Is the EU a superpower?

[Brown, Jon Brow]

At the start of the year more new countries are joining the European Union. if the EU was a country is would have a larger economy than the USA. But can it be considered as a superpower?

It has a large population (500 million to 300 million of usa)

The collective states of the EU have a military to rival the USA.

The ability to influence events and project power on a worldwide scale :?:


We could be entering an era where the world Superpowers are USA, EU, China and India.

[Erki]

Too bad none of those "superpowers" have anything more meaningful to do than war.

[Tomi]

Too bad none of those "superpowers" have anything more meaningful to do than war.

Well said Erki, i dont think EU is aiming to be a military superpower, what comes to economic I belive it will be strong.

[Eki]

Yes, and it wears a blue cape with stars on it.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

An EU superpower wouldn't be like the USA or the British Empire that bullies the world. It would be a peaceful superpower of prosperity and technological acheivement.

[Drew]

I was tought that the current day point of the EU, is to be a superpower to stand up against the USA, India and China in this modern world :)

[bowler]

The EU will never be a military super power, although it will be powerful. It's strength is in the economy, and the power that it has to exclude other countries from getting access into the EU. It always carries the ris that it will self destruct if the many interests of all of it's members are not catered for. This tends to create conservative and protectionist policies.

[Rollo]

An EU superpower wouldn't be like the USA or the British Empire that bullies the world.

The EU can never hope to be a military entity of any meaning because of the circumstances which created it and the reasons for it's existance.

It was nationalism which caused 2 World Wars, and in theory it's was hoped that it the continent at least on an economic front started working in a similar spirit, that a Third Great European War will not happen again.
The prime function of Europe is not to attack other world powers, but to stop itself falling into a rabble. So far 60 years has proved this to be successful.

You can not hope for the system to actually work properly whilst you have so many predjudices and undercurrents running through it, but you can get them to stop taking up arms against each other.

[veeten]

moreso as a economic consortium than an actual political or diplomatic force, as many of the military arms manufacturers that reside within the EU contries do business with most of the world.

Much like the US, Russia and China, it's kind of hard to enforce treaties & sanctions on offenders & "rogue" countries while making armament sales and shipments to them, and hoping that the rest of the world doesn't find out.

As for the economic quotient, you have the APAC(Far East), NAFTA(North America), OPEC (Middle East) and other continental/regional alliances to consider.