What would the ‘United States of Europe’ look like in this changing world? Reflections on the IEPG

The catching-up process of several emerging economies and the crisis in the United States and Europe have also had implications for their global presence: the IEPG shows that Western countries keep on losing positions in the global scene. However, if the European Union were to count as a single country, it would top the world in terms of global presence. The economic divergence and concentration that characterise the European Union are also apparent in terms of intra-European presence: in general terms, the old members have more ‘presence gains’ than the newcomers. Lastly, the IEPG shows that the weaknesses of Spanish external insertion call for a new foreign action strategy.