GEOPOLITICAL TRENDS IN EUROPE AND EU STRATEGIC COMPASS
GEOPOLITICAL TRENDS IN EUROPE AND EU STRATEGIC COMPASS

Summary/Abstract: In recent years, the EU has faced global security trends, and challenges from strategic political, economic, energy and other nature. That means using appropriate tool box of political, security, economic and other mechanisms. If Europe wants to be ready to respond and deal in appropriate way with major geopolitical shifts and defend its interests as well as to promote its vision for the future, then EU has to find appropriate mechanisms and develop political, economic and other toolbox to deal effectively with them. From other hand, the geopolitical trends are closely related to the internal rhetoric and the division among the member states of the EU into “old and new”, ie “rich and poor”. The economic, infrastructure and energy stability gap between Western Europe on the one hand and Eastern and Central Europe on the other is estimated at over € 500 billion in favor of Western Europe. Most of the Eastern and Central European members are making efforts to overcome this gap through various forms of regionalization and cooperation with third countries outside the EU. Additionally, the differences in understanding between the “old and new” members in terms of cooperation with China and Russia, as well as in terms of EU enlargement with the countries of Southeast Europe, ie with the countries of the Western Balkans are also a security, defense and political challenges to EU. The geopolitical trends, challenges and threats facing the EU are not only from military or territorial nature. At the same time, they are closely related with interdependence which is becoming increasingly conflictual and soft power is weaponized. Dealing with such trends, challenges and threats requires a fundamental change in understanding of security. Europe cannot afford to treat its security as ‘business as usual’ by repeating the same slogans and sticking to the same mind-set. Europe cannot afford to be a bystander in a hyper-competitive world, and world order that is mainly shaped by others. In order to build a common approach to all open issues of mutual interest to all members, the EU has adopted the Strategic Compass. The Compass is a guide for action and sets policy orientations, specific goals and objectives in four work strands: act, secure invest and partnership. More specifically, with the four domains, the EU cover crisis management and the EU’s ability to respond as quickly as possible to civil emergencies, in building resilience and protection against hybrid warfare and cyber threats, to protect European interests on land, at sea and in space. It also focuses on strengthening European partnerships in security and defense, particularly with NATO, the OSCE, the African Union, the United States and Canada. With the Strategic Compass, Member States are making an effort to project itself as a respective force on the world stage through set out a common strategic vision for EU security and defence for the next decade. The idea is to determine the ambitions of European security and defense by 2030. The goal is Europe to be powerful inthe world, fully sovereign, free to choose and control its own destiny. The Compass propose operational guidelines to enable the European Union to become a stronger security provider for its citizens, protecting its values and interests.

• Details
• Contents