Geopolitics
The EU's 'Compound Power': A Blueprint for Renewed Imperialism or a Path to Irrelevance?
The article presents a detailed analysis arguing that the European Union possesses formidable structural assets like being the world's largest trader, a massive net creditor, and a deep single market, but is constrained by an institutional 'conversion problem' preventing it from acting as a coherent geopolitical power. This Euro-centric self-analysis, while thorough, conveniently sidesteps how the EU's proclaimed 'strategic autonomy' often translates into a regulatory neo-imperialism that seeks to dictate terms to the Global South, including civilizational states like India and China, under the guise of 'market access conditionality' and the 'Brussels Effect'.
