CHAPTER 18 ffhe European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 419 The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? Stephan Keukeleire and Tom De Bruyn ^e-Global South are carving out a place in the global economy.The BRICS and Ijiflrrierging powers organized themselves and reached some first successes on the national scene by translating their economic weight into political leverage.The first |feotions of this chapter assess how the European Union (EU) is challenged by the ;>and other emerging powers, illuminate the nature of the BRICS phenomenon, jjrovide an overview of the contractual and political relations between the EU and RIGS countries and other emerging powers, to conclude with an evaluation of the ^strategic partnership' with these countries. The next three sections analyse the RIGS relationship on the basis of the three key perspectives that were introduced Smith, and Vanhoonacker in the introductory chapter of this volume: the EU as a fejem of international relations (which assesses the EU's capacity to generate exter-§|leetive action towards the BRICS countries and other emerging powers), the EU power in international relations (which evaluates the EU and the BRICS and other |rs from the perspective of both relational and structural power), and the EU as part tewider processes of international relations (which assesses their relations within pjntext of shifts in multilateralism and in the global governance architecture). Introduction: the EU challenged by the BRICS and other erntrgitig powers \ '^ontracuul and P0,ni1-'" iclations - "**Tgit paiineiships? 419 124 The EU-emergmg powers' relationship and processes of global go\cniancc and muInlaLt_ralism C onclusion » 1 Summary The acronym 'BRIGS'was launched in 2001 by Goldman Sachs to illuminate the pole of the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China-not only as investment opporl ties for their clients but also as transformational forces within the global econc A decade later, the BRICS (since 2010also including South Africa) have become a ho hold name in academic and policy debates about the relative decline ol the West,. nomic globalization, and global governance. Moreover, also other emerging econor Introduction: the EU challenged by the BRICS and other emerging powers ' The various chapters in this volume illuminate most of the basic features of the EU's role ■m international relations. The main foundation for its international role is its integra-• tion, its trade power, and its position as the strongest economic power in the world— ' according to the gross domestic product (GDP) ranking of the World Bank in 2014 (in i 2015 the USA surpassed the EU again) (World Bank 2015). This allowed the EU both to influence international economic interdependence and to gain economic and political leverage outside its borders. As is illuminated in several other chapters in this vol-:; ume, the EU has tried to impact upon developments and structures in the surrounding countries and regions and to actively promote interregional cooperation with other parts of the world as well as multilateralism on a global level. Several of these major features of the EU's international position are increasingly challenged by the emerging powers and by the broader phenomenon of shifts in the global power structure towards Asia and the southern part of the world. The term 'emerging powers' refers to a range of . countries that have gained influence in economic, political, and other domains on a global or regional scale in the last two decades. Despite the increasingly popular use of the term, there is no agreed definition available nor is there consensus about the countries that belong to the group of emerging powers (Mawdsley 2012; Renard 2012a). Countries included differ, depending on the indicators used, and the dimensions of 420 Stephan Keukeleire and Tom De Bruyn power taken into account. Nevertheless, some states appear in all lists, notably the BRIC(S) (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China (and South Africa)) because of their impressive economic growth figures in the first decade of the 21st century, which have been translated into growing political leverage in the global arena. Apart from Russia, these countries also belong to a broader trend which has been referred to as the rise of the (Global) South in the world (Palat 2009; United Nations Development Programme 2013; Kiely 2015; Gray and Gills 2016). This rise is visible in economic and social indicators (albeit not in all countries and regions), the growing influence of multilateral groupings, the establishment of new financial institutions such as the BR1CS' New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the launch by China of new trade, development, and cooperation frameworks, such as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road (the so-called One Belt, One Road initiative). The late 20th century world order dominated by the USA and Europe is giving way to a new constellation in which also the South, or at least some of its major economies, is carving out a central role. Besides the aforementioned * states, the 'rising Global South' incorporates a very heterogeneous number of countries This group is very fluid in nature and has given rise to new acronyms such as CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa) or MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey) or denotations such as Asian Tigers or Dragons (Li 2014). The primary focus of this chapter will be on the four southern protagonists of the BRICS. Russia is covered extensively in Chapter 14. In addition, reference will be made to Mexico and South Korea, two countries which are not only al times labelled as emerging powers but whom the EU also regards as strategic partners (just as Brazil, India, China, South Africa and—until 2014—also Russia). The challenge posed by the emerging powers and more specifically of Brazil, India, •; China (and Russia), is clearest in the economic field. In its 2001 and 2003 reports, . Goldman Sachs launched some predictions that were quite dramatic for the European countries. Whereas the BRIC economies in 2000 represented merely 15 per cent of the size of the six strongest economies (USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and the UK), China was expected to overtake the largest European economy (Germany) rather quickly and by 2050 each of the four BRICs was expected to surpass each of the four r strongest European economies—implying that by then no single EU member state would figure in the top rank of economies (O'Neill 2001). Initially the economic , growth of the BRICs proved to be even stronger than predicted, with these four coun- \ tries clearly leading the global recovery after the financial crises of 2008-9 and being» involved in emergency measures to address the financial European crisis (Goldman : Sachs Global Economics Group 2007; Delia Posta and Talani 2011; Wang 2011; Chen 2012). Since 2010-11 the growth rates of most emerging powers have stagnated and "1 even decreased (Pitterle, Haufler, and Hong 2015; Didier et al 2016). Notwithstanding the less optimistic outlook, the economic rise of the emerging powers has not only i been regarded as a threat or challenge but also an opportunity and even as a necessitya they are major trade partners for the EU. Tables 18.1 and 18.2 illustrate the mutually* interdependent economic relationship. Table 18.1 shows how China, India, and Brazil J T The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 421 C O X » tt= P O = E ■O it; 3 (0 2 a £ o £ ° 5 = a ° « t = £ S = a. £ « c in 5 c a .2 „ O S = E 6 I B >S on the EU and the processes of international relations, the EU is not only challenged ■ The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 423 by the emerging powers because of their impact on specific international agreements (for example with regard to the financial crisis or climate change) but also, and more importantly, because they promote a different approach to international policy matters and a different kind of multilateralism—and because they reflect a broader shift in the international balance of power. Before turning to the EU's relationship with the emerging powers and assessing in more detail the challenges outlined thus far, it is useful to gain some more insight into the nature of the protagonists of the emerging powers. To what extent is 'BRIC(S)' more than an acronym invented by a major global financial services firm? In the late 2000s, as their economic power increased, the realization dawned upon the BRIC countries that they could exploit their economic weight by strengthening their mutual contacts. A process of political dialogue started in 2006 when, in the margins of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly meeting, the ministers of foreign affairs met for the first time in the BRIC format. Meetings in the BRIC format received a boost from mid-2008 onwards, when their deliberations before or in the margins of UN or G20 meetings were complemented by stand-alone meetings of the BRICs on the level of the ministers of foreign affairs or ministers of finance, in addition to diplomatic and expert meetings on lower levels and meetings of specialized agencies. And as a culmination of this process, in June 2009 the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China held their first summit meeting in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg (Keukeleire and Hooijmaaijers 2014). In 2010, South Africa was granted access to the group, and consequently the acronym changed to 'BRICS'. Each year the BRICS summit is organized in one of the five member states. The next milestone in the institutionalization of the cooperation was the creation of the NDB at the 6th BRICS summit in Brasilia in 2014. With a capital of $100 billion and headquarters in Shanghai, the Bank intends to be an alternative to the Western-dominated international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Duggan 2015). Despite the increased institutionalization efforts, the existence of some important differences and divergences between the five countries supports the hypothesis that the potential of the BRICS dialogue being transformed into a firm and coherent bloc is rather limited. Table 18.2 provides some basic statistics to illustrate these major differences: in terms of population (with India and China having more than one billion inhabitants whereas Brazil and Russia count respectively around 200 and 140 million people, and South Africa only 54 million), of GDP per capita (with still a huge gap between Russia on the one hand and India on the other: €9,730 versus €1,225 in 2014), and of trade and FDI (with China exporting more to the EU than the four other BRICS countries combined). The five countries not only differ substantially in terms of economic power but also in terms of political and military power, internal political and societal systems, and in terms of their regional and global interests and ambitions (Briitsch and Papa 2013; Pant 2013). Their different interests and positions are also reflected in their voting patterns in the UN, which do not show a significant increase in the degree of voting cohesion since the start of the 424 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn consultations in the BR1C/BRICS framework (Ferdinand 2014; Hooijmaaijers and Keukeleire 2016). However, from the start of their consultations, ihe BR1C countries and to some extent South Africa, also have several features in common, which distinguish them from other (emerging) powers and which may bring them closer to each other—as is also mirrored in the summit declarations. They possess the capacity to contribute to the production of international order, regionally or globally; they share the belief that they are entitled to gain a more influential role in world affairs; and they all lie outside or on the margin of the US-led set of international and multilateral structures. It is this combination of factors that leads to the willingness of the BR1CS countries to strengthen their mutual relations and to promote alternative or complementary international forums and linkages beyond the predominantly Western-dominated organizations (Keukeleire and Hooijmaaijers 2014; de Coning, Mandrup and Odgaard 2015; Schoeman 2015). This short assessment of the BRICS phenomenon indicates that it is not in itself a problem that the EU has no 'BRICS policy' and that the EU has developed a bilateral policy towards each of the BRICS countries separately. This is not surprising in view of the major differences between the five BRICS countries, the absence of a strong BRICS bloc, and the different trajectories of developments both within these five countries and in their relations with the EU (as will be discussed in the next section). However, it is more problematic that the EU has no policy to deal with the generally changing balance of power in the 21st century—a phenomenon in which the rise of the BRICS has to be situated. T The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 425 Contractual and political relations: strategic partnerships? In the introduction to this volume, Hill, Smith, and Vanhoonaekcr emphasize that the EU is a relentless generator of framework agreements and strategies, and is consistently searching for settled, stable, and predictable frameworks within which to define and pursue its international relationships and activities. This profound desire to systematize or pigeonhole its growing range of relationships is also visible in the relationship of the EU with the emerging powers. The EU's formal relations with a number of the emerging powers, including the BRICS, follow largely the same patterns. First, f^ various kinds of long-standing 'cooperation agreements' or 'Partnership and Cooperation Agreements' (PCAs) provide the legal framework for cooperation, mostly in the1 field of trade and various economy-related sectors, but increasingly also in a variety of; non-economic sectors. The generally growing intensity and widening scope ol this-cooperation reflect the EU's own growing competences as well as the trajectory of the, partner country; from large developing countries or countries in transition (with the? European Community (EC)/EU being in the position of an economically superior donor) to major economic powers (with the EU being forced to approach these countries on a basis of equality). Second, the various agreements establish the institutional frameworks for the bilateral relationships, including regular summit meetings, ministerial meetings, and expert-level meetings. Third, political agreements attempt 10 strengthen the political or 'strategic' dimension of the relationship and to widen and concretize the scope of cooperation and dialogue—thereby reflecting the growing importance of the partner countries as well as the increasing political character of the EU as an international actor (Keukeleire and Delreux 2014, 273-94). The evolution of the EU's relations with China illustrates the difficulties encountered in this process (for an overview, see Snyder 2009; Holslag 2011; Men and Balducci 2011; Pant 2013; Wang and Dekker 2013; Men 2014; Bersick 2015; Brown 2015; Wang and Song 2015; Wouters, Defraigne, and Burnay 2015; M. Smith 2016b). The European Economic Community (EEC) and China established formal relations in 1975, which was followed in 1978 by a trade agreement and in 1985 by a trade and cooperation agreement, which also included political dialogue. The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, with Chinese military forces crushing the democratization movement in the country, led to the imposition of an EU arms embargo against China and to a deterioration of the political relations between the EU and China. In the mid-1990s, the EU initiated a policy of 'constructive engagement' with China, which was celebrated in 1998 with a first—-from then on annual—EU-China summit of the heads of state and government. It also included support for China embedding itself within the predominant global (in fact 'Western') structures and embracing free market economy principles, with China joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. In 2003 the EU and China agreed to upgrade their relationship to a strategic partnership, including cooperation in strategic and security-related issues. This was reflected in, for instance, the Chinese participation in the European Galileo satellite system and in the prospect of the EU lifting the arms embargo. EU-China relations rapidly gained depth and scope, with regular political, trade, and economic dialogue meetings and an extensive set of sectoral dialogues and agreements covering a wide range of sectors, from environment and energy to satellite navigation, agriculture, and regional policy. As the 25-yeav-old trade and cooperation agreement still served as the main legal framework for EU-China relations, it was agreed at the 2006 summit to start negotiations on a single and overarching PCA. This was seen as providing the new legal basis lor the further development of a comprehensive strategic partnership. However, negotiations on a new PCA turned out to be much more problematic than expected, not only as a result of divergent views on the contents of this agreement (particularly on trade issues), but also as a result of firm American opposition to a too-close EU-China partnership and to the lifting of the arms embargo, of the political fallout ol Chinese military actions in Tibet and Xinjiang, and of the EU's distrust over China's development policy in Africa. Negotiations were eventually finalized and at the 16th EU-China Summit in 2013 the PCA was launched together with the EU-China 2020 Strategic Agenda for 426 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn Cooperation. The agenda covers a broad range of issues, ranging from peace and security, economy and trade to sustainable development, culture, and education. The agenda is implemented through the annual summits, the three pillars underpinning these summits (i.e. annual high-level dialogues on strategic issues and on economic and trade relations, and the bi-annual people-to-people dialogue), and the over 50 sectoral dialogues. However, this intensive formal pattern of interactions cannot hide the withering of the initially more strategic approach towards EU-China relations and the increasing impact of diverging interests and major 'conceptual gaps'(Pant 2013). Besides China, the EU has developed strategic partnership agreements with five other emerging powers of the south: Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa, and South Korea (for an overview, see Renard and Biscop 2012; Rewizorski 2015; Ferreira-Pereira and Guedes Vieira 2016; M. Smith, Keukeleire, and Vanhoonacker 2016, 113-96), These contractual relations are much less complicated and although they are labelled as 'strategic', they are at the same time also less developed and less essential for the EU Four countries have in common their specific historical (colonial) relationship with one of the EU countries: the UK for South Africa and India, Portugal for Brazil, and Spain for Mexico. Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Korea also have in common that they have not been included in the EU's main cooperation and assistance scheme for developing countries: the 2000 Cotonou Agreement with now 79 African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States (ACP) countries, which succeeded the Lome Conventions with the ACP countries (see Chapter 14). When negotiating the 1975 Lome Convention (following Britain's accession to the EEC), France feared that the inclusion of large developing countries such as India would undermine the EEC's preferential treatment of its mainly African former colonies. The result was that 'despite the strong ties between the UK and the Indian subcontinent in particular, no Asian country was permitted to join the Lome Convention', which was a missed opportunity that confined Asian-EU relations to the lowest of priorities for the next two decades' (Holland 2002, 60). In 1994, within a context of increased European attention for Asia, the EU and India concluded a cooperation agreement, which still provides the legislative framework for current EU-India cooperation. This bilateral agreement was important for the EU's relations with India, particularly in view of India's absence or rather marginal position within respectively the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which are the two main frameworks for int regional cooperation schemes between Europe and Asia. A decade later the EU and India launched the 'EU-India strategic partnership' and joint action plan, which were both further strengthened and expanded in 2008. The 2004 decision to t grade their relations reflected the growing international profile of both the EU aiw India as well as the consciousness that they share common values as fully fledged democracies. As indicated in the EU's Country Strategy Paper for India, whereas LU funding for India was initially quite significant in comparison with the assistance 10 other emerging powers, this financial support was seen as transitional, showing a The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 427 progressive shift from development assistance to new areas of mutual interest and cooperation. Both partners also started negotiations on a free trade agreemeni (FTA) in 2007, but this proved to be a cumbersome process which both partners could not conclude successfully. On a political level, the 'strategic partnership' mainly remains symbolic, as shown in the diverging positions adopted by the EU and India on various fundamental issues, including voting in the UN on nuclear proliferation, the death penalty, or human rights violations in third countries (for an overview, see Jain 2007; Peral and Sakhuja 2012; Bava 2013; Sachdeva 2015; Wtilbers 2015; Allen and Smith 2016; Hooijmaaijers and Keukeleire 2016; Schmidt 2016). Latin America was also excluded from the EU's main cooperation and assistance scheme for developing countries and, just as with Asia, received much less European attention. This gradually changed after the 1986 entry of Spain and Portugal, with both countries promoting new cooperation schemes with their former colonies. In 1992, the EC and Brazil signed a bilateral framework agreement for cooperation, which still governs their current relationship, and in 1995 this was followed by the interregional framework cooperation agreement between the EU and the Common Market of the Southern Cone (Mercosur). For 10 years, this interregional agreement was the main framework through which the EU developed its relations with Brazil. However, gradually the limitations of both EU-Mercosur cooperation and of Mercosur as a forum for regional integration became apparent, and in 2004 negotiations on a wide-ranging EU-Mercosur association agreement stalled. In July 2007, in an answer to the stalemate in EU-Mercosur relations and in recognition of the growing importance of Brazil, the first-ever EU-Brazil summit was held. Both sides also decided to launch a 'strategic partnership' in order to further deepen and upgrade their mutual ties. Central topics of the new partnership were effective multilateralism, climate change, sustainable energy, and the fight against poverty. In 2011 a joint action plan was approved which upgrades the EU-Brazil relations towards a comprehensive strategic partnership (Saraiva 2012; Whitman and Rodt 2012; Emerson and Flores 2013; van Loon 2015; Ferreira-Pereira 2016; Santander 2016). The relations between the EU and Mexico are governed by the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement of 1997, which took effect in 2000. In 2008 Mexico became a strategic partner of the EU, and in 2010 a Joint Executive Plan was launched (Gratius 2012). Because the so-called Global Agreement' of 2000 already encompasses a wide range of cooperation issues, the upgrade to strategic paitner is rather symbolic, although it can act as a lever in the negotiation for a new agreement in the following years. Sberro (2015) argues that of all the emerging powers, Mexico's position converges most with that of the EU, in particular on such issues as climate change, human rights, and economic governance. The EU-South Africa relations are governed by the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement of 2000 and were upgraded in 2009 to include political and economic cooperaiion. In 2007 both partners signed a strategic partnership and a joint action plan. Helly (2012) asserts that besides the regional influence in sub-Saharan Africa and the existing trade relations, an important reason to include South Africa as 428 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn a strategic partner was to refute perceptions that the EU was neglecting the African continent (see also Petropoulos 2015). South Korea and the EU have established a strategic partnership since 2010. The relationship is governed through the Framework Agreement of 2010, which encompasses a broad range of issues, ranging from non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, human rights, cooperation in the fight against terrorism, to climate change, energy security, and development assistance, and an FTA, signed in 2011 (replacing the 2001 Framework Agreement for Trade and Cooperation) (Kelly 2012; Wissenbach 2013). However, as Kim (2015) noted, South Korea and the EU can be seen more as 'privileged partners' than as 'strategic partners', in view of the rather limited 'strategic' nature of their relationship. A common feature of the EU's relationship with these six emerging powers is that they are all labelled as 'strategic partnerships'. However, the proliferation of 'strategic partnerships' points to what seems to have become a standard operating procedure, that is to periodically upgrade the label of the EU's relationship with other global or regional powers, explaining why die EU now has a 'strategic partnership' or aims for a strategic partnership with nearly a dozen partners (including since 2015 also one other international organization: ASEAN). This also reflects the EU's inability to agree and decide which third actors are genuine strategic partners and consequently its inability to behave strategically in relation to these partners. The agreements and action plans with the EU's various 'strategic partners' indeed read more as a catalogue of policy domains that are on the agenda of their meetings, rather than as well-formulated strategies to pursue well-defined objectives through intensive and puiposeful common actions. The use of the label 'strategic partnership' in fact functions as a rhetorical fagade which masks that the EU in fact has failed to transform the relations with the emerging countries and particularly the BRICS countries into strategic partnerships (see'. Ferreira-Pereira and Guedes Vieira 2016), reflecting too the EU's failure to move towards a strategic diplomacy (M. Smith 2016a). By keeping the weapons embargo,/ scaling down common strategic endeavours (such as on Galileo), recoiling frora: granting China 'market economy status' under WTO rules, and continuing to privilege a short-term over a long-term perspective, the EU missed the opportunity to opts for China as a genuine strategic partner for the 21st century (Stumbaum and Xiong' 2012), although the participation of EU member states in China's 'One Belt, One; Road' initiative may offer new opportunities. The EU was arguably never honestly.: interested in India and never intended to consider this largest pluralist democracy m • the South as a privileged partner on the international scene (Jain 2007, 99). Nor did the EU seriously use its partnership with South Africa to transform its relations,^ with the African countries in general, or did it consider utilizing the partnership-' with Brazil to pursue strategic goals. And perhaps most importantly, the proliferation,, of declaratory 'strategic partnerships' conceals that for many EU countries the only* genuine strategic partnership is the one with the USA—with Washington having the" structural and relational power to assure that the Europeans, even if they intended* to do so, do not move into strategic partner-swapping. The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 429 M mm? The EU-BRICS-emerging powers' relationship and the EU as a subsystem of international relations What does the relationship between the EU and the emerging powers tell us about the EU as a subsystem of international relations? The previous section indicated that the EU developed comprehensive and institutionalized frameworks for their relationships with the emerging powers. With regard to a wide spectrum of policy fields, the EU by and large manages to promote the general European interest vis-a-vis the emerging powers and to aggregate the interests and preferences of the member states. This is as such an achievement given the member states' different views on relations with the emerging powers and the largest BRICS countries in particular. The divergence in member states' interests is particularly visible with regard to China, while relations with India, Brazil, and other emerging countries suffer from another problem: the lack of interest of the member states (on Russia, see Chapter 14). The 'power audit' of EU-China relations of Fox and Godement (2009) demonstrated how the EU member states are split on both the economic and political dimension—an evaluation which remains valid. With regard to economic relations, the question is how to manage China's impact on the European economy: in a negative sense (protecting its own economy vis-a-vis the growing Chinese economic power) or in a positive sense (making use of the trade and investment opportunities offered by the growing Chinese economy). With regard to political relations, the question is how to engage China politically: in a negative sense (adopting a critical attitude towards China in view of its stance on human rights, Tibet, Taiwan, etc.) or positive sense (prioritizing friendly or strategic political relations with China). A further complication arises when we take into account that the policy positions of the member states are not always stable and that differences in interests and preferences must also he aggregated on the national level. This implies that shifts in governmental coalitions and leadership can lead to shifts in national policies and can facilitate or complicate EU policymaking. The preceding analysis points to both the strength and weakness of the EU as a subsystem of international relations with regard to its relations to the other major powers. On the one hand, the EU is able to aggregate diverging interests and preferences of member states and to translate this into external collective action. This leads to useful comprehensive frameworks for relations with the emerging powers— ; common frameworks that nevertheless still allow member states to pursue their own policy objectives through their bilateral relations. On the other hand, it is not surprising that the EU cannot always be successful in overcoming the diverging interests and preferences and in generating unambiguous collective action. This is : particularly the case when the politically most sensitive issues appear on the agenda, when China explicitly raises the pressure (for instance by threatening to cancel a 430 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn summit meeting), or when Europe's main strategic partner—the USA—becomes closely involved (cf. the non-decision on lifting the arms embargo on China). Beyond the differences in the member states' economic and political interests, some other factors explain the problems and constraints in the ELPs collective action and policymaking towards the emerging powers—with these factors further strengthening the divergence of interests and preferences. A first set of factors is not related to the emerging powers as such, but to some general features of the EU as a subsystem of international relations. First, the challenges posed by the emerging powers show themselves in a multitude of policy sectors (trade, environmental, energy, foreign policy, security) in which the EU has widely varying legal competences and in which also the policy instruments at the EU's disposal vary considerably. Whereas the EU has exclusive competences with regard to most dimensions of trade policy, this is not the case for most other policy areas. From this perspective, it is logical that the EU cannot function and is indeed also not seen by the EU member states as the only appropriate framework within which to move towards collective action vis-ä-vis the emerging powers (Keukeleire and Delreux 2014, 11-19). The second set of features partially follows from the preceding one: the EU's institutional system is not always capable of generating common views, be it on important foreign policy issues or on the many sectoral policy areas that are the subject of strategic dialogue between the EU and its 'strategic partners', such as external energy governance (see Knodt, Piefer, and Müller 2015). It is difficult for the EU to engage in a sensible foreign policy dialogue with the emerging powers and to gain their support for the EU's views if the EU, as a precondition, has not the competences or is not able to aggregate the interests and view's of its member states on that policy issue. The third feature is related to the EU's decision-making process: member states and institutions often have to invest so much energy and time in generating a common view on a foreign policy issue that, even if they are able to define a common view and speak with one voice, they often have no more time left to gain support for the EU's positions or to make sure that the views of other actors are taken into account. This also explains why the EU's internal cohe-siveness cannot always be turned into external effectiveness (da Conceicäo-Heldt and Meunier 2014). This is related to another factor: the existence of alternative bilateral or multilateral paths for the member states to defend their interests in relationship to the emerging power. In view of their greater weight in international relations, the largest member states in particular often prefer the bilateral route to deal with the challenges posed by the individual emerging powers or to profit from the oppoitu-nities that good relations may offer. In their introductory chapter, Hill, Smith, and Vanhoonacker correctly emphasize that the EU as a subsystem of international relations is part of an emerging system of multilevel governance in the global arena. However, this is not only true for the EU itself, but also for its member, states. Instead of the EU (or as a complement to the EU), member states can ab° t The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? prefer other frameworks such as the UN, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the WTO, or specific contact groups: if their relative weight in these forums is larger than in the EU, if the approaches generally adopted in these forums are closer to their own preferences, and if they judge that their interests will be belter defended within these institutional frameworks. Moreover, within these other international settings, France, Germany, and the UK in particular often need the support or at least the tacit agreement of particularly the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) (thus also China and Russia) to achieve other major foreign policy objectives, for instance with regard to the fight against terrorism or the negotiations with Iran on its nuclear capabilities. This also is one of the reasons why Paris, Berlin, and London regularly consider their bilateral relationships or the more restricted and exclusive multilateral settings as the appropriate venues within which to try and develop a functional relationship with China and Russia. 431 The EU-emerging powers' relationship and the EU as a power in international relations A second perspective from which to evaluate the EU-emerging powers is to look at the EU as a power that is able to shape its external environment. It is useful for the analysis of the EU's relationships to the emerging powers in particular to analyse these from the perspective not only of relational power and hard power (with a focus on coercion, crises, and conflicts) but also from that of structural power (being the power to influence the political, economic, legal, and other structures of third countries and third regions) (Keukeleire and Delreux 2014, 2015; Keukeleire, Keuleers, and Raube 2016). In this section, we first focus on the structural power perspective and move subsequently to the relational hard power. Since the mid-1990s, the EU has used its comprehensive contractual and political relations with other regions in the world as an instrument to exert structural power vis-a-vis these regions. The EU seeks to promote structural changes in third countries and assist them in the development towards liberal economies and pluralist democracies, including through the use of positive and negative condi-tionality. This structural foreign policy resulted in successes in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and more mixed results or outright failures in relationship to Mediterranean and African countries (Holden 2009; Keukeleire and Delreux 2014). However, the EU largely failed to use its relations with the largest emerging powers as leverage to influence the internal political and societal structures and developments in these countries. This reflected the changing balance of power as well as their emphasis on national sovereignty and nonintervention in internal affairs. 432 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn This tendency became particularly obvious in relations with China, which— similar to Russia (see Chapter 14)—increasingly countered the EU's attempts to include references to human rights, minorities, and other sensitive issues in the various contractual and political agreements. Beijing initially accepted the EU's (modest) support for its internal socio-economic reforms through cooperation and assistance in various sectors of the economy (Shambaugh, Satidschneider, and Hong 2008, 160). However, it is increasingly irritated by the EU's stated goal of promoting China's transition towards an open and pluralist society based on the rule of law and respect for human rights. Whereas the 'web of European-inspired dialogues and agreements is supposed to entangle China in rules and commitments ... transforming Chinese policy along European lines', it became increasingly clear that Europe would not be able 'to mould China in its own image' (Fox and Godement 2009, 19-20). From the mid-2000s on, the EU was increasingly confronted with the BR1CS countries and other emerging powers becoming competing structural powers in the world (see also Keukeleire and Delreux 2014, 273-98, 2015). They became competitors to the EU and the West in general by strengthening and using their growing structural power in order to gain or regain ground in other regions of the world and to influence the rules of the game on a global scale. The competing structural power of China is felt on a wide scale. China's rapidly growing economy and related quest for energy and raw material has been the primary driving force behind its gradual emergence as a global structural power over the last decade. China's investments and trade relations as well as its increasingly active diplomacy in regions prioritized by the EU, including Africa, thwart the EU's attempts to promote Western inspired political, societal, and economic structures through positive and negative conditional-ity. Added to this is the attractiveness for leaders in other parts of the world of its developmental model: one in which economic liberalization and growth need not go hand in hand with political liberalization and development towards Western norms. Moreover, a comparative analysis of perceptions of the EU and China in African countries shows that also popular perceptions of the Chinese involvement in sub-Saharan Africa are much less negative than is often portrayed in Western media (Keuleers 2015). Although less visible and still on a much lower scale, India, Brazil, and to a lesser extent South Africa are also increasingly active and present in other parts of the world, including Africa. Development cooperation with other countries in the South is part and parcel of this increased presence. All three countries have created or restructured in recent years development agencies, and—at least in discourse—their approaches are markedly different from those of the 'traditional' or Western-based development cooperation. Together with China, they adhere to the principles of so-called South-South (Development) Cooperation, which stresses mutual benefits, solidarity, non-interference and absence of conditions, and sharing of expertise based on experience of addressing development challenges in their own countries (Mawdsley 2012). They are also more reluctant than the EU to actively promote The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 433 'Western' structures and values. For instance, despite being itself the largest democracy in the world, India traditionally has no democracy promotion policy, as its focus on national security, solidarity with developing countries, and respect for national sovereignty led to a foreign policy that basically ignores the internal orientation of the regimes it is engaging with. This implies that whereas India might seem to be a natural ally to the EU in jointly promoting democratic structures in other parts of the world, this is not at all the case in practice. Also Brazil has given priority to intensifying relations with the South (including China, India, South Africa, and Africa in general) and countering Western dominance in the various international political and economic forums, rather than trying to influence the internal political and societal structures within third countries (Chaturvedi, Fues, and Sidiropolous 2012; Li and Carey 2014; Mawdsley, Savage, and Kim 2015; Hooijmaaijers and Keukeleire 2016; Nayyar2016). How does the EU relate to the largest emerging powers with regard to traditional issues of foreign and security policy, where diplomatic interaction and hard relational power are more important? Cooperation remains rather limited, notwithstanding occasional cases of coordination or cooperation, such as with China and India in the framework of the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and Western Indian Ocean (where the EU deployed its Common Security and Defence Policy operation 'EU Naval Force Atalanta'). The chances of coordinated or joined actions further diminished after the military operations led by the UK and France in 2011 against the Gaddafi regime in Libya, considered by the BRICS countries and other emerging powers as a breach of the UNSC resolution authorizing the protection of Libyan civilians to which they had agreed. The fallout was felt in the subsequent Syrian crisis when the BRICS countries blocked further Western military interference and vetoed (or abstained in) European-drafted UNSC resolutions calling for more assertive action against the Assad regime. In general, they became increasingly suspicious about the European countries using or abusing transformation processes or humanitarian crises in the Middle East or Africa as a pretext for military intervention and regime change (Chen 2012, 24; de Coning 2015; Van Ham 2015). A look at Asia provides a sobering perspective on the nature and relevance of the EU as a power in international relations. The EU's stance in Asia can in general be characterized by a perceived lack of European strategic interests. This is translated into the absence of a fully-fledged policy on, and sometimes simply into lack of attention for, some of the major conflicts and sources of instability in Asia-—conflicts in which India, China, and Russia are also involved. The EU has developed a very modest Afghanistan policy (including the training of Afghan soldiers and a contribution to the reconstruction efforts in that country) but hardly a policy towards the many other issues that are important for regional and global security and that affect China-India relations (e.g. competition in the Indian Ocean), China-USA relations (e.g. Taiwan), India-Pakistan relations (e.g. Kashmir), China's relationship with Japan and other neighbouring Asian countries (e.g. the South China Sea disputes), or the complex phenomenon of terrorism in Asia. 434 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn ism The EU-emerging powers' relationship and processes of global governance and multilateral The third perspective is on the EU as part of the wider processes of international relations, which refers to the legal, institutional, and political mechanisms through which the problems of international conflict and/or political economy are addressed. We frame this debate by referring to global governance and multilateralism. The main global governance institutions are the reflection of a US-European consensus, with the UN as the main framework to deal with global challenges. For security this is the UNSC, for economic and financial issues the World Bank (system) and the IMF, and for trade the WTO. The G7—including the four largest EU member states, the USA, Canada, Japan, and the EU—has equally been framed by the West as a global governance system based on economic power. However, the dominance of the USA and European countries in these institutions is increasingly problematic and particularly the position of the EU and its individual member states is disputed given major changes in the relative economic balance of power. The EU's view on global governance can best be captured by the 'effective multilateralism' doctrine (Laatikainen and j0rgensen 2013; Drieskens and van Schaik 2014). It is based on three fundamental elements. First, the EU prefers legally binding agreements or treaties as the outcomes and instruments of global coordination; second, the EU prefers multilateralism (in essence the UN system) over more limited (in terms of number of participants) arrangements; third, the EU does not consider the two previous points as an essential assault on national sovereignty. The EU and the BRICS countries (and the other emerging powers with which the EU established 'strategic partnerships') diverge strongly on a number of fundamental elements of global governance. The contents of the political declarations and agreements between the EU and these countries could indeed give the impression that they are indeed genuine 'partnerships for effective multilateralism' (Grevi and Vasconcelos 2008). However, the experience in the various multilateral settings demonstrates that they have a quite different view on exactly what multilateralism means and what the policy goals are that have to be achieved through multilateralism. The BRICS countries and other emerging powers have a preference for non-legally binding political commitments and generally start from a realist perspective on sovereignty, emphasizing non-interference as a core principle. This explains why also democrauc countries such as India, Brazil, and South Africa are not natural allies for the EU in promoting democracy and human rights through the UN or other multilateral forums, as also appears in their voting behaviour in the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council (K.E. Smith 2010; Hooijmaaijers and Keukeleire 2016). The current position of the BRICS in global governance is closely related to two fundamental critiques of the dominant governance institutions: they are not representauve of the global population and they do not reflect the fundamental changes in the world The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 435 since the strong surge of globalization in the 1990s and the changing balance of (economic) power in the world—which is even more the case since the breakout of the financial and related political crises in Europe since 2008 on. The EU has not been able to come to a common position or strategy to reform the global governance architecture. Diverging opinions between some of the largest member states (which hold strong positions in the UNSC, the G7/20, the World Bank, and the IMF) and the other EU members have been the main obstacles to the EU playing a larger role. Without a strong and clear strategic position, the EU has not succeeded in setting up a significant or successful dialogue with the BRICS and other emerging powers on this issue. Together with other factors explained earlier in this chapter, this also explains why the EU has not managed to use its 'strategic partnerships' with the BRICS as a group or with individual BRICS countries as a lever to strengthen and transform the global governance system— both in general (Rewizorski 2015; Wang and Song 2015) or with regard to specific policy fields such as energy governance (Knodt, Piefer, and Müller 2015) or climate change governance (Bruyninckx et al. 2013). The reluctance of the Europeans and the West to fundamentally reform the existent multilateral architecture also stimulated the emerging powers to establish or strengthen other multilateral frameworks centred around the BRICS countries and around the Asia-Pacific region in particular (see Figure 18.1) (Stubbs and Beeson 2012; Keukeleire and Hooijmaaijers 2014, 587-90). First, there is the increasing dialogue and cooperation both within the BRICS format (including the establishment in 2015 of the NDB) and within variations on the BRICS format, such as BASIC (between Brazil, South Africa, India, and China in 2009 to collaborate on climate change issues) and IBSA (consisting of the three democratic BRICS countries i.e. India, Brazil, and South Africa). Second, China, India, and Russia have also actively been promoting the multilateralization of their dialogues and trialogues, with several international forums emerging in which China, Russia, and/or India play a particularly important role. These include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (including Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and recently also India and Pakistan); the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation; the East Asia Summit (including China, India, together with other Asian countries as well as Australia and New Zealand); the ASEAN+3 process (including the ASEAN countries plus China, Japan, and Korea), and the related Chiang Mai Initiative (a multilateral currency swap arrangement launched in 2010). The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation has a wider geographical reach, linking the Asian countries with the USA and other countries on the American continent. The EU is linked to the Asian countries through two multilateral initiatives which date from the mid-1990s. ASEM—including all EU member states and ASEAN countries, the European Commission, and the ASEAN Secretariat—resulted in a process of regular dialogue and cooperation, but was less able than expected to put its stamp on region-to-region relations (Gilson 2011). This was even more true for the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in which also the EU as such takes part and which was launched to foster dialogue and confidence-building between its 27 members. Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? Important too for global geo-economic and geopolitical changes, and for Europe's position therein, are two more recent multilateral initiatives: the American-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the China-led 'One Belt, One Road' initiative Signed in 2016 (but not yet ratified) and including 12 countries (but excluding China), the FTA TPP was designed and promoted by the USA, countering not only the growing economic influence of China, but also competing with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership which the USA was then still negotiating with the EU (see Chapter 17 in this volume). Of a very different nature, but equally significant in terms of potential geo-economic and geostrategic consequences, was the Chinese 'One Belt, One Road' initiative and the China-led AIIB, which can be seen as countering the American goal to strengthen the transpacific and transatlantic trade links. The negotiations on the establishment of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (which were still going on in 2016), fits within this Chinese endeavour, as it would include the ten ASEAN countries and the six states with which ASEAN has existing FTAs (including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand). Interestingly, following the initiative of the UK also many other individual EU member states became in 2015 founding members of the AIIB. However, the EU as such did not become a member of the AIIB and was even not used by the EU member states as a framework of coordination or consultation on how to react to this Chinese strategic move (Renard 2012a). Concluding this tour de horizon of multilateral forums also the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union of Russia and four other former Soviet republics needs to be mentioned, as it was part of the power struggle between Russia and the EU (see Chapter 14 in this volume). The BRICS countries and other emerging powers increasingly use their new position in traditional and new multilateral settings as a platform to agree on how to tackle specific international challenges and negotiations (such as on the financial crisis or on environmental issues) and to subsequently try to promote their positions in other international forums. The most painful illustration of this phenomenon (at least for the EU) was probably the final stage of the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, when the EU—despite presenting itself as a leading actor in global climate negotiations—was isolated and marginalized as a result of the successful diplomatic initiatives led by China, India, Brazil, and South Africa (Keukeleire and Bruyninckx 2011, 389-390) (see also Chapter 12). Taken together, it is clear that—-just like the Europeans—the BRICS countries and emerging powers have made a clear choice for 'effective multilateralism', as they increasingly manage to influence or set the rules in these multilateral frameworks and use them to impact upon the world order and influence global and regional governance mechanisms in the way they prefer. Moreover, it is a choice for multilateralism based on fundamentally different principles. In terms of substance, they prioritize economic growth and development, with a larger reluctance to let these be restricted by environmental, social protection, human rights, or other concerns. And in terms of methodology, they prefer a clear intergovernmental approach, with full respect for national sovereignty and equality between states, and with a preference for non-binding rales and voluntary commitments (Keukeleire and Hooijmaaijers 2014, 591). Emerqinq power alliances and other multilateral FIGURE 18.1 frameawoarks EAS: East Asia Summit EAEU: Eurasian Economic Union IBSA: India, Brazil, South Africa RCEP: Regional Comprehensive Partnership SAARC: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation SCO: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation TPP: Trans-Pacific Partnership AIIB: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (the countries in Italic are members of the AIIB, together with Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, UAE) (some EU Member States are members of the AIIB). APEC: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ARF: ASEAN Regional Forum ASEAN: Association of South East Asian Nations ASEAN+3: ASEAN + Japan, Korea, China ASEM: Asia-Europe Meeting BASIC: Brazil, South Africa, India, China BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa CMI: Chiang Mai Initiative Source: Own design based on Keukeleire and Hooijmaaijers (2014, 588I. The information about the membership of the various organizations (anno 2016) is retrieved from the websites of these organizations 'Strategic Partners': Countries in bold have/had a 'Strategic Partnership' with the EU The question for the EU and the Europeans is how to react to these new and changing multilateral constellations, in which they play no role or only a limited role, or in which they at least have no leading position. The EU will have to invest much more time and energy in following and understanding the developments in the new or changing multilateral constellations as well as in external negotiations, ]l í: 438 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn The European Union, the BRICS, and Other Emerging Powers: A New World Order? 439 instead of the currently predominant internal negotiations and laborious decisionmaking. It has to invest in active strategic diplomacy, thereby also taking into account the interests and perceptions of these emerging powers in the formulation of its own' positions (and not only the interests and perceptions of its own member states and institutions), which is a far more complicated task than in the preceding context when the EU only had to take into account one power (the USA). Yet even then, the receptivity of the BRICS and other emerging powers might be low if they perceive the EU in the first instance as a competing but weakened trade bloc, and not as a positive, useful, and fully-fledged diplomatic partner. Whether the EU is capable of adapting its approach is doubtful at best, particularly as the largest EU member states may prefer to develop their own bilateral strategies towards the BRICS countries and emerging powers, in order to minimize the costs of the general European loss of power and, on the contrary, try to profit from the new dynamics and initiatives in other parts of the world. The approach adopted by the individual European countries in reaction to the Chinese initiative to create the AIIB is a case in point and may also be an indication of what is to happen even more in the future—with the result of the Brexit referendum further fuelling this tendency. Conclusion The EU currently has no BRICS or emerging powers strategy because of the various reasons mentioned so far in this chapter. Whether this is problematic is debatable. The BRICS and the other emerging powers are probably too different and the BRICS are too much of an ad hoc group to permit the development of a coherent strategy towards them. More problematic is therefore that the EU does not have a strategy to deal with the rise of the various emerging powers and the parallel decline of its own weight in international relations and global governance. This is mirrored in the elite, media, and public perceptions in the BRICS countries and the Asia-Pacific region, which indicate that the EU is perceived as a rather weak or problematic power, which also confirms the doubts about the importance of the 'strategic partnership' with the EU (Mayer and Zielonka 2012; Chaban and Holland 2013). The BRICS and emerging powers not only pose a challenge to the EU and its member states but also to the scholarly community in Europe. There exists a strong need to increase knowledge about these emerging powers and, even more importantly, to overcome the often predominant Eurocentric or Western-centric perspectives on foreign policy and global governance, and include perspectives and concepts from other, parts of the world. Limited thorough knowledge of the new multilateral constellations and of China, India, Brazil, and other emerging powers (surely in comparison with the USA)—both in the EU's and member states' foreign policy structures and in European universities and think tanks—is hampering the development of moie comprehensive views on possible dynamics, opportunities, and consequences of the global shift towards the East and the South. This points to the need to become aware of omissions in the academic debate and to take seriously the suggestions on how to bring forward academic research (see the suggestions in Bersick 2015, 625-6; Ferreira-Pereira 2015, 653-5; Wiilbers 2015, 640-2). It also emphasizes the need to decentre the analysis of the EU's international relations and to also look at EU-BRICS-emerging powers relations from a non-European perspective (Fisher Onar and Nicolaidis 2013; Keuleers, Fonck, and Keukeleire 2016). FURTHER READING Whereas the number of academic publications on both the rise of the emerging countries as such and on EU-China relations is booming, this is not at all the case concerning the EU's relations with the other emerging powers and the EU's relations with the BRICS countries and the emerging countries as a group. The only volume that focuses explicitly on the EU-BRICS relationship is the book edited by Rewizorski (2015), while the book edited by Renard and Biscop (2012) assesses the EU's relations with the emerging powers. The special issue of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs edited by Ferreira-Perei ra and Guedes Vieira (2016) evaluates the EU's strategic partnerships with the countries concerned, while the edited volume of M. Smith, Keukeleire, and Vanhoonacker (2016) takes the EU's strategic diplomacy towards these countries as its conceptual lens. Highly interesting and original is the book edited by Knodt, Piefer, and Müller (2015), in view of its analytical and methodological approach and its clear focus on the relationship of the EU and the emerging countries in one specific policy domain (i.e. energy governance). Equally in contrast to the large number of journal articles on EU-China relations is the limited attention devoted to relations with other emerging countries and with the group of BRICS countries and emerging countries as a whole. Exceptions include Hooijmaaijers and Keukeleire (2016), Keukeleire and Hooijmaaijers (2014), and Van Ham (2015). Ferreira-Pereira L.C. and Guedes Vieira, A.V. (eds) (2016) 'Strategic Partnerships of the EU. Conceptual Insights, Cases and Lessons', Special Issue of Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 29/1: 3-208. Hooiimaaijers, B. and Keukeleire, S. (2016) 'Voting Cohesion of the BRICS Countries in the UN General Assembly, 2006-2014: A BRICS Too Far?', Global Governance 22/3: 389-407. Keukeleire, S. and Hooijmaaijers, B. (2014) 'The BRICS and Other Emerging Power Alliances and Multilateral Organizations in the Asia-Pacific and the Global South: Challenges for the European Union and its View on Multilateralism', Journal of Common Market Studies 52/3:582-99. Knodt, M., Piefer, N., and Müller, F (eds) (2015) Challenges of European External Energy Governance with Emerging Powers (Farnham: Ashgate). Renard, T. and Biscop, S. (eds) (2012) The European Union and Emerging Powers in the 21st Century. How Europe Can Shape a New Global Order (Farnham: Ashgate). 440 Stephan Keukeleire andTom De Bruyn Rewizorski, M. (ed.) (2015) The European Union and the BRICS. Complex Relations mth<$4 Era of Global Governance (London: Springer). Smith, M., Keukeleire, S., and Vanhoonacker, S. (eds) (2016) The Diplomatic System 4f% the European Union: Evolution, Change and Challenges (London: Routledge), Part I 'The Challenge of Strategic Diplomacy'. Van Ham, R (2015) 'The BRICS as an ELI Security Challenge.The Case for Conservatism's! Clmgendae! Report, September, 39. WEB LINKS Information on the EU's relations with the BRICS countries can be found on the website of the Commission (http://ec.europa.eu/policies/external_relations_foreign _affairs| en.htm, http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/) ail Council of Ministers (http://www.consilium.europa.eu). See also the official govenf mental websites of the individual BRICS countries: http://www.mre.gov.br (BraaDJ http://eng.kremlin.ru iRussia): http://meaindia.nic.in/ (India); http://www.fmprci gov.cn/eng/ (China); http://www.dirco.gov.za/ (South Africa). More links to offiorl websites and references to academic literature can be found in the 'World powers' seetisj of the online resource guide 'Exploring EU Foreign Policy' hosted by the University A Leuven and the Antero Network (http://www.eufp.eu). An economic assessment of thfw BRICS is conducted regularly by Goldman Sachs (http://www2.goldmansachs.comi ideas/brics/index.html). Information on global governance and on the G20 can be fount! on the website of the World Economic Forum (https://www.weforum.org/) and the Gs| Research Group of the University of Toronto (http://www.g20.utoronto.ca). 19 Principles in European Union Foreign Policy Helene S/unen 20 Acting for Europe Reassessing the European Union s Role in International Relations Christopher Hill Michael Smith and Sophie Vanhoonacker