As Jean-François Drevet has shown several times in his recent chronicles, the return of war to European soil faces the EU with new challenges and, more especially, forces it to look at itself — its political choices, the values it promotes and strives to defend, its alliances etc. Everything instituted since the Second World War along the lines of economic (initially, energy-based) cooperation and the preservation of peace is under threat today, and the EU now faces a situation of antagonistic blocs confronting each other. All around the EU, democracy seems to be in retreat: the Arab Springs fizzled out; Turkey remains under the sway of an authoritarian president; Russia is making inroads into Ukraine, bringing on board with it other countries opposed to Western values (including China). Economic sanctions are having tangible consequences for European citizens (the energy crisis, inflation etc.) and migration still remains a challenge…
As Jean-François Drevet shows here, the overall situation has changed and the EU has to move quickly on revising its approach to cooperation with the countries in its periphery. Its special status on the global scene and its humanitarian values remain assets, but without diplomatic agility and a revised strategy for its international dealings, it is in danger of losing all credit — and perhaps even of sabotaging itself.
