Online ISSN 2286-0266
Print ISSN 1223-0685
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Ioan Alexandru GHERASIM
Corvinus University of Budapest
It is becoming increasingly clear that the world is less homogeneous than some people want it to be and humanity needs to understand that geopolitics and geo-economics may be harsher than most of us thought. In this context, all Europeans need to remain committed to building closer relations and putting them at the centre of a renewed economic and social landscape. The range of new aspects of the modern world has become a global one, beyond the capacity of a state to solve it by itself. The big challenges to which the international community has to provide adequate answers require a multi-actor perspective and establishing the role of each in the geopolitical and geo-economic picture. Moving from the traditional logic of international politics to that of regional or global governance can facilitate the repositioning of the equilibrium between flexibility and rigidity, promote voluntary arrangements at the expense of binding norms, and create a fertile ground for new initiatives and ideas. Indicating the European Union as an example, one can say that we find ourselves in a synergic interdependence: a network of treaties and bi-, pluri- and multilateral agreements; public-private partnerships; private governance and tripartite governance mechanisms. In this paper, I have referred to some of the aspects of internationality, especially those that can make the mechanism of linking the European group with its external environment more efficient and mutually beneficial. Our investigation analyses if the EU’s institutional architecture to manage opportunities but also the risks that have become global is ready to meet its desiderata, the aim being not their diversity, scope and nature. I have shown in the paper that the manifestations of the inadequacy of the existing international regulatory and institutional framework are very varied. This paper highlights the need to make the following conceptual, methodological and instrumental delimitations: between EU institutions and European governance; between the legitimacy defined by representativeness and that defined by performance; between authority, representation and political legitimacy. An important part of this article concerns the neighbourhood policy promoted by the EU, with emphasis being placed on the extent to which decisions taken by Community bodies take into account developments in other regions of the planet.

ŒCONOMICA no. 3-4/2018
Keywords: economic integration, global actor, international responsiveness, neighbourhood policy
JEL: F15, F42, F55
We Need a More Responsive EU to the Messages Coming from Outside