Europe's Voice in a Multipolar World: The SDSN Engages with European Parliament and the Brussels Diplomatic Community

On May 5–6, 2026, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), traveled to Brussels for a series of high-level engagements at the European Parliament. Professor Sachs also delivered a major address at the Stanhope Hotel before members of the Brussels diplomatic community. The visit, organized at the invitation of Member of the European Parliament, Fernand Kartheiser, focused on Europe's role in an increasingly multipolar world, the prospects for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the future of European foreign policy.

Prof. Sachs was accompanied throughout the visit by Sybil Fares, Advisor to the SDSN President. At the European Parliament, the SDSN delegation met with MEPs and senior policy advisors to discuss the strategic challenges facing Europe, including the urgent need for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, the resumption of hostilities with Iran, and the broader question of how the European Union can chart an independent foreign policy in a world no longer dominated by any single power.

In his address to diplomats, Prof. Sachs called on European leaders to reclaim the founding vocation of the European Union as a voice for peace, dialogue, and the principles of the UN Charter. Drawing on his work over more than three decades in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and across the Global South, he traced the long arc of NATO enlargement, the lost opportunity of Mikhail Gorbachev's offer of a unified continental peace, and the cascade of regime-change wars from Iraq to Libya to Iran. The remedy, he argued, lies in returning to the principles of diplomacy and regional cooperation— sovereign equality, peaceful settlement of disputes, and indivisible security — and in reviving the conviction that "war between great powers must never again be the way humanity organizes its affairs."

The full lecture may be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTdIxc0_HJ4

The Brussels visit reflects the SDSN's commitment to supporting regional leadership on sustainable development, climate action, and peacebuilding, and to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through dialogue with European institutions, parliamentarians, and the diplomatic community.