On February 16, 2026, the Bologna Institute for Policy Research hosted a timely conversation with Daniela Schwarzer in the immediate aftermath of the Munich Security Conference, using the conference as a springboard to reflect on how the meaning and practice of power are shifting globally and what this implies for Europe.

At the center of the discussion was a fundamental question: what does it mean to speak of "European power"? Power, Schwarzer noted, remains a core concept of political science, reflecting the ability to enforce one's will despite resistance. Yet applying this traditionally national concept to the European Union raises conceptual and practical challenges. To what extent can a group of sovereign member states act collectively as a power in a rapidly changing international order?

Schwarzer first highlighted the EU's structural economic and regulatory power. The single market, where decision-making often proceeds through qualified majority voting, is the area in which the EU is most unified and thus most effective. From abroad, this is where the Union's power is most tangible: its ability to shape global standards, regulate markets, and leverage its economic weight. In some cases, this structural power has even taken on coercive dimensions. The key question, Schwarzer argued, is how the EU can better mobilize this internal strength without undermining competitiveness in an increasingly geoeconomic environment defined by tariffs, industrial policy, and competition over critical resources.

A second dimension is normative power. For decades, the EU has framed its international engagement through the language of the rule of law, human rights, and the UN Charter. Through enlargement and neighborhood policies, it embedded conditionality and diffused norms across its region. However, this capacity to shape the international order is under strain. The rise of China, Russia's attack on Europe's security architecture, and shifts in US foreign policy have all challenged Europe's normative influence.

The evolving role of the United States featured prominently in the discussion. Europe's global standing has long been intertwined with its transatlantic partnership. Recent signals from US leaders at Munich, however, suggest a potential retrenchment and a recalibration of strategic priorities. If Washington reduces its engagement in certain regions or accelerates expectations of burden-sharing within NATO, Europe will need to redefine its role with greater urgency. A sobering takeaway from Munich was the mismatch between US and European timelines for building up defense capabilities, highlighting security and military capacity as Europe's enduring Achilles' heel.

Schwarzer situated these developments within broader global power shifts. Economically, the world is becoming increasingly geoeconomic: control over supply chains, energy resources, critical minerals, and financial instruments has become central to statecraft. Europe's traditional commitment to openness is now tempered by greater risk awareness, particularly after energy dependencies were weaponized. Interdependence, once framed primarily as cooperation, is increasingly understood through the lens of vulnerability. Technological and digital power represent another defining arena. Control over data, digital infrastructure, and innovation ecosystems is reshaping global hierarchies. Europe faces a structural disadvantage compared to the United States and China, particularly in the relationship between government and the private sector. Yet Schwarzer noted a more encouraging signal from the Munich Security Conference: private-sector actors are now openly calling for greater European technological sovereignty. This growing alignment between public and private risk assessments may create opportunities for the EU to strengthen its regulatory framework while fostering competitiveness.

Across these domains, three systemic forces shape the EU's environment: deepening interdependence and dependence, accelerating crisis dynamics, from pandemics to war and financial shocks, and the gradual transition toward multipolarity. The erosion of international institutions and legal norms adds another layer of uncertainty, forcing Europe to navigate normative conflict within bodies such as the UN system while simultaneously pursuing new trade agreements and partnerships.

In sum, Schwarzer characterized the EU as a structural-normative power: rooted in market size, legal authority, and institutional density, with limited but gradually expanding coercive instruments. Recent readiness to deploy tools such as the anti-coercion instrument signals a more assertive posture. Looking ahead, however, the most dynamic developments are likely to occur in security and defense, often through flexible coalitions of member states rather than exclusively through EU institutions.

The conversation concluded on a sober yet pragmatic note. Europe's power is real but constrained, evolving within a global order defined less by stable cooperation and more by competition, dependency, and shifting alliances. Whether the EU can adapt its instruments, narratives, and partnerships quickly enough will determine its role in the changing global balance of power.

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hosted by Professor Renaud Dehousse


Daniela Schwarzer is a leading expert on European and international affairs and has had a 20-year career at renowned think tanks, foundations and universities.

Since May 1, 2023 she is a member of the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung. Previously, Schwarzer served as Executive Director for Europe and Central Asia at the Open Society Foundations, the world's largest foundation working to strengthen the rule of law, democracy and open societies.

In 2021, she was appointed honorary Professor of Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin. In autumn 2022, she was a visiting professor at Harvard University, with which she has also been affiliated as a senior fellow.

From 2016 to 2021, Schwarzer ran the German Council on Foreign Relations (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, DGAP) as Director and CEO.

Prior to that, she served on the executive team of the German Marshall Fund of the United States as research director and lead its Berlin office and Europe program. From 2004 to 2013, Schwarzer worked for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, where she headed the Europe research group beginning in 2008. From 1999 to 2004, she was an opinion page editor and France correspondent for the Financial Times Deutschland.

Daniela Schwarzer is regularly consulted as an expert and policy advisor. She was co-rapporteur of the working group on EU reform and enlargement, convened by the French and German governments, which submitted its report in September 2023. From 2020 to 2022, she served as special advisor to the High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell. Schwarzer also advised France and Poland during their respective EU presidencies and was a consultant to the French government. She is a member of the supervisory boards of BNP Paribas and Covivio, an honorary board member of DGAP and a non-executive board member of the Jacques Delors Institute/Centre (Paris, Berlin) and a Council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). In 2017, she was inducted into the French Legion of Honour.