Languages: English, French, German
Areas of Expertise: Geopolitics and Geoeconomics; China; EU-Russia relations; transatlantic relations; EU politics and institutions; public diplomacy and nation branding; UK foreign policy
Mark Leonard is co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think tank. His topics of focus include geopolitics and geoeconomics, China, EU politics and institutions.
Leonard hosts the weekly podcast "Mark Leonards's World in 30 Minutes" and writes a syndicated column on global affairs for Project Syndicate. Previously he worked as director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform and as director of the Foreign Policy Centre, a think tank he founded at the age of 24 under the patronage of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the 1990s, Leonard worked for the think tank Demos where his Britain™ report was credited with launching Cool Britannia. Mark has spent time in Washington, D.C. as a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and in Beijing as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences.
He was Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geoeconomics until 2016.
Honoured as a “Young Global Leader” of the World Economic Forum, he spends a lot of time helping governments, companies, and international organisations make sense of the big geo-political trends of the twenty-first century. He is a regular speaker and prolific writer and commentator on global issues, the future of Europe, China's internal politics, and the practice of diplomacy and business in a networked world. His essays have appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, El Pais, Gazeta Wyborcza, Foreign Policy, the New Statesman, the Daily Telegraph, The Economist, Time, and Newsweek.
As well as writing and commenting frequently in the media on global affairs, Leonard is author of two best-selling books. His first book, Why Europe will run the 21st Century, was published in 2005 and translated into 19 languages. Leonard's second book, What does China think? was published in 2008 and translated into 15 languages. He has published an edited volume on Connectivity Wars and is working on a forthcoming book on the same topic.
Mark Leonard - 27 May, 2020
After years of pursuing closer bilateral economic ties with China, Europeans have suddenly realised that they have become dangerously dependent on Chinese trade and investment.
Podcast
Mark Leonard - 22 May, 2020
Last year, the European Union published a strategic outlook in which it reviewed China as a partner, competitor and a strategic rival, creating a lively debate about the nature of the EU-China relations. However, this outlook was designed for a pre-corona world. How has covid-19…
Podcast
Piotr Buras, Mark Leonard, Jeremy Shapiro, Tara Varma - 15 May, 2020
Emotions are an increasingly important part of contemporary politics. Strategies based on fear, nostalgia or hope are used by political leaders all over Europe to mobilize populations. Sociologist Karolina Wigura explored the role of emotions in times of corona in the latest…
Podcast
Mark Leonard - 7 May, 2020
Epidemics like the coronavirus outbreak are a mirror for humanity. Mark Leonard talked in our ECFR QUARANTIMES session to Frank Snowden, Professor Emeritus of History and History of Medicine at Yale University, about how infectious diseases have shaped societies,…
Mark Leonard - 4 May, 2020
Like other recent systemic crises, the coronavirus pandemic has confronted us with an inconvenient truth: the risks associated with international openness might very well outweigh the gains. If today’s multilateral frameworks are to have a future, they must be brought back…
Podcast
Anthony Dworkin, Mark Leonard - 30 April, 2020
Recently, we have seen funding cuts to the WHO in the middle of the coronavirus crisis and national governments closing borders instead of calling for a G20 or G7 summit. On the positive side, we heard Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González in our ECFR Quarantimes…
Podcast
Jana Puglierin, Mark Leonard - 24 April, 2020
“We are at a moment of truth, which is to decide whether the European Union is a political project or just a market project. I think it’s a political project… We need financial transfers and solidarity, if only so that Europe holds on”, French…
Podcast
Anthony Dworkin, Ulrike Esther Franke, Mark Leonard - 17 April, 2020
Word on the street seems to suggest that technology will be the way out of the coronavirus crisis and the lockdowns in many European countries. This seems to be confirmed by a multitude of projects such as the EU’s Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing…
Podcast
Gustav Gressel, Mark Leonard, Kadri Liik, Nicu Popescu - 9 April, 2020
How is Russia dealing with covid-19? What impact does the pandemic have on the other underlying political issues in Russia – such as the change of the constitution and Putin’s decision to essentially stay in power until 2036? Our ECFR experts also point out the…
Podcast
Jonathan Hackenbroich, José Ignacio Torreblanca, Mark Leonard - 3 April, 2020
The EU members states have been caught up in a heated discussion on possible European ‘coronabonds’, a joint debt assistance by the Union to help those countries hit by the virus particularly hard. Soon enough, the discussion seemed to produce little of substance and…
by Ivan Krastev, Mark Leonard - 24th June, 2020
New research reveals that the crisis has revolutionised citizens’ perceptions of global order – scrambling the distinctions between nationalism and globalism
PDF
by Carl Bildt, Mark Leonard - 17th July, 2019
by Jean Pisani-Ferry, Mark Leonard, Elina Ribakova, Jeremy Shapiro, and Guntram Wolff - 25th June, 2019
Europeans can take steps now to enhance their economic power, without advocating increased protectionism or a retreat from globalisation.
PDF
by Mark Leonard, Jeremy Shapiro - 25th June, 2019
The EU needs to learn to think like a geopolitical power.
PDF
by Susi Dennison, Mark Leonard, and Pawel Zerka
With Teresa Coratella, Josef Janning, Andrzej Mendel-Nykorowycz, and José Ignacio Torreblanca - 19th June, 2019
The results of the European election confront EU leaders with a considerable challenge: navigating a new, more fragmented, and polarised political environment
PDF
by Susi Dennison, Mark Leonard, Adam Lury - 16th May, 2019
Support for membership of the European Union is currently high, but so too is pessimism about the future of the European project.
PDF
.jpg "Pic: By The White House from Washington, DC (21587440_1434135893340806_7127041855563357278_o) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Donald_J._Trump_addresses_the_72nd_Session_of_the_United_Nations_General_Assem - CC0 1.0 - https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/")
by Anthony Dworkin, Mark Leonard - 24th May, 2018
The rules-based international order is under threat. The EU should place its defence at the centre of its global strategy.
PDF
by Findings of a reflection group led by Marta Dassù, Wolfgang Ischinger, Pierre Vimont, and Robert Cooper. Edited by Susi Dennison - 20th March, 2018
by Mark Leonard - 30th August, 2017
The EU’s survival depends on protecting its citizens from the forces it has created
PDF
by Susi Dennison, Mark Leonard, Nick Witney - 16th May, 2016
A British exit from the EU would make it harder to fight crime and terrorism, reduce Britain’s ability to lead and influence its partners, and weaken NATO
PDF
by Dennison et al. - 28th January, 2016
The sixth ECFR Foreign Policy Scorecard highlights the EU's diminishing ability to influence its neighbours, and the neighbourhood's growing impact on the EU.
PDF
EPUB
Mobi
by Ulrike Esther Franke, Mark Leonard - 20th January, 2016
Why migration, finance and trade are the geo-economic battlegrounds of the future
PDF
EPUB
Mobi
Mark Leonard - 30 June, 2020
The covid-19 crisis has created an opening for stronger collective European action. But policymakers must understand that the demands of voters across the continent for greater cooperation do not reflect an appetite for institution-building, but rather a deeper anxiety about…
Mark Leonard - 27 May, 2020
After years of pursuing closer bilateral economic ties with China, Europeans have suddenly realised that they have become dangerously dependent on Chinese trade and investment.
Mark Leonard - 4 May, 2020
Like other recent systemic crises, the coronavirus pandemic has confronted us with an inconvenient truth: the risks associated with international openness might very well outweigh the gains. If today’s multilateral frameworks are to have a future, they must be brought back…
Mark Leonard - 30 March, 2020
Although the covid-19 pandemic has been compared to the 2008 financial crisis, the two episodes are quite different, not least in their cast of leading characters. Unlike the previous generation, today’s European leaders have been shaped by a decade of austerity, refugee…
Mark Leonard - 24 February, 2020
After years of watching the United Kingdom muddle through a political crisis while enjoying an unprecedented level of unity among themselves, Europeans now must prepare for darker days.
Mark Leonard - 19 February, 2020
The 2020 Munich Security Conference showed how the ties that bind global players together are being weaponised in a new great power competition.
Podcast
Lykke Friis, Ivan Krastev, Mark Leonard - 26 June, 2020
As covid-19 raged, speculation grew that the crisis would re- strengthen public support for the state; faith in experts; and both pro- and anti-Europeanism. But ECFR’s latest research reveals these all to be illusions. Instead, the crisis has revolutionised…
Podcast
Jana Puglierin, Arturo Varvelli, José Ignacio Torreblanca, Mark Leonard - 19 June, 2020
The coronavirus crisis brought about financial hardship for the European Union, and many agree that a recovery fund would be needed to overcome it. In the beginning, countries like Italy and Spain, in particular, felt left alone in dealing with this health, social and economic…
Podcast
Mark Leonard, Tara Varma - 12 June, 2020
The ongoing anti-racism demonstrations in the United States spurred by the brutal killing of George Floyd spread across the Atlantic. In many European countries, people are getting behind the cause and protesting racism and police violence against BIPOC. How are the…
Podcast
Tarek Megerisi, Asli Aydıntaşbaş, Mark Leonard, Nicu Popescu - 5 June, 2020
The attempt of a peace process in Libya is facing several substantial hindrances, where a variety of actors keep on inducing significant upheavals in its territory. Recently Turkey was observed to use Libya more and more as a playing field for its advancements - with some…
Podcast
Lykke Friis, Mark Leonard, Jean Pisani-Ferry - 29 May, 2020
The recent Franco-German proposal for an EU recovery fund sparked a lively debate on possible changes in EU’s nature, suggesting that the plan to raise €500bn through common EU debt and hand it out as grants, not loans, marks an important shift in EU policy. But is…
Podcast
Mark Leonard - 22 May, 2020
Last year, the European Union published a strategic outlook in which it reviewed China as a partner, competitor and a strategic rival, creating a lively debate about the nature of the EU-China relations. However, this outlook was designed for a pre-corona world. How has covid-19…
Podcast
Piotr Buras, Mark Leonard, Jeremy Shapiro, Tara Varma - 15 May, 2020
Emotions are an increasingly important part of contemporary politics. Strategies based on fear, nostalgia or hope are used by political leaders all over Europe to mobilize populations. Sociologist Karolina Wigura explored the role of emotions in times of corona in the latest…
Podcast
Mark Leonard - 7 May, 2020
Epidemics like the coronavirus outbreak are a mirror for humanity. Mark Leonard talked in our ECFR QUARANTIMES session to Frank Snowden, Professor Emeritus of History and History of Medicine at Yale University, about how infectious diseases have shaped societies,…
