Abstract
Krishnamurthy argues that the ‘essence’ of the European Union (EU) involves subjecting inter-state relations to the rule of law and that it is therefore natural for the Union to preach and practice multilateralism. The EU prefers multilateralism at both regional and universal levels. It expects that third countries must have direct relations with it at the multilateral level and professes multilateralism, with the United Nations (UN) at its core. Europeans feel that they must succeed in giving a multilateral dimension to multipolarity to influence the international order. The EU’s preference for multilateralism and optimism about the effectiveness of the UN, however, has not been shared by other global players or by its member states. The chapter also analyses the prospects for achieving cooperative multilateralism.
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Notes
- 1.
While advocating the need for ‘multilateralising’ multipolarity, De Vasconcelos defines multipolarity as ‘an expression of the way power is distributed at world level’ and multilateralism as ‘an expression of how that reality should be acted upon, in other words how that power should be used and to what ends’.
- 2.
Krauthammer, the well-known American triumphalist, openly accuses the Europeans of maintaining that ‘the whole point of the multilateral enterprise (of the Europeans) is to reduce American freedom of action by making it subservient to, dependent on, constricted by the will and interests of other nations and it is an attempt to tie down Gulliver with a thousand strings. It is designed to domesticate the most undomesticated, most outsized, national interest on the planet of the Americans.’
- 3.
For instance, then President-elect Trump tweeted on 21 December 2016: ‘The United Nations has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!’
- 4.
The People’s Republic of China, in its intention to intensify and expand cooperation with 11 EU member states and five Balkan countries in the fields of investments, transport, finance, science, education and culture, initiated the 16 + 1 arrangement with them. Within its framework, China prioritised economic cooperation in the fields of infrastructure, high technology and green technologies.
- 5.
The study has evaluated India’s strategic partnership with six countries—the US; Russia; France; the UK; Germany; and Japan—by grading them on a ten-point scale for present performance, sustainability and the potential of these partnerships for India in three areas of co-operation: political-diplomatic ties; defence ties; and economic relations. The report is categorical in maintaining that India’s strategic partnership with Russia is more beneficial to it than those with other countries. The report suggests that India should not bestow the ‘respectable nomenclature’ of a strategic partner on all countries, but only on those powers with which there is ‘a strong and mutually beneficial relationship’ in the three areas referred above. For a host of other partnerships, such as that with the EU, India needs to coin a ‘less serious’ nomenclature.
- 6.
In early 2005, Arvind Virmani, then Director of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi, maintained that the world is fast becoming a tripolar world with the US, China and India as the three power centres. While analysing the possibility of the EU becoming the fourth pole in a consequent quadri-polar world, Virmani believed that this might happen only if Germany, the UK, France and Italy permit the Union to completely eclipse their individual global power or in an environment in which soft power has more impact than hard military power.
- 7.
In the policy document ‘A Decent Life for All: Ending poverty and giving the world a sustainable future’, the European Commission refers to the member countries of the BRICS, especially China and India, which have become the key drivers of global economic growth and have impacted the world economy significantly. It also points out that the balance is expected to shift further in their favour. Moreover, it is predicted that global economic growth will be predominantly generated in these countries by 2015. The Commission, without directly referring to India, mentions six countries which are expected to collectively account for more than half of all global growth.
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Krishnamurthy, B. (2019). The European Union and Multilateralism: Preference, Performance and Prospects. In: Sachdeva, G. (eds) Challenges in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1636-4_2
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