In an exclusive interview with CEBRI, the KU Leuven Professor analyzes geopolitical challenges and the search for new paths for international cooperation.
Against the backdrop of an international scenario marked by growing uncertainty and the need to re-evaluate cooperation dynamics, the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI) promoted the restricted meeting “Transatlantic Relations in Turbulent Times”.
In this context, Professor Jan Wouters, from KU Leuven and a leading authority in international law, granted an exclusive interview to Augusto Castro, Senior Fellow and Head of the Extra-Regional Trade Negotiations Unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) and negotiator for the Mercosur–EU Agreement, and to Ambassador Roberto Jaguaribe, International Advisory Board Member of CEBRI. The conversation addressed the complexity of contemporary foreign policy, the growing uncertainty caused by the foreign policies of major powers, and the search for new models of cooperation and global governance.
Jan Wouters is Full Professor of International Law and International Organizations, Jean Monnet Chair ad personam EU and Global Governance, and founding Director of the Institute for International Law and of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, an interdisciplinary research centre with the status of both a Jean Monnet and KU Leuven Centre of Excellence, at KU Leuven. He is also Administrator of the America Europe Fund.
(https://ghum.kuleuven.be/ggs/people/00010135)
The following is the interview given to CEBRI in April 2026.
How ready is the EU for the current geopolitical situation? In which areas should it concentrate its main efforts to adapt to the changing international environment?
The European Union is more aware of the gravity of the geopolitical moment than it was a few years ago, but it is still only partially ready. There has been real movement on defence readiness, joint capability development, military mobility, and financing instruments such as SAFE, alongside the broader “Readiness 2030” agenda. Yet the essential problem remains that Europe’s strategic culture and industrial base still lag behind the scale of the threats it faces. The EU is no longer geopolitically naïve, but it is not yet geopolitically fully equipped.
I believe the EU’s main efforts with a view of the current geopolitical situation should concentrate on five areas. First, it must build credible defence capabilities at European scale, not simply by spending more, but by spending together and European. Second, it must strengthen its economic security through industrial policy, resilient supply chains, energy security, and access to critical raw materials. Third, it must improve decision-making speed and coherence in foreign and security policy. Fourth, it must continue robust support for Ukraine, because the security of Ukraine is inseparable from the security order of Europe. Fifth, it must invest more seriously in partnerships with the Global South, where geopolitical influence is increasingly contested.
From a European perspective, readiness is not only military. It is also legal, institutional, technological, and societal. The Union’s comparative advantage is precisely that it can combine market power, regulatory power, diplomatic reach, and legal legitimacy. The challenge now is to convert that latent strength into strategic effectiveness.
How do you see the future of the WTO in the short, medium and long term? Do you believe the current increase of the “spaghetti bowl” of trade agreements will be helpful, or will it create additional obstacles to a return to a multilateral trading system?
I believe that in the short term, the WTO will survive, but it will continue to struggle. MC14 in Yaoundé showed that the organization is not dead, yet it also confirmed that reform remains incomplete and that key issues, especially dispute settlement, are still unresolved. The Appellate Body remains non-functioning, even though members continue to discuss reform and some have relied on interim arrangements such as the MPIA.
In the medium term, I expect a more fragmented but still relevant WTO. Its monitoring, transparency, committee work, and convening functions will remain important. The organization may also continue to advance through plurilateral initiatives and issue-specific coalitions rather than through grand multilateral bargains. That is not the ideal vision of multilateralism, but it is preferable to paralysis.
In the long term, much depends on whether the major powers return to the view that legal constraint is preferable to unmanaged trade conflict. If they do, the WTO can still be renewed. If they do not, the system will drift toward a thinner model in which the WTO may become gradually less important or even fade away – which I sincerely hope will not happen.
As for the “spaghetti bowl” of trade agreements, it is both a symptom and a possible bridge. It can certainly create complexity through overlapping rules, different standards, and uneven preferences. But in today’s circumstances, bilateral and regional agreements also preserve habits of rules-based cooperation, keep markets open, and allow experimentation in areas where the WTO is blocked. So I would not dismiss them. The real question is whether they remain outward-looking and WTO- compatible, or whether they harden into rival blocs. From a European point of view, they should be designed as building blocks for renewed multilateralism, not substitutes for it.
Could a more pragmatic and realist foreign policy be detrimental to the promotion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law?
Yes, it could be detrimental if pragmatism becomes an alibi for cynicism. A foreign policy that is purely transactional risks hollowing out the European Union’s identity and credibility. Europe cannot defend a rules-based international order abroad if it treats values as optional whenever power politics make them inconvenient.
That said, a more pragmatic foreign policy need not mean abandoning principles. The real task is to reconcile interests and values more intelligently. In practice, this means prioritising, sequencing, and choosing instruments carefully. Sanctions, trade, development cooperation, conditionality, and political dialogue should not be seen as separate compartments; they should be part of one coherent strategy. A mature European foreign policy should be principled without being doctrinaire, and realistic without becoming morally indifferent.
Indeed, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law are not luxuries to be defended only in calm times. They are part of Europe’s strategic interest. A world in which these norms erode is not only less just; it is less stable and less safe for Europe itself.
What would be your main scenarios for global governance in the next decade?
My first scenario is managed fragmentation. In this scenario, multilateral institutions survive, but power is exercised increasingly through flexible coalitions, minilateral clubs, regional arrangements, and informal networks. This is, in my view, the most likely scenario. Global governance would become less universal and more variable in geometry.
My second scenario is bloc-based rivalry with selective cooperation. Here, geopolitics would be dominated by systemic competition among major powers and aligned economic spaces, but cooperation would continue where mutual vulnerability is undeniable, for example on climate, health security, financial stability, maritime security, and some digital standards. This would be a less ambitious order, but not an entirely anarchic one.
My third scenario is renewed institutional multilateralism, which is the most desirable but presently the least likely. For this to happen, the major powers would need to conclude that unmanaged fragmentation is too costly. Under that scenario, institutions such as the UN, WTO, and international financial institutions would be reformed and given renewed authority.
My fourth, and most worrying, scenario is normative erosion: a world in which law remains valid on paper but loses operational force, because coercion, unilateralism, and selective compliance become the dominant habits of state behaviour. From a European perspective, that is the scenario to resist most strongly, because Europe’s security and prosperity depend disproportionately on effective rules and institutions.
How do you see the recently signed EU–Mercosur Economic Partnership Agreement? Do you believe it will provide a framework for deepening political ties and economic integration between the two blocs?
I see the EU–Mercosur agreements as strategically of crucial important and long overdue. As you know, the political agreement was reached on 6 December 2024, the Council greenlit signature in January 2026, and the package now frames a broader partnership combining political dialogue, cooperation, trade, and investment, with provisional application of the interim trade agreement beginning on 1 May 2026 after the required procedures.
I do believe the agreements can deepen both political ties and economic integration, provided they are implemented seriously and not treated merely as a tariff-cutting exercise. Its importance lies not only in market access, but in inter-regional trust- building at a time when both Europe and South America have an interest in diversifying partnerships and defending an international rules-based order. The Council itself presented the agreements as a modernised and comprehensive framework that would create the world’s largest free-trade area, covering more than 700 million people.
However, one should remain sober. The agreements will not automatically dissolve political differences, nor will they silence concerns in Europe over agriculture, sustainability, and implementation. Their success will depend on whether both sides use them to sustain political dialogue, environmental cooperation, and regulatory convergence. In other words, they can be a framework for deeper ties, but only if accompanied by genuine political commitment.
Do the new policy orientations put forward by the United States represent primarily a challenge for the EU? Do they also create an opportunity to foster greater internal cohesion in the EU and a more clearly defined European position on major global issues?
They are first of all a challenge. The United States remains Europe’s indispensable ally, especially in security terms, and the transatlantic economic relationship remains vital for us. But recent US tariff measures, the 2025 tariff escalation, and the eventual EU-US framework deal have underlined a structural reality: even close allies may increasingly pursue hard-edged industrial and trade policies in ways that put pressure on Europe.
Yet precisely because of that, these US policy shifts also create an opportunity for Europe. They compel the Union to clarify what strategic autonomy should really mean: not separation from the United States, but the capacity to act, produce, defend, and decide with greater self-reliance. If handled wisely, American pressuren can serve as a catalyst for more internal cohesion, more investment in common goods, and a more explicit European doctrine on trade, technology, defence, and global governance.
The key is not to fall into either anti-Americanism or dependence. Europe should seek a mature transatlantic partnership: cooperative where interests converge, firm where they diverge, and always anchored in a clear European understanding of its own interests and values. In that sense, the American turn is both a warning and an opportunity.
