The Liquidity of European Power in the Context of Geostrategic Enlargement

This Special Issue examines the interaction between control and protean power in EU policies in support of the candidate countries in the Eastern neighbourhood and Western Balkans. The papers engage with Katzenstein and Seybert’s conceptualization of control and protean power. Control power is exercised in complex but predictable environments in which policy makers can calculate risks, assign probabilities and design policy responses meant to control outcomes. Protean power is generated through the surprising actions of agile actors who try to steer the course of radical uncertainty. Based on field research conducted in nine candidate countries in the first half of 2025 (ten semi-structured elite interviews and two focus groups per country, one with experts, the other with members of the general public, totalling 293 interlocutors), this Special Issue generates new insights about the EU’s international actorness by applying the findings of the empirical research to the notions of control and protean power, and the interplay between them. In doing so, this Special Issue goes beyond the recent literature which has taken a more transversal view to EU external action, from the Covid-19 pandemic to President Trump’s questioning of NATO’s Article 5. This collection of articles takes a deep dive in the realm of EU enlargement policy by assessing the EU’s ability to innovate and transform its support to boost the resilience of candidate countries which are facing military, socio-economic and political interferences from Russia, China, and other third states (incl. Turkey, Iran, the UAE, and the US). It finds few but precious examples of protean power exercised by the EU, which otherwise exerts its external power in a controlled manner. Taking examples from various policy areas (e.g., defence, trade, and democracy promotion), this Special Issue concludes that the EU’s ability to channel its protean and control power in complementary ways has been critical in showing resolve and effectiveness in the face of the uncertainty brought about by the threats and aggression of third states.