EU Law in the Geopolitical Era

The EU’s quest for strategic autonomy calls for a consolidation of the Union as a polity. Such a consolidation brings about a new balance between openness and closure in the EU legal order. This article unravels the joint dynamics of re-bordering and de-bordering in EU law oriented at safeguarding the Union’s internal policy space from undue interferences and ensuring a level playing field in the internal market. In this context, EU law is mobilized to harness the political weight and market power of the Union vis-à-vis external players. The article describes the cross-competence nature of these dynamics whereby securitarian considerations inform diverse internal and external policy areas. The political novelty of this bordering through law principally lies in the upscaling at the EU level of public policy interests that would otherwise be considered to be the province of Member State actions. In that light, the article discusses the relational reconfiguration of the exercise of Member State powers in unitary frameworks of Union law and its sovereignty enhancement potential.