The show must go on: The EU's quest to sustain multilateral institutions since 2016
本文基于对欧盟机构和成员国高级官员的访谈，考察了欧盟自2016年以来如何通过防御、改革和扩展三种机制来维持多边机构，发现其在暂时防御上较成功，但在改革和扩展上基本失败。
Abstract Multilateralism is in crisis. States increasingly contest, undermine and even withdraw from international organisations and other multilateral institutions. Challenges emanate not only from emerging powers but also from established Western states and civil society. No other actor but the EU is more intimately entangled with multilateralism. This article therefore reviews to what extent and how the EU has actively sustained multilateral institutions since 2016. It identifies three types of mechanisms: the defence, reform and extension of multilateral institutions. Based on interviews with senior officials in the EU institutions and the member states, the article finds that the EU has proven to be rather successful in temporarily defending existing institutions. However, it largely failed to reform multilateral institutions and extend multilateral institutions to new areas. In doing so, the article contributes to our understanding of the EU as a foreign policy actor and the processes of the crisis of multilateralism.