On April 25th we were delighted to host the the Delegation of Flanders in Poland and the Baltic States at the EESC. During the visit, Prof. dr. Sven Biscop gave the lecture ”Europe Rediscovers Geopolitics: from Ukraine to Taiwan”
During the discussion, the concept of geopolitics in international politics was highlighted, noting that the term is often overemphasized in discussions about world politics. Geopolitics is not a factor that determines the strategy of states but rather one of the conditions influencing the strategy. For instance, geopolitics from a European point of view can say little about China because Europe is not related to China in a geopolitical sense. Our strategic engagement with China is driven by other factors, such as economic ties.
Speaking about the EU’s future strategy, the political scientist emphasized that by granting Ukraine candidate status, the EU de facto accepted it as a member of its architecture. Also, it was mentioned that one of the main aspirations in international politics should be to continue investing in multilateralism because historically (the only exception being the Cold War), the world has always been multipolar. The fact that even today the world order remains the same is reflected in the still ambivalent position of some great powers towards specific world events or states; an example of this could be the position of some countries towards Russia and the war in Ukraine.