The European Union: Caught Between the United States and China
The United States and the European Union (EU) are now both in agreement regarding China – long viewed benevolently – as a systemic rival in the international order.
Despite this consensus, their interests differ with regard to Beijing, with the EU intending to maintain a degree of a partnership approach in its relations with China. However, the EU will have an impact in Indo-Pacific only if it develops long-term strategies there, backed up by tangible means.
Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, secretary-general of the Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe, is a former European Union Ambassador to China.
Article published in Politique étrangère, Vol. 86, No. 3, Autumn 2021.
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The European Union: Caught Between the United States and China
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Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe (ÖFZ)
The Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe (ÖFZ/CFA) is a Franco-Austrian intergovernmental organization, initiated in 1976 by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, in order to develop economic relations between Western and Eastern Europe, contributing to the creation of a Europe of peace.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ÖFZ/CFA refocused its action on the problems following the enlargement of the European Union, and integrated the following countries in its field of activities : Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, the Baltic countries, Romania and Bulgaria. ÖFZ/CFA's vocation, as a space for reflection and exchange, is in fact reinforced by the need to support the new member countries of the Union in their integration process. Since 2004, the ÖFZ/CFA has also turned towards the Union's new neighbors, in particular towards the countries of the Western Balkans, which perceive their future from a European perspective.
The ÖFZ/CFA strives to place all of its exchanges in a global perspective concerning the future of our continent. Today it centers its activities around three directions: the Franco-Austrian bilateral dialogue, the future of the European Union, the future recomposition of the continent.
Reports of all events organized by the ÖFZ/CFA are available on its website (http://oefz.at). The ÖFZ/CFA's budget is provided by the French and Austrian foreign ministries. Depending on the themes addressed, the ÖFZ/CFA calls on European public and private institutions to help finance its meetings. The CFA's orientations benefit from the recommendations of an Orientation Council, approved by a Board of Directors, which elects from among its members a president and a secretary general.
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