Good morning from Brussels, The written answers of EU commissioner-designates before their hearings early next month in the European Parliament show that Europe is adopting an inward-looking approach, aiming to fix problems at home first to address global unpredictability over the next five years. This week, two summits reflect the complexity of the upcoming years: Russia hosts the BRICS summit - the largest to date – and aims to question the world order. On the other hand, the IMF and the World Bank – the symbols of the West's economic hegemony in the world – gather in Washington. If you add November’s US elections to the mix, the equation for Europe’s position in the new world becomes even trickier. Slovakia’s Maroš Šefčovič said his goal is to “defend EU interests” in trade relations with the US and China. In addition, Lithuania’s Valdis Dombrovskis vowed to simplify EU business regulations to facilitate investments. Meanwhile, the EU's next top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, aims to safeguard the EU’s geopolitical and economic security against systemic rivals such as China. At home, there is a clear signal to speed up reforms to increase the EU's competitiveness, which features 370 times in the EU commissioners' answers. This is why both Piotr Serafin and Raffaele Fitto backed a Recovery Fund-style linking of the disbursement of EU funds to reforms. Spain’s Teresa Ribera wants to preserve the EU’s manufacturing capabilities and ensure that the EU remains a place for battery electric vehicle production. In the tech field, Finland’s Henna Virkkunen said security challenges by third-country cloud providers push for “sovereign cloud solutions” to allow the EU to become independent from Big Tech. | 