Europe in a Multi-Polar World

Abstract

The seismic changes which have transformed Europe as a whole in the past few years cannot be understood purely in terms of developments within Europe. The fact that political union is even on the European agenda reflects deep-seated global economic and political trends as well as internal factors. At the heart of these changes has been the decline of the bi-polar system dominated by the two super-powers - the United States and the former Soviet Union. This has been accompanied by the gradual and uneven emergence of a multi-polar system based on a number of regional economic and (I will argue) increasingly political blocs. Global trends towards economic and political regionalisation are a factor in the thinking of EC political leaders. It is too soon to say definitively whether the attempt through GATT to negotiate a world-wide trade liberalisation will not succeed, but it is clear that the price of failure is likely to be an accelerated drift towards regional trade protectionism ('Fortress Europe', 'Fortress America') with all the implications this has for political and security arrangements.