Belgium’s Approach to Contested Global Multilateralism: Hedging Between Integration and Outreach

Xia, Edouard
(2025) Reflecting on Belgium’s Strategic Orientations: Opportunities for a Niche-Based Approach in Defense and Foreign Policy — ISBN: [978-2-39061-634-4], p. 45-65, published

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Abstract
The resurgence of power politics within a fragmented multilateral system and an in-creasingly contested global order has reaffirmed the importance of national interest in Belgium’s foreign policy. The international environment is now dominated by coun-tries – referred to as the T25 by The Economist – that adopt transactional, opportun-istic, and pragmatic diplomatic approaches. The escalation of the war in Ukraine (Feb-ruary 2022) acted as a wake-up call, accelerating debates in Belgium on how to incor-porate a multidimensional approach to foreign policy. Although this aspect was never completely overlooked, there is now a growing recognition that the EU and multilater-alism have, at times, been treated as ends in themselves rather than as tools to safe-guard Belgium’s interests. This chapter aims to analyze the approaches shaping Belgium’s current foreign poli-cy to protect its foremost interest: promoting security, whether territorial, political, or economic. First, we outline the contested structure of contemporary multilateralism to sketch the evolving context in which Belgium finds itself. We question whether the UN-centered multilateral system truly is in crisis. We also analyze the dynamics of contestation from both within (US) and outside (Russia and China). We end this first section by reflecting on the role of the countries of the South and the switch from global multilateralism to multi-multilateralism. Next, we assess the impact of these de-velopments on Belgium’s traditional foreign policy. The analysis is divided into two parts: first, we examine what we label a defensive approach, centered on supporting regional and global integration; second, we explore an offensive approach, focused on strengthening bilateral relations with key partners beyond the Western sphere. Finally, we conclude by evaluating the need for a clear roadmap to better articulate these ap-proaches.
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Xia, E. (2025). Belgium’s Approach to Contested Global Multilateralism: Hedging Between Integration and Outreach. In Edouard Xia, Marion Jacques, Julien Godfroid, Tanguy Struye de Swielande (ed.), Reflecting on Belgium’s Strategic Orientations: Opportunities for a Niche-Based Approach in Defense and Foreign Policy (Presses Universitaires de Louvain, p. p. 45-65). Presses Universitaires de Louvain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/260981