Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll explore options for the EU to forge new partnerships in a polarized world.

One of the 15 risks and challenges identified and analyzed by the EPRS in their Future Shock's

2023 report. Want to know more? Stay with us.

We are living in an increasingly polarized world, one in which the multilateral rules-based

order is being challenged and global alliances are redefined.

Russia's war on Ukraine, combined with rising tensions between the US and China, and the emergence

of countries from the so-called global south as important world players, open both new challenges

and opportunities for the EU. The external challenges are manifold, starting with Russia's war on

Ukraine and its implications

for European security, but also the partnership between China and Russia, their common

antagonism with the West and confrontation with the United States.

A traditional ally upon which, as we saw under Trump's presidency and most recently over the trade

dispute over green subsidies, the EU cannot fully rely on. And the challenges are not only geostrategic,

they're also economic. By 2050, four of the five largest economies, China, India, Indonesia and

Brazil will come from the global south,

while the EU's economic weight and share of the world population will shrink.

By 2050, Asia will account for half of the global economic output, and by the end of the century,

more than 8 in 10 people will live in Asia or Africa, which means that the

EU will have to deal with an increasingly self-confident and influential Global South.

Hence the urgency, also underlined by the European Parliament, for the EU to step up

efforts to engage with key countries from the Global South and forge new alliances to advance

...