GLOBAL EUROPE AND GREAT POWER COMPETITION Options and Possible Solutions from an Eastern European Perspective The international environment is unravelling at a breathtaking pace, and geopolitical rivalry, including in the areas of technology, infrastructure development, trade, and sea power, is shifting once again into overdrive. This should be reason enough to compel the EU to adjust and tune its internal mechanisms and calibrating instruments if it wants to improve its coherence and weight in the global arena. Eastern European views and perspectives should be included and made an integral part of how the EU defines its notion of strategic sovereignty in order to make the most of its collective potential, by protecting its distinctive values and playing a stabilising role in an increasingly unstable world. The EU has no other alternative than to build on its tried-and-tested strengths and bring everyone to the global negotiating table, as the great power competition and trade war between the US and China poses the risk of the EU being caught in the middle between a protectionist power(the US) and an expansionist one(China). None of these two approaches can realistically be an option for the EU due to the bloc's very nature and limited capacities to enter into direct competition with either the US or China. Instead, the EU should seek to mend relations with its transatlantic partner, rebuild the transatlantic community, and find an appropriate way to engage with China in a more assertive, carefully crafted manner, not least by pivoting to the Indo­Pacific region. But to succeed, it needs to become more agile and more nimble in its responses as well as less bureaucratic and more willing to accept a proliferation of approaches, formats, and initiatives, both from within, as well as with partners. More information about this subject can be found here: www.fes.ro 47