Speech by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at an event on “Integration, multilateralism and sovereignty: building a Europe fit for new global dynamics” organised by Bruegel

Brussels, 24 April 2023

Recent developments have raised the question of how geopolitics will affect global economic relations in the 21st century.^[1]

History suggests that the world is facing a trilemma, whereby peace, open trade and antagonistic political competition struggle to coexist. Open trade and peace can only be sustained if a stable political, economic and legal international order supported by common institutions offers a non-conflictual and enforceable way of dealing with disagreements.

This lesson was the basis for the creation of multilateral international institutions and European integration after the Second World War. They supported trade integration and facilitated access to capital, labour, natural resources and technology.

But in recent years severe…