European Union’s actorness amid the weakening liberal international order in the fields of trade, digital sovereignty and conflict resolution

This article analyses the implications for the EU’s global actorness stemming from the weakening Liberal International Order (LIO). It elaborates on the autonomous actions that the EU pursues as a response to this particular structural change. The analysis centres on four actorness criteria (Wunderlich 2011), i.e. EU’s internal self-understanding and external recognition (both forming the EU’s institutional identity), the EU’s international presence and the EU’s capability (interest, instruments) to establish how the EU adjusted in these elements. To verify this adjustment, we investigate three fields of international cooperation where the EU has developed different levels of its actorness institutionalisation, namely international trade, regulation of digital technology and international conflict resolution. Empirical results reveal that the EU has responded to the weakening LIO by adding a geopolitical dimension to its normative self-understanding, grounding this new identity in a concept of strategic autonomy in all three policy areas. Yet, in the pursuit of an autonomous international action, there is high tension between liberal values and pragmatic competitiveness or geopolitical interest revealed in all three cases. EU’s presence and international recognition are higher if this tension is lower, especially when the EU is capable to speak with one voice, such as in the case of trade and resolution of Russian aggression on Ukraine. Contrary, reconciling trade competition, digital innovation and security demands with democracy, multilateralism and respect of international law remains a critical challenge, especially when the EU’s capability is internally inconsistent.