Editorial: Risks and Opportunities for EU Narratives in the Turbulent World

The question about a 'compelling narrative' for the evolving project of European integration continues to attract attention of scholars and practitioners of the EU. 1 The interest sharpened when the polycrisis hit European societies.It has become even more pertinent in an increasingly geopolitical world marked by an intensifying 'battle of narratives'. 2Does this 'battle' present opportunity or risk to the EU's grand-narratives?Does our turbulent world require revision and/or re-narration of the EU to its citizens and external partners?Does the reframing of the narrative mean new creative spacesor threatsto how internal and external audience make sense of the EU as an actor at times of global uncertainty?These questions guide the editorial.Almost a decade ago, Manners and Murray 3 argued the importance of narratives for understanding European integration.They defined narratives as devices that 'constitute the sense-making (stories people tell to make sense of their reality) activities of European integration'. 4 Positioning their inquiry within the 'narrative turn' in social sciences and an emerging field in EU studies, Manners and Murray evaluated critically a complex trajectory of the 'noble narrative of the EU as a peace project'. 5 They offered insights into what inputs may create a compelling narrative.Among those is the number of story lines (one v. many), as well as the narrative's coherence, persuasion, evolution, credibility, and relative weight vis--vis other narratives.We may add to this list a potential for positive reception and support by publics internal and external to the EU.This potential may reside with the structural, rhetorical, and/or persuasive elements of a narrative: it 'can either be understood as structuring the range of thoughts and actions of actors, or as a tool that actors use to persuade each other'. 6 The internal and external directions of the EU's narrative flow are also important for understanding its success.Leading experts