The European Union as a Global Power?

European integration started after the Second World War as an effort to bring peace in the Old Continent and to promote the unity of its peoples in a categorical rejection of nationalism. Hence, the very reason of making a united Europe was internal in its roots. Without denying the extraordinary achievements of the European project, today we can no longer give traditional answers to the fundamental question: ‘Why make Europe?’ If yesterday the underlying reason was clear to everyone—peace, in fact—today it is no longer the case. One of the ‘positive’ aspects of Brexit—and there are very few!—is having awakened Europe from a dangerous, deterministic, and almost dogmatic inertia of giving ‘Just because’ as the answer. So why should we continue to build a united Europe? Why do we need the European Union in the twenty-first century? In a nutshell the answer is that from the hegemon it was until the twentieth century, Europe must become a beacon for the world as a value-based global power. This is the essence of the new role that Europe is called to play in the world. In order to do this, we can no longer just look at internal causes for making Europe, but must also take into account the external context. In other words, we should adopt a mentality whereby European values coincide with European strategic interests. This shift is the key to making Europe live up to its global ambitions.