-In order to characterize Europe's position in the world such as it has been evolving in the last few years, we highlighted some underlying trends. An evolution of the world's order towards a multipolar system. Then, a redistribution of power from Northern industrialized countries towards Southern countries, notably Asia. Finally, an increasing interdependency between the different poles of the global system. In this context, we can no longer talk of eurocentrism, an analysis of international relations only seen through European values, thinking patterns and interests. Current evolutions, discussions about Europe's supposed or relative decline invite us to take a look at the vision that other states, populations and organizations have of Europe. Yet, trying to know the perceptions of Europe by non-Europeans and their possible expectations, can bring method difficulties. How should the perception of citizens and social groups be understood? Are they different from the states' and governments'? How and why should subjective perceptions be represented or mapped ? Until World War 2, Europe thought of itself as the center of a world where everything that was not European was considered peripheral. Are these two notions still valid to interpret today's perceptions of Europe by the new poles of the global system? We will see if Europe is today perceived as a periphery by the emerging poles of the global system, and to which extent it remains attractive to its own periphery. Then, we will try to understand if, by its unique political structure and achievements, the European Union represents a model, a laboratory for other regional organization forms. For the poles of the new or old global system, Europe, as we mentioned, remains an important actor, by its weight in global economics or the age of responsibilities exercised by today's moderate powers, such as France and the United Kingdom. Since 2008's crisis, Europe may be seen as the sick man of global economics. Is it a declining power? Looking at the Chinese economic actor, Europe remains an essential economic and commercial partner. It is not negligible that Chinese investors made financial investments at the peak of the economic and financial crisis. Thus, an agreement was signed in November 2008 for the recovery of the concession of the Greek port of Piraeus by the China Ocean Shipping Company, for 3.4 billion euros. In 2010, the Geely Group purchased the Swedish automobile group Volvo. In 2001, the industrial group Wanhua purchased the Hungarian Chemical Group Borsodchem. Relatively modest compared to the European investments in China, these investments demonstrated China's trust in the future of European economy. Concerning the economy based on knowledge and innovation, China is counting on Europe technology transfers to support the modernization of its economy. Therefore, there are more and more Chinese students in Europe, which remains the most attractive destination. European Union countries attract 40% of the 4 million migrant students in the world, almost 2 million of which are Asian. If the crisis did not really affect Chinese attraction towards Europe, it was not exactly similar for the other increasingly emerging Asian country: India. Qualitative studies undertaken before and after the crisis into Indian economic elites showed that the crisis had revealed unexpected weaknesses and, to a certain extent, shaken the trust Indians put in Europe's economic potential. Is Europe a minor strategic actor? For a formerly industrialized power like the United States, Europe remains a central part of the economy. However, in geopolitical terms and since the end of the Cold War, the European area became less and less strategic for the United States. Lately, they confirmed they were now prioritizing the Asia-Pacific axis. Nevertheless, Washington did not stop to soliciting Europeans' support for its external operations led in Afghanistan or in Iraq, or still nowadays against the Islamic State in the Levant. Besides, after the serious events that occurred in Ukraine in the last year, we cannot exclude a revision of the American's disengagement policy in Europe. For the countries in its close periphery, Europe, especially in the Middle-East and Africa, remains an attractive pole for the following reasons. Firstly, because of its wealth and job opportunities. Secondly, for its training system and, notably, its universities. Also thanks to its reputation in terms of refugee reception, even if the reception policy became more restrictive in the last years. Finally, for the economic assistance it provided to those countries. The migration pressure at the European borders is in constant augmentation. In the recent years, shortly after the "Arab Spring" revolutions that unsettled the society and states of several Mediterranean countries, such as Egypt, Libya and Syria. As reception conditions become increasingly restrictive, more and more migrants try to reach Europe and take enormous risks of drowning or being sold as slaves, to pay off smugglers. They are exposed to situations of great precariousness once they arrive on the Continent. An European immigration policy has progressively been constituted as the states realized the inanity of strictly national policies in a zone of free movement of persons. This policy has sometimes been called "Fortress Europe" and is often blamed because of its human cost, as the number of deaths at the European borders increases each year. Is Europe a commercial fortress? Actually, since the beginning, community Europe is a trade unit with discriminatory methods as it is funded on a unique commercial tariff, agricultural support and the principle of community preference. These methods are common in most big economic units, especially the USA. A lot of emerged and emerging countries contest these methods because they penalize their economy, especially the agricultural sector. Since the 1960s, Europe has tried to alleviate its impact by signing trade agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific states, often former European colonies. Numerous emerged countries like Thailand, or totally industrialized like Brazil or South Korea contest this model by starting proceedings against the EU before the World Trade Organization, or by trying to finalize free trade agreements with the European Union. Today, the European Union is the most advanced regional organization in terms of economic and political integration. The European model, with its successes and failures, represents for the world an experience source of inspiration and an exploitable configuration. The European experience is sometimes seen as a laboratory and even a model from which states or regional organizations have taken some characteristics or practices in linguistic coexistence, for instance, in political construction or regional development. If we look at India, a state-continent gathering a great number of political and linguistic regions, the European model may have inspired the 1990s' renovation of the Indian Federalism. When the Dominion of India abandoned the planned economy, the single market experience and European regional policies inspired the Indian reforms. An other example, we tend to display the European Union as a pilot scheme, from which other state groups take their inspiration when they want to implement regional cooperation and integration. But the actual division of sovereignty based on the European model is rare. Other regional organizations take the rhetoric of community concepts. Thus ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has based, since 2004, its organization on a three-pillar model, inspired by the Maastricht Treaty. Also, since 2007, ASEAN's economic integration is based on the four liberties principle: trade, services, skilled labor and capital. Another example, Mercosur is today's most advanced form of regionalism in the world, after the EU. It would seem that the customs union, specific to the EU, is the only element actually transferable to the Mercosur. We can see elements of institutional convergence, as shown by the creation of the Mercosur Parliament in 2007. But the European model of a union based on law, has yet to be achieved in Latin America. On the contrary, some global actors see in the Union's specific nature, the division of powers and the necessity for compromise between Member States and the Union, an exploitable opportunity to maximize their interests. European division is in China's best interest so it can have a bigger margin for maneuver in trades, for example, since Member States still largely reason nationwide in the matter. It is also in China's best interest that Europe reinforces its integration notably for fiscal matters. It is a major potential investor for future euro-obligations if a European debt market were to come to existence. Finally, in China's interest, Europe's policies should be consolidated. The advantage of Europe is that it does not infringe upon China's sphere of influence and contributes to the stability of global order with its contractualist model. Two major axes for Beijing's foreign policy. The former center/periphery model of the old eurocentrism has been over for a long time, without being completely overthrown. On the one hand, Europe, thanks to the world's order multipolarity has kept a strong attractiveness for its near periphery. On the other hand, the increasing interdependency between the poles contributed to intensify the expectations, otherwise negligible, for Europe, notably in Asia. Thus, a team of geographers tried to represent the diversity of Europe's strategic relations with other regions of the world, taking into account factors like trade, migration or air traffic flows. We can distinguish four types of strategic relations that we can put on a map on which we note that it overlaps and completes the cartography of Europe's influence we mentioned earlier. First element, Europe has an "integration" relationship with its immediate adjacent and near periphery countries. The high intensity of trade interactions or freight flows comes from old cultural and historic relations with these regions. Second element, Europe maintains "responsibility" relations with Sub-Saharan Africa. Europe polarizes asymmetrical relations with the states it had once colonized. Today's strategy to limit migration flows or economic investments tends to impair Europe's influence in this region in which other global actors invest: China, the United States, or Brazil. Third element, we talk about a "partnership" relation with countries located a bit further from Europe, but with which it shares a common language or history and communication. With Northern countries like the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and great emerging countries like South Africa, India or Latin America. Finally, fourth element, from the Persian Gulf to Eastern Asia is where spreads out the "challenge axis" of Europe in countries where it has a minor influence, based on these criteria. Trade asymmetry is to Europe's disadvantage even if it makes big investments in the economy. From a geographic and geostrategic point of view, Europe is a minor actor of this area dominated by the increasing competition between the American and Asian poles, dominated by China.
