The 27 member states have lately taken significant steps on military and economic security matters, but the nature of the organization and internal discrepancies continue to slow down the push for a more ambitious union

In October 2019, when he was preparing to assume the position of High Representative for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell said that the Union must “learn to speak the language of power.” Shortly afterwards, at her inaugural speech, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen pledged that hers would be a “geopolitical Commission.” In the following years, spurred by the Covid pandemic and the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the 27 members of the EU have taken significant steps in that direction. However, the path to turning the EU into a geopolitical power is long, uncertain, and full of obstacles.

The EU was not born to be a geopolitical power. It is not a structured military power and its action in foreign policy is hindered by the need for unanimity. It therefore suffers from limitations that lead some experts to conceptually question its nature as a geopolitical actor. However, despite the fact that member states have been defending their own control over these crucial competences for decades, the common project is now in a state of profound metamorphosis. There is no doubt that greater common capabilities are being provided, and that the political will to use them is growing within the logic of stark power impulses into which the world is entering.