Современные вызовы для публичной дипломатии ЕС

Современная Европа. 2022. № 6(113). С. 51–66.

Marchukov A.

This article exposes internal and external challenges for EU public diplomacy. The first group of challenges include difficulties in establishing a dialogue with a foreign audience, budget and staffing shortages; lack of relevant indicators for measuring public diplomacy. The second one consists of the impact of COVID-19 on the public diplomacy practice, EU competition with some great powers, aggressive advocacy campaigns of Russia and China against Brussel, anti-Europeanism as a reaction to the colonial policy of European states and the current foreign policy efforts of the EU.

The article argues that most of the external threats are surmountable for the EU. Moreover, many of them have helped the EU become more resilient to external shocks by initiating a search for new approaches and methods of public diplomacy. In contrast, the internal flaws of the existing EU public diplomacy raised the question of the effectiveness of EU public diplomacy in the modern world. The author concludes that today's EU public diplomacy is not very prepared to achieve global foreign policy targets including through listening. Its viability will largely depend on the desire and ability of European political elites to correct the existing shortcomings in existing institutional structure.

Keywords: внешняя политика, foreign policy, European Union, public diplomacy, soft power, публичная дипломатия, культурная дипломатия, цифровая дипломатия, cultural diplomacy, digital diplomacy, «мягкая сила», международные обмены, international exchanges, Европейский союз