What European “Power”?

Abstract

A few years ago people were scrutinising the “enigma of European power”, the key to which they thought was “power through norms”. Currently we would rather tend to wonder about the “enigma of European impotence”. Of course the first explanation of this contrast can be found in the economic and financial crisis, in the failure of European States to meet the standards they themselves had enacted and in the differences found within their Union. However a good introduction to the ambiguity of the idea of power can also be observed.