The European Union: Is Europe a superpower? Will Europe ever be a superpower?

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,7, Bond University Australia, language: English, abstract: 'In just 50 years, Europeans have made war between European powers unthinkable; European economies have closed the gap with the US; and Europe has brought successive waves of countries out of dictatorship and into democracy' (Leonard 2005). Due to the enormous achievements the European Union (EU) brought to its member states, the question of whether the EU is a superpower right now or if it will become a superpower in the future has been and continues to be discussed. In 2002, the then-president of the European Commission stated 'that one of the EU's chief goals is to create a superpower on the European continent that stands equal to the United States' (Kupchan 2003, p.211). This essay aims to answer the question if the EU has reached this chief goal.