A final part of the re-ordering puzzle relates to the war's impact on European conceptions of economic order. Although this is an indirect impact and not so central to the conflict as the matters covered by other chapters, it is still significant in its importance and worthy of examination. The war has reinforced concerns about changes to economic order that have become prominent over the past several years. The fact that it has impacted the economic realm and not just issues related directly to security shows how deep the process of European re-ordering could extend. In effect, two order-related challenges have intensified together: a politico-security one in Europe, and a geoeconomic one within the wider international economic order. While this book is not concerned with economic or trade policy as such, these areas condition the link between the conflict and the core issue of European order.

The war has added dramatically to the priority that European governments attach to economic security. The postwar European order will be one that is rooted in different forms of economic order, interdependence and geoeconomics. The emergence of a geoliberal Europe can be seen in European powers adopting an increasingly political approach to their economic interests and leverage. This shift brings the foundations of economic order more into line with mounting uncertainties that beset geopolitical order. However, at least some European economic policies still tilt towards a narrow or defensive mercantilism that does not serve a systemic and balanced geoliberal approach to postwar re-ordering. The heightened priority now given to economic sovereignty is both an important pillar of geoliberal Europe and a potential challenge to fully strategic geoliberalism.

COMPETITIVE GLOBALISM

In the several years before the war, the EU had already been shifting to a more mercantile external economic strategy – driven in particular by Chinese commercial dominance. The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a raft of initiatives aimed to reduce European dependencies on global supply chains. The significance of the Ukraine war is that it has magnified these prior policy concerns and has become entangled with a much wider range of underlying geoeconomic patterns of re-ordering.

In the decade prior to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the EU had gradually adopted a more controlled and strategically transactional model of economic order. After the financial and economic crisis hit Europe from 2009, the EU more tightly conditioned other powers’ access to European markets.