The post–Cold War beliefs that once sustained the European project have unraveled. Economic integration no longer guarantees political harmony. Also, soft power by itself does not secure a continent. In an era of hard-edged rivalry, the European Union faces a stark paradox: it is a global regulatory superpower, yet increasingly strained by internal fragmentation.

How can the EU endure when its founding certainties fade? European Union: Ideas for the Future moves beyond the stale binary of “more or less Europe” to confront the defining dialectic of the mid-2020s: the tension between strategic unity abroad and democratic legitimacy at home.

The book presents nine scholarly perspectives spanning governance, democracy, and geopolitics. It explores the EU as a geopolitical actor, its democratic capacity to defend cohesion against illiberal drift, and how science and innovation can be harnessed in a multipolar world with pressing climate and digital challenges.

Written for scholars, policymakers, and citizens who refuse to accept the fraying of the European project, this book offers a bold vision of a Europe capable of wielding power without sacrificing legitimacy, combining the protection of a superpower with the intimacy of local democracy.