The end of the unipolar moment, underlined by the American fiasco in Iraq and by the ascendancy of China, Brazil and India, raises again questions about the structure of the global system and how Europe fits within it.

After the end of the cold war and with the accelerating pace of globalisation, Europeans were inclined to believe that greater economic inter­dependence would emasculate the power of nation states. The inter­national system instead entered a peculiar period in which rising countries coexist, and there has been a return to a power politics framed by the US, China, India, Brazil and Russia. This baroque situation constitutes a challenge for Europe, which is better suited to dealing with intensified interdependence than with power politics. In such a context, what are the possibilities for Europe to influence the global system?