From Geopolitics to Geoeconomics

Supporting regional integration has become acornerstone of the European Union's relations with other regionalgroupings across the world. The policy has evolved considerably frommodest beginnings in the 1980s to increasing commitments in bothquantitative and qualitative terms in more recent years. This studyexamines the motivations that underpin this policy evolutiondrawing on rich evidence from EU interregional relations withMercosur the Andean Community and Central America. By carefully tracingEU support for regional integration from the 1980s until todayTobias Lenz argues that the underlying policy motivations of relevant EUactors have shifted from considerations of geopolitics to ageoeconomic impetus. This development has been accompanied by andinteracted with a strategic rivalry with the United States. This studyis of interest to students of EU external relations and comparativeregionalism.