At the outset of a new phase in the process of regional integration involving a significant part of the European continent, in a world marked by devastating crises, by the evaporation of multilateralism and by a rival bipolarism between the United States and China, each with its own junior partners, the European Union (EU) must ask itself what the prospects are for its international positioning.
It must ask whether the conditions exist to move from the status of a collective junior partner of the United States towards a gradual prospect of equal political, economic, financial, technological and industrial partnership, within the framework of a shared European sovereignty, as suggested rather by the objectives than by the instruments set out in the Draghi Report.
The upheavals and devastation currently affecting the international system in fact compel the EU to rewrite its international positioning across all dimensions: democratic, political, economic, social, security-related, environmental and cultural.
The hope is that the EU will be able to do better than in the past and will be capable of opening a new phase of relations with the (Global) South, bearing in mind that the challenge for the EU is finally to take into account the expectations of these countries, which account for 20% of global GDP, particularly with regard to poverty reduction, which has declined in India and China but increased in the rest of these countries, as well as sustainable development and environmental protection.
