for economic liberalism beyond the immediate banking crisis. And many also foresee the crisis triggering a fundamental shift in the global balance of power and even infecting the liberal political values that ostensibly lie at the heart of European foreign policies. In short, the fear is taking root that the financial crisis will undermine the principal tenets of Western-sponsored global liberalism and encourage a retrenchment in US and European diplomacy.
However, in this Policy Brief, Richard Youngs cautions against such apocalyptic reasoning. Europe’s already existing drift away from global (economic and political) liberalism is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The crisis may even end up providing a positive service if it convinces the EU of the real effort and conviction needed to ensure that liberal foreign policies regain some reality.
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Keywords
Civil society EU European Union United StatesBio 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.
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