2010 was a sobering year for the EU as the reality of a new, more assertive China – and the EU’s limited leverage over it – set in. Europeans developed a new strategic approach to China but their coherence was undermined by bilateral tendencies of member states.

In the past, the EU has tended to be divided between those that wanted to engage with Russia and those that wanted to contain it. But in 2010 the EU moved towards greater internal unity, largely as a result of the re-invigoration of cooperation between Germany and Poland.

The EU had significant successes when it identified its common interests and pursued them with the US in a single-minded way. However, member states sometimes still claim their own “special relationship” with the US and therefore sometimes lack unity.

As support for enlargement has declined, the EU’s leverage has decreased. Performance was good on the Western Balkans, mediocre on the eastern neighbourhood and poor on Turkey.

The EU responded well to the earthquake in Haiti, but there was little enthusiasm for new crisis management missions in a year in which cash-strapped European governments announced big defence cuts.

2010 was a year of defensive success for the EU in the multilateral system. After its failure at the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009, it suffered some further setbacks but mounted an impressive fight-back on climate change and at the UN.