Abstract
In 2021, the Indo-Pacific suddenly and unexpectedly rose on top of the foreign policy agenda of the European Union (EU). The publication of the EU’s Indo Pacific Strategy (henceforth ‘Strategy’) in September 2021 showed that the EU considers the region of great geopolitical interest with important security challenges. The Strategy laid down the EU’s policy preferences and at the same time was an instance of signaling to various audiences. We argue in this paper that the EU, as a regional organization with intergovernmental and supranational elements, signals as well, albeit differently. We sketch what have been the most effective signals of the EU’s interests in the Indo-Pacific since the launch of the Strategy, as well as some of the limitations. We focus on the EU’s naval strategy and related signaling such as the EU Maritime Strategy. First, because a free and open Indo-Pacific (which the naval strategy aims to underpin) is a necessary condition to achieve many of the other European policy objectives. Secondly, because the EU’s naval strategy directly shapes the maritime security interests of countries in the region as well as external great powers.
Panel: Maritime security in the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives from the EU