Navigating the Indo-Pacific: The EU’s 2025 Council Conclusions amidst geopolitical uncertainty

More than four years after the EU released its Indo-Pacific Strategy (in April 2021), the Council of the EU provided fresh ‘Conclusions’ (in October 2025) stating that the EU should “further intensify its strategic focus, presence, visibility and actions in the Indo-Pacific”. These conclusions were issued against a dramatically altered geopolitical backdrop, including the onset of the Russia-Ukraine War, worsening Sino-American relations, and the advent of Trump 2.0. This article assesses the 2025 Council Conclusions against empirical findings from more than 100 semi-structured interviews across eight Indo-Pacific locations: Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. While the Conclusions feature harder security language and an elevated economic security agenda, the empirical data reveals a persistent gap between EU ambitions and Indo-Pacific elite perceptions. The article concludes that the 2025 Council Conclusions represent a modest, incremental response to the changing geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific, but prevailing issues around the EU’s global actorness mean it will continue to fall short in its efforts to assert geopolitical relevance.