Mark Leonard
Mark Leonard (b. 1974) is a British political scientist. He co-founded in 2007 the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), of which he is executive director. He was previously director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, and director of the Foreign Policy Centre. He writes regularly in the international press and is the author of Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (ed. Fourth Estate, 2005) and What Does China Think? (ed. Fourth Estate, 2008)
Updated: 10 May 2013
The European Union may have problems such as a low population growth and internal divisions, but it is still a dynamic power capable of choosing its own destiny, argue Mark Leonard and Hans Kundnani. 
Pessimists around the world repeat that the European Union is doomed because of structural weaknesses and the economic crisis. But in many fields, the EU holds its own against world powers like the United States and China, argue Mark Leonard and Hans Kundnani. 
The security summit at Deauville, France, saw the first inklings of a new European geopolitical order. Instead of an EU buttressed by a NATO expanding eastwards comes a "trilateral" Europe, sustaining Turkey's European ambitions and keeping Russia on board.