@article{2026:bakos:the_europe,
title = {The European Union’s Geoeconomic Turn: Less Openness and More Realpolitik},
year = {2026},
note = {The European Union’s (EU) geoeconomic turn has had a considerable
impact on decision-making that involves security considerations. Tools
such as the Foreign Subsidies Regulation or the Anti-Coercion
Instrument address the weaponisation of chokepoints in a globally
interdependent economy and safeguard economic security. Geopolitical
developments such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have become
stealthy drivers of integration in the Union. As a result, an
exceedingly larger no man’s land is created where the boundaries
between the Common Foreign and Security Policy and its
intergovernmental features, on the one hand, and the Common Commercial
Policy’s supranational paradigm, on the other, are increasingly
blurred. This land is claimed by actors such as the European
Commission through the Open Strategic Autonomy doctrine. Nonetheless,
legitimacy issues arise when specific policy instruments are leveraged
for purposes other than those envisaged for. This account of
integration as a reaction to geopolitical imperatives contrasts the
approach seen in the Commission’s Legal Service book, ‘70 Years of
EU Law – A Union for Its Citizens’. The latter frames European
integration in a highly dominant neofunctionalist understanding,
emphasising the primacy of law, but minimising the role of
geopolitics. Considering the importance of the Book for the narrative
of ever-deeper integration, the analysis suggests an enrichment of its
theoretical background through an expanded lens that also considers
how geopolitics can lead to further integration.},
journal = {Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht / Heidelberg Journal of International Law},
pages = {197--224},
author = {Bakos, Alexandros and Karetsos, Christos},
volume = {86},
number = {1}
}