Resilience 2.0: Empowering the European Union towards 2040 and beyond

Resilience 2.0: Empowering the European Union towards 2040 and beyond

The EU's latest 2025 Strategic Foresight Report introduces the concept of "Resilience 2.0," a crucial shift towards proactive and forward-looking resilience to navigate today's unpredictable global landscape.

Since the first Strategic Foresight report in 2020, the global order has faced immense challenges ranging from geopolitical turmoil and geo-economic upheavals to the triple planetary crisis (encompassing climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss), technological shifts, and threats to democracy and societal values.

To address these complexities, the EU recognizes the urgent necessity of enhancing its resilience beyond mere crisis absorption, aiming instead for a transformative response capable of adapting and thriving in uncertain times.

The value of strategic foresight

The strategic foresight process acts as a vital tool in this undertaking, equipping the EU to identify emerging risks and seize future opportunities by scanning the horizon, reconsidering assumptions, and exploring diverse future scenarios. This approach supports EU policymaking by integrating foresight into strategic planning, enhancing long-term decision-making and ensuring policies remain robust and coherent under varying future conditions.

The EU's resilience is grounded in three essential pillars:

1. The capacity to maintain peace and security through military strength and readiness bolstered by whole-of-society engagement and strong global partnerships.
2. A steadfast commitment to fundamental values such as democracy, human dignity, equality, and the rule of law.
3. Policies which are designed to improve the well-being of all EU citizens, by offering economic security, quality employment, and sustainable prosperity.

Innovating for the future of Europe

To harness technological advancements for societal benefit, the EU assumes a leadership role in global governance for high-impact technologies, particularly AI and clean technologies. This ensures that innovation aligns with European values of dignity, fairness, and solidarity, while also establishing the EU as a world leader in ethical AI advancements. Amplifying internal and external security is another priority, focusing on protective measures against combined threats while upholding EU values.

Furthermore, the EU is committed to developing a coherent global vision, leveraging its position as a strong, stable, and reliable global player. This involves clear articulation of its principles, supporting the euro's international role, and fostering integration through accelerated EU enlargement. It also emphasises forming new partnerships based on shared interests, enhancing energy and economic security, and reforming multilateral institutions like the United Nations and World Trade Organization for a rules-based global order.

Safeguarding peace, democracy and well-being towards 2040

The foresight-informed policies aim not just to react to immediate crises but to embrace a multidimensional approach-proactively preparing for the longer term by anticipating potential threats and opportunities. This requires a collaborative, informed, and future-aware EU, empowered by strategic foresight to anticipate and mitigate risks, ensuring societal resilience against disinformation and other democratic threats in an increasingly complex global landscape.

With these strategies, the EU strives towards a resilient 2040 vision grounded in peace, democracy, and societal well-being, capable of thriving amid continuing global challenges. In doing so, it sets a course towards building a more secure, sustainable, and harmonious society for current and future generations.

Read a summary of the main findings of the Strategic Foresight Report 2025

Read the full Strategic Foresight Report 2025