The european Union in the globalization

The European Union in the globalization

The European Union is a power area which is in the center of the globalization and the world trade. It has a powerful sea front which is called the “Northern Range” which allow the EU to be globally open on the rest of the world.

 First of all, I will present the European Union as a major actor and a major pole of the globalization and all trades establish within the EU. Then, I will present the main assets and main weaknesses of this trade area for companies.

1. The European Union, a major pole and actor of the globalization

1. An attractive economic space

The European Union is one of the three major pole of the world which are: North America, East Asia and Europe. The EU is the first worldwide market, it realizes more of the half of the worldwide exportations and importations. Contrarily to the United-States, the part of its exports out of the area remain important (around 17%) and stable. The European Union has strong and privileged commercial relations with the other main actor of the world trade, and more and more with the emerging countries such as China, India or Brazil. The European Union benefits of a domestic market of more than 500 millions of people with a high purchasing power, highly productive and highly qualified. The “Euro” currency remain also stable and is the second major currency in the world behind the US Dollar.

Furthermore, the EU is the first transmitter and receiver of FDI (Foreign Direct Investment). It’s also the second agricultural power in the world and industrial giant in term of High Technology. The European Union has also an important tertiary sector (more than 70% of the jobs and the GDP). That is to say that the EU is a major economic space in the heart of important commercial and financial flows concentered in two major worldwide cities.

The European Union has two world cities, London and Paris, which concentrate functions of very high level, an important international influence and major centers of impulse of the globalization. The European big cities also have a global influence on the political point of view (Brussels, headquarter of the European Parliament), economic, financial (they concentrate the head offices of the big multinationals, and the international stock exchange as the Euronext and the London Stock Exchange) or cultural (Paris, Prague, Milan, etc.). These cities are integral parts of the world megalopolitan archipelago: all the biggest metropolises of the EU have privileged relations, closely connected by a whole diverse communications network and concentrating functions of commandment, which make it an important center of impulse. The big cities of the European Union (from London to Turin) concentrate more than 60 % of the activities and the strongest density of population. They are all connected between them and with the other cities of the world by important infrastructures of communication thanks to major airports as Heathrow (London), Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle (Paris) or Frankfurt, which are big hubs of communication and transport.

The European Union is thus an attractive space for migratory flows. Indeed, it regroups democratic countries with high standard of living where the population benefits of high average wages and from a good social security cover (in particular the Western European countries). The internal migratory flows of the Eastern countries towards the western countries are important: People from countries of the Schengen area can thus circulate freely inside the European borders. But Europe also attracts migrants' flows come from the poor countries of the South to find a job or from the Middle East due to civil war and to the Arabic Revolution (Syria, Irak…). These last years, the European Union tended to close its borders to the least qualified migrants and to favor a chosen " immigration " of highly qualified people coming from poor countries which suffer from the "brain drain". The migrations are important because they insure 2/3 of the European population growth, around 70% [1]. The European Union also attracts important flows of visitors because it remains the main tourist world zone.

1. The European Union, an influential center of impulse with limits

The European Union is a leading player at the heart of the globalization from a political and economic point of view. Several countries of the European Union play an important role in big international institutions as France and The United Kingdom in the United Nations Security Council or the International Monetary Fund (the presidency is regularly European). Numerous European countries are members of G 20. The European countries develop also some privileged relations with their former colonies in Africa, in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

With the extension of the European Union over the years, the European countries set up a vast single market where the people and goods can circulate freely (Schengen area). These exchanges were facilitated by the implementation of the Eurozone in 1999. This policy of integration allows the EU, industrial and agricultural power, to face the competition of two other centers of impulse of the planet: The United States and Japan, emergent powers as China, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa (BRICS). Those countries are also members of regional organizations such as the MERCOSUR, the ASEAN, and the NAFTA (North American Alliance of free trade) which are the most important competitors of the European Union.

However, the European Union has its own weaknesses. Firstly, the European Union is more an association of independent countries than a whole Union, which do not hesitate to privileged their own interests rather than those of the Union. This situation causes some problems: the lack of political union is the major weakness of the European Union because the European major powers do not always speak with a single voice. In order to illustrate that point we can take the example of the BREXIT during the month of June 2016 were the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union thanks to a national referendum, this exit from one of the most powerful country of the Union proved that the European Union remains fragile.

Secondly, the level of debts of the European countries is also an important element of fragility, mostly because the countries with the higher debt are the major actor of the EU such as Italy, France, Germany, Spain [2].

Finally, from a demographic point of view, the ageing of its population due to the “Baby-Boom” generation risks to be expensive for the EU, both in loss of dynamism and in healthcare costs what can establish a threat for the European social model in general [3].

1. A world sea cost called the “Northern Range"

1. The second sea cost of the world

The European Union is an important area of power and recognized as a world market of numerous flows of goods and consumer goods which transit by sea route thanks to its most important sea cost also called the Northern Range. This powerful sea cost receives 80 % of the imports of the EU. This maritime facade spreads out from Le Havre to Hamburg with more than 1 000 km. Furthermore, it is a very important hub of communications where transit an important traffics of containers where the port of Rotterdam is the most efficient of Europe with 466,6 millions of ton only for the year 2015 which ranked this port at the ninth place in the world’s ports.

...