Europe’s role in a changing world

Age-old certainties are valid no longer – this is how the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel recently summarized the situation the European Union finds itself at this point in time. Trapped between the superpowers USA and China, weakened by the imminent Brexit and internally disunited – not only on the issue of refugees – Europe stands at a crossroads ahead of the EU Parliamentary Elections 2019. Given the growing global nationalism and the current crises of international cooperation, a strong EU foreign policy is of utmost importance. Can the EU maintain its position as a reliable partner on an increasingly disunited global stage? Will the EU commit more of its resources to global engagement and provide a central contribution to global sustainable development?

The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) has been researching the collective foreign- and development policies of the EU for many years. DIE provides, among others through the European Think Tanks Group (ETTG), scientific analyses and actionable policy recommendation to develop political strategies for the global future of the European Union. DIE researchers furthermore make their expertise available for the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2020. On this site, we have gathered a selection of DIE’s work concerning EU policy.