Europe's Foray Into the Indo-Pacific Comparing France and Germany

The term Indo-Pacific has enjoyed growing popularity for years as a geographical and strategic construct. Increasingly, the Indo-Pacific is not conceived merely as a geographical construct, but also as a vital alternative to the Chinese "Belt and Road" Initiative (BRO. Conversely, Beijing views the debates over the Indo-Pacific as nothing more than an anti-Chinese containment strategy. Chinese criticism notwithstanding, the debate on the Indo-Pacific has gained traction within Europe, too. France promoted its own Indo-Pacific concept from 2018 onwards, followed by Germany in 2020 with their own Indo-Pacific Leitlinien (guidelines) that preceded the launch of the EU's own Indo-Pacific strategy in 2021. To assess possible focus points of an emerging EU approach to the Indo-Pacific, this article evaluates strategic convergence and divergence between the so-called E2, France and Germany. It finds that Germany and France, despite their different role conceptions, converge with regard to their key objectives, planned initiatives and conceptualisations of regional order. The article also finds, however, that these contain, for the most part, very general declarations of interests and intent while also foregoing concrete strategic choices. It argues that any future EU approach to the Indo-Pacific is therefore likely to emerge around the least common denominator focus points, drawing on long-established EU approaches towards the Asia-Pacific, rather than a new, clear-cut EU approach to the Indo-Pacific.