The effect of geopoliticisation on the EU’s polity: exploring institutional power shifts

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aspiration of the EU to pursue a geopolitical agenda has raised both interest and scepticism within the academic and policy community. The ability to adopt and implement an ambitious geopolitical agenda depends on the institutional machinery that is to shape, decide and implement such policies. However, instrumentalising the EU’s economic, industrial, environmental, or budgetary policies to support foreign policy objectives requires adaptation of – or triggers at least adaptive pressures to – the existing polity. In the EU, this process is further complicated due to the division of competencies between the national and European level, as well as the different modes of decision-making in various areas of EU external action. We advocate the systematic study of the institutional impacts of geopoliticisation on the European Union, offer a conceptual framework to steer this emerging agenda, and provide an exploration into the first empirical manifestations of the emerging shifts in the EU’s polity as presented in the literature so far.