The EU's global image

The multidimensional crisis of European integration, explored in this volume, has generated both negative and positive images of the European Union (EU). Critics argue that the EU has lost its superiority as an international economic player, that its soft power foreign policy lacks credibility, and that its response to key crises have critically impaired both its institutional integrity and its overall presence. Such views now appear particularly salient in light of the June 2016 UK Referendum. Supporters contend that despite these setbacks, the EU’s global image remains intact, based on its commitment to development policy, humanitarian assistance, and climate change mitigation; to promoting peace and stability in the Western Balkans; and to reforming Eurozone governance.

The critical question examined by this text is determining the various impacts of that these crises had have upon the EU, and the overall consequences for the EU in the sort and long term. This chapter takes an outside-in approach by examining the challenges to the EU in terms of the abiding soft power identity that it currently holds in the eyes of a range of external others, the reputational damage done to this identity as a result of the EU’s various responses to these crises, and the subsequent impact this has had the EU’s Strategic Relationships with Russia, the United States and China.