‘Europe and the Rest’ in Official EU Discourse: Legitimising ‘Geopolitical Europe’ Through the ‘Jungle’ Analogy and Beyond
Journal: JCMS Journal of Common Market Studies
Year: 2025

Abstract This article critically assesses how the European Union (EU) constructs the identities of ‘EU‐Europe’ and ‘the rest of the world’ to legitimise the formation of a ‘geopolitical Europe’. It draws on poststructuralist and postcolonial perspectives within the spirit of scholarly allyship, deconstructing texts produced by key EU officials – Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and Josep Borrell – between 2019 and 2023. The article manifests how civilisational binaries are employed to justif