-The answers Europe gives to the challenges it has to face will shape its future, which will occur on a global scale. This unprecedented regional organization, because of its degree of integration and the diversity of its ambitions, Europe is the target of contradictory diagnoses and interpretations. Should we and can we talk of a European power? That could, according to a definition of this notion, have the ability to impose its will on others. Can we measure this power with regard to usual criteria? Criteria of economic, commercial and financial performance? Of political influence, often based on military capabilities? Or of the cultural influence and attraction of a cultural model, sometimes summarized by the notion of "soft power". Europe is not a state. Therefore, we have to compare its performances with other regional centers that form today's world politics. Here, we have to judge the assets and weaknesses of Europe. Its achievements and failures in current world politics. If said European power exists, the examination of its characteristics reveals major discrepancies, suitable to comfort optimist and declinist arguments. To determine Europe's position, role and influence in the world, we have to keep in mind that it is composed of many sovereign states, that have pooled a portion of their sovereignity. Thus, the evaluation of its power falls under the changing relations between the whole and its parts. Europe, as an association of states, is now equipped with power attributes, some of which are underestimated and others still in the making. Nowadays, when we hear about an European decline, a risk of marginalization of Europe before its global competition, an old story for that matter, it may be because Europe's resources are not enough or ineffectively exploited for globalization. We sometimes hear that the 2008 financial then economic crisis revealed structural weaknesses in Europe that slowed down the getting out of crisis. What will happen over time? Europe as a whole is the first economic and commercial center in the world. It has to maintain its competitiveness and its innovative capacities to stay at this position. Nowadays, Europe has a few weaknesses. Europeans are getting fewer and fewer. The share of Europeans in global population has reduced in the last fifty years, like in Japan and the United States. Asia boasts two heavy demographics, India and China, but Africa demonstrates the highest population growth. Europe is less populated but it is wealthier. It sums up a tendency that geographers have called "golden decline", where the growth of available wealth per inhabitant remains solid. Europe is still the first center of economic power in the world, all in all, the crisis did not really affect this position. Like the USA, Europe gathers 19% of the global GDP. It remains the first center of world trade, in spite of loss-making exchanges with Asia and CIS. Lastly, will Europe keep its position as a heavyweight of economic and financial globalization? We can note a drop in Europe's competitiveness in global economics and a relative downturn in European investments in research and innovation compared with the efforts of Asian powers. Thus, Europe's economic power is undeniable, even if global economic governance tends to include more and more emerging or emerged powers, demonstrated by the creation of the G20. However, is Europe really a global actor? To talk of European power, we have to evaluate European Union's ability to make itself heard in global affairs, disclose its priorities and even impose them. Is Europe only trying to defend values, or to improve and defend its interests. What are these interests? Is the European area still attracting men and investments? The so-called "realistic" analysis of International Relations often measures power firstly with the calculation of military capabilities. In absolute terms, Europe realizes 18% of Defense's global expenses. The United States account for 40%. Recent evolutions show a significant decline in Europe's Defense expenses. Whereas, in Russia and China, they notably increased. For 20 years, Europe has built a common security and defense policy, but its deployability do not reflect the volume of its equipment. Europe remains an emerging military capability, whose credibility is limited by many facts. Firstly, national decision's supremacy in Defense and Foreign Policies. Then, the lack of a clear doctrine expressing Europe's interests, which was not renewed since the 2003 European Security Strategy. Lastly, governance doubts, notably between European Defense and NATO. As a consequence of these limitations, the European Union remains a modest military actor on a global scale. It is mainly engaged in peacekeeping or post-conflict operations in its peripheral regions, Africa or Central Asia. Taking into account the last French and British operations in Libya, or French operations in Mali and in Central African Republic, they resulted from a national decision without including other Europeans. To illustrate how Europe tries to show its influence on a global scale, let us compare how Europe and China manage their relations with Africa. Is it because of the development aid that the European Union can have influence in the world? Nowadays, Europe is the world's first donor of development, especially towards Africa, notably because of its colonist past. This development aid is often conditioned by political or democratic reforms. China also developed an investment and development policy based on the strict pursuit of its strategical interests, without any condition. Two things come to light. Firstly, in a few fields, the idea of a marginalization of Europe in global affairs needs to be put into perspective. Then, it seems that Europe does not have, or not yet, all classic attributes of power, because of its governance method. Nevertheless, if Europe stayed at the top for the last fifty years, however marked by the drop in status of previous great European power like France or the United Kingdom, it is precisely thanks to the economic and political integration movement that is still going on. Considering Europe's weight to the global population, and its share in global GDP since 1950, we can say that "community Europe" remained at the same position. The successive enlargement of Europe allowed it to reach and maintain a critical mass, 500.000 million inhabitants, 20% of global wealth, mandatory to be important in global affairs. Even though Europe's enlargement seems to be slowing down, the extension of the eurozone is still continuing since only 18 of the 28 states are currently using the single currency. The success and credibility of euro as a global currency is an undeniable power factor. Euro is the second reserve currency and represents close to a fourth of exchange reserves. Is the will to call the European Union a "normative power" contradictory? Sometimes also called "civil power". This defines the capacity of Europe for influencing its economic or geopolitical environment by trying to generalize behavioral rules that could potentially apply to other states. These rules, according to the definition of specialist Zaki Laïdi, are negotiated rather than imposed, legitimated by international bodies and binding on every state without exception. In the commercial, environmental, and development aid fields, Europe's partners know they have to cope with its regulatory environment often more demanding than their own. The notion of "normative power" is debatable. Europe's capacity to impose its norms to the rest of the world seems to be slowing down since a few years. This was seen at the 2009 Copenhagen Conference on climate change. The European failed to convince its American and Chinese partners to renegotiate an International Agreement on climate. However, the successful enlargement of the European Union on Central and Western Europe is a concrete demonstration of the European Union's normative power on its nearest outskirts. To conclude, far from being marginalizing, Europe has some serious power attributes. However, it is an incomplete power. Europe remains a major economic and financial actor in the world. But is also a minor diplomatic and military actor in the world, yet more and more credible in its near periphery. Europe is an atypical actor in international relations, because it favors compromise and contract over power ratio. We have to discover if this European contractualism is part of its attractiveness. Then, how can we conceptualize Europe's influence over the world? Composite indicators used in cartography do not always reflect perceived reality but they help distinguish spaces that can be represented on a map. Europe's influence is maximal in its immediate periphery, a curve including Turkey, North Africa and Western Balkans. It is also strong in a vast ring from West Africa to Russia, but excluding the Eastern countries, from the post-Soviet area to the Persian Gulf. Emerged countries like India and Brazil are significantly influenced by Europe, where it stays low in other developed countries in North America, Japan or Australia with minimal values in East Asia. Thus, it is on this Asian axis: China, Korea, Southeast Asia, that lay down the biggest challenges for the European power.
