The crisis of multilateralism: what can Europe do?

Joël Reland outlines the crises that multilateral systems and institutions now face, as well as what the UK and the EU can do to strenghten and reform them, ahead of our new report.

Among the many victims of the current turmoil in global politics has been the multilateral system. The interlocking set of international institutions and regimes – such as the UN, COP and WTO – which has for decades shaped the course of international affairs, now finds itself threatened by multiple crises.

For European powers, which have long relied on multilateral institutions to exert an outsized influence internationally, this is a critical threat to their interests. Our new report seeks to distil what those crises are and, in light of the recent UK-EU rapprochement, ask how the two sides might collectively respond.

The most longstanding challenge is that structures built in the aftermath of WWII look increasingly out-of-date. The same five powers (China, France, Russia, the UK and US) still hold a permanent veto at the UN Security Council, and their diverging worldviews make agreement impossible on many critical questions; while the closest thing to an international migration regime remains the UN Refugee Convention – signed in 1951.

If the foundations of multilateralism have been eroding for a while, then the second Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to them. The original guardian of the rules-based international order has become its chief antagonist. The United States has withheld funds from the UN and frozen official development assistance, leaving major funding gaps which could lead to 14 million preventable deaths by 2040. In addition, President Trump’s disregard for the rules of global trade and withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council, World Health Organization and Paris Agreement undermines the legitimacy of those systems, encouraging others to play fast and loose with the rules.

The UK and EU might appear obvious candidates to fill the leadership gap, but domestic policy concerns increasingly militate against this, with populist movements putting pressure on UK and EU governments to sacrifice international objectives in favour of domestic ones. Official development assistance is being cut to fund other priorities. Climate ambition is loosened on cost-of-living grounds. Refugee and human rights concerns are overlooked in efforts to reduce migration.

These dynamics are not lost on the rest of the world, with the UK and EU increasingly open to charges of hypocrisy. They hoarded vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic. They take a markedly firmer line against Russia’s war in Ukraine than Israel’s in Gaza. They ask the Global South to decarbonise while falling short on the necessary finance for it. They disregard global trade rules to cut deals with Donald Trump. And human rights abuses in other countries go unmentioned when there is a useful treaty to be signed.

This hypocrisy might not – from a purely realpolitik perspective – be such a problem if the United States still served as guarantor of the multilateral system: enforcing the rules in broad alignment with European interests. But in the Trump era, power is increasingly multipolar; Global South countries are forging new alliances – with the likes of China, Russia and the Gulf states – which carry increasing weight in international fora.

This all raises critical questions for the UK and EU about how to proceed. Should they try to revive ailing multilateral institutions? Or accept their demise, and instead pursue narrower national interests over common international ones? Our report concludes it is not necessarily a binary choice.

An all-out retreat from multilateralism would be a strategic misstep. The idea that the UK and EU can prioritise ‘domestic’ concerns over ‘international’ ones is erroneous. The clear lesson of recent history – whether it be the Covid-19 pandemic, the global energy crisis, or migration movements towards Europe – is that international and domestic affairs are deeply intertwined. To withdraw from the multilateral system is to reduce your ability to shape the course of events.

And though the multilateral system is damaged, it has not completely fallen apart. For all the challenges that beset the UN, development banks, or the COP system, they continue to drive progress internationally. And however long a shadow Donald Trump presently casts over the system, it is not – necessarily – a permanent one. A change in US leadership may present future opportunities to revitalise ailing institutions.

But any revival of the multilateral order cannot mean a return to the status quo ante. The inflexibility of the current architecture, and top-down governance dominated by the old Western order, must be reformed if multilateral institutions are to regain their credibility and effectiveness.

To address the crisis of legitimacy, there needs to be a greater voice – and decision-making powers – for the Global South in governance reform processes underway in arenas like the UN, development banks, and global health systems. The UK and EU will have to accept a reduction in their direct influence as a price for maintaining those institutions’ credibility. They will also need to put their money where their mouth is, maintaining their position as key financiers of these regimes, and backing up rhetorical commitments on climate finance with hard cash.

To address the crisis of effectiveness, there must be more openness to ad-hoc alliances between likeminded states where old institutions are no longer delivering. That means increased engagement with regional groupings like the African Union and Gulf Cooperation Council; as well as alliances like the V20 group of climate-vulnerable countries and the Bridgetown Initiative on reforming global financial architecture. The announcement at COP30 of a conference co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands on the just transition away from fossil fuels is a recent example of such creative multilateralism in action.

In sum, then, the UK and EU will have to do lots more with far less. If they have fewer resources to spend, they will have to use them more judiciously and efficiently. That might mean a more ‘à la carte’ approach to multilateralism – directing more resources to high-priority issues. It certainly requires more coordinated action on common causes (e.g. joint investment plans on development finance, international partnerships on critical mineral supplies, or new coalitions on climate priorities) to maximise impact.

The recently-inked UK-EU ‘Common Understanding’ contains multiple commitments to increasing dialogue on multilateral affairs. But those warm words are yet to be translated into action, and accelerating progress could be a focus at next year’s UK-EU summit.

After all, in a more unpredictable system, likeminded partners must work hand-in-glove to maximise their influence. And the UK and EU have no more likeminded partners than each other.

By Joël Reland, Senior Researcher, UK in a Changing Europe.