Europe Alone? The Future of Europe in the Emerging World Order

The Kissinger Center and the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) convened a roundtable of leading experts in European and Transatlantic affairs, chaired by Kissinger Center director Francis Gavin and CEPA’s President and CEO, Alina Polyakova, to discuss the future of Europe in the post-COVID world order. Participants agreed that in an era of re-emerging great power competition and unsteady US leadership, there is an opportunity for European leadership on key transnational issues, but that this will require strategic thinking on Europe’s role in the world and an ability to define the continent’s interests. During the roundtable, participants reflected on the current state of world order and disorder, historical visions of the role of Europe and the Transatlantic alliance in shaping world order, the impediments today to strategic thinking in Europe, and debated whether the EU could act as an independent geopolitical actor or whether new institutions were needed.
 
This session was part of the 2020 CEPA Forum, “Disrupted Future, Shared Purpose: Mapping a New Transatlantic Decade.”