The difficulty of forging effective EU leadership is not new, but the challenges at the current time are profound and even existential. Brexit will leave the EU’s weight, as a global security actor, significantly reduced with the United Kingdom’s departure. At the same time, the traditional transatlantic partnership has been weakened during the Trump administration, and Putin’s Russia is actively contesting the EU’s international role. Can the EU provide effective leadership to meet these challenges and mobilize the collective action of its member states? The EU has over the last decade sought to consolidate its coherence as a global actor and facilitate leadership both internally and externally, by strengthening its institutional governance structures. In this talk, Aggestam will elaborate the concept of leadership and assess emergent patterns of leadership practices in EU foreign policy.
