Institutional arrangements and international agreements consolidated and created since 1945 for global economic governance are facing new challenges and opportunities in the light of newly industrialised and emerging economies. This paper examines how the governance of global economic institutions might develop in the years to 2020 given the entrance of these new actors into a system that used to be dominated by Western European and North American interests. It also examines the new roles of the EU in this.
 
In some cases existing structures are being challenged as a direct result of the food, fuel and financial crises which erupted in 2008, the ramifications of which are still ongoing. In other cases, we draw attention to how new forms of global economic cooperation are arising, and existing governance structures being reinforced with new actors making full use of the rights provided to them. We discuss the evolution of the G20, the IMF, WTO, and the UNFCCC.
 
New forms of cooperative relationships towards global economic governance are unlikely to evolve unless the structures, objectives and norms of these institutions are better aligned with the preferences of emerging powers. This provides the EU, which also accommodates divergent economic interests across its member states, with a role to facilitate the progress towards a multi-polar world that seeks cooperation in order to advance its own interests. Read the full working paper