{"id":448059,"date":"2026-03-19T11:54:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/03\/19\/costa-riallinea-lue-non-ci-sono-alternative-al-multilateralismo-dobbiamo-rafforzarlo\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:46:15","slug":"costa-moves-to-realign-the-eu-there-is-no-alternative-to-multilateralism-we-must-strengthen-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/19\/costa-moves-to-realign-the-eu-there-is-no-alternative-to-multilateralism-we-must-strengthen-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Costa moves to realign the EU: &#8220;There is no alternative to multilateralism; we must strengthen it&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels \u2013 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.consilium.europa.eu\/en\/meetings\/european-council\/2026\/03\/19-20\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">summit<\/a>&nbsp;of EU heads of state and government, disrupted&nbsp;by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/19\/iran-eu-leaders-united-against-israel-and-the-us-we-do-not-want-to-be-involved-in-the-conflict\/\">Middle East crisis<\/a> triggered by the US and Israeli attack on Iran, will also mark UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019s final appearance at the table with European leaders. At a time when multilateralism is under attack on several fronts, the President of the European Council, <strong>Antonio Costa<\/strong>, sought to make the 12-star club\u2019s position clear: \u201c<strong>The multilateral system is a basic instrument to protect the international rules-based order.<\/strong> And it is clear that there is no alternative,\u201d he declared on his arrival in Brussels.<\/p>\n<p>Costa\u2019s message is unequivocal, and, as the EU\u2019s representative abroad, he is bringing into line the various positions expressed so far by EU leaders on the rule-based world order and international law. In particular, he strongly rebukes<strong> Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>, the President of the European Commission, who, in her speech to the Conference of EU Ambassadors <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/09\/top-officials-sound-the-alarm-to-eu-ambassadors-we-are-in-a-new-world-we-need-faster-decisions\/\">on Monday, 9 March<\/a>, had stated: &#8220;Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order, for a world that has gone and will not return.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>According to Costa, &#8220;the alternative is the war in Ukraine, the alternative is unfair competition on trade, it is the threat on the sovereignty of Greenland, it is the threat to sovereignty in other parts of the world.&#8221; In a world no longer underpinned by the guarantees of multilateralism, it is the EU that stands to lose out, at the mercy of the renewed aggression of the major powers: \u201cIf you want to preserve peace, we need to uphold the international law and uphold the multilateral system,\u201d&nbsp;the former Portuguese prime minister added.<\/p>\n<p>While von der Leyen has called for the overthrow of the regime in Iran, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, <strong>Kaja Kallas<\/strong>, also appears to be well aware of the risks of backing a conflict where \u201cwe do not know what the objectives are\u201d and for which \u201cthere is no basis in international law for the use of force.\u201d&nbsp;To uphold the rules\u2011based international order, and ultimately to defend the United Nations itself from those who openly discredit it, led by Trump and Netanyahu, one must, however, have the courage to call things by their name. The <strong>war<\/strong> in Iran is a war \u201c<strong>which we consider illegal<\/strong>,\u201d Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said. \u201cEurope is founded on the principles of multilateralism and, therefore, on shared, not unilateral, decisions; on international law; on peace; and on respect for peaceful coexistence between nations and societies. And it is precisely this that is being called into question once again, with the war in Iran,\u201d&nbsp;the socialist leader insisted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the summit of EU heads of state and government, the President of the European Council and High Representative, Kaja Kallas, cornered von der Leyen, who had argued that &#8220;Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":448017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[27175,26452,27337,26455,27709],"class_list":["post-448059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-antonio-guterres-en","tag-middle-east-en","tag-multilateralism-en","tag-pedro-sanchez-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448060,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448059\/revisions\/448060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}