ABSTRACT
Europe and its relationship with the wider world do not constitute two distinct objects of study and even less two distinct stages of an incremental development, with a first phase characterised by European integration and a second stage of Europe engaging with the world around it. European integration was born from the rapid transformation of the relationship of European nations with the wider world. In other words, Europe was born from the defeat of empires. To a large extent, European nations transferred their imperial projects to the European project: an evolutionary framework of ever closer integration, bent on institutionalisation and harmonisation. European nation states have never been able to afford a policy of isolation. Unlike the USA, the frontier of their nation-building project has always been an external one. However, the gradual deepening of the cooperation and the geographical enlargement of the Union has left European public opinions disoriented and unwilling to support the costs of a policy of global hegemony. It is therefore unlikely that Europe will simply take the place of a declining American superpower. Rather, the challenges ahead are of the same order as those of the recent past: transforming neighbourhood policies into internal policies and drawing Europe’s periphery into the dynamic of integration. Turkey, the successor states of the Soviet Union and North Africa constitute the new horizons of the European project. A multiplication of initiatives of regional cooperation as the basic unit of global cooperation seems more compatible with Europe’s historical trajectory than the new hubris of world hegemony.
