Transatlantic relations

This multi-author publication presents EUISS forecasts and perspectives on the European Union’s foreign policy strategy in the post-Lisbon Treaty context. The Report seeks to define what should be the basic guiding principles of EU foreign policy and how they should be applied in a set of priority areas.

This policy brief reviews the recent US National Intelligence report on global trends in 2025, which predicts a more multipolar and heterogenous world, characterised by non-state actors and rising powers with different priorities such as China, India and Russia. In a world where Europe risks losing its clout, the brief urges the US and the EU to work together in reforming multilateral structures, developing common strategies to engage the new global players, and facing new environmental, demographic and economic challenges.

For six decades the United States has supported European integration, yet many Americans have an ambivalent attitude towards the European Union. Some Americans see the EU as the culmination of historic efforts to ensure peace, stability and democracy on the continent, while others consider the Union an elaborate scheme to create a rival to US hegemony. Still others dismiss the EU as irrelevant.

The idea behind this transatlantic book predates the intense transatlantic exchanges that took place prior to the war in Iraq in early 2003. The run-up to the passage of UN Resolution 1441 in November 2002 provided clear indications that Euro-American relations were about to enter previously uncharted territory.