Can the EU be a non-Eurocentric power in the world?

Abstract

The EU has presented itself as the principal custodian of ‘Western values’ (liberal democracy, human rights and the rule of law) and has managed to give universal application to European rules that reflect its normative mindset, its economic model, and its political vision. Is this just a continuation of eurocentrism - a set of assumptions about the superiority of European (or “Western”) ways of knowing and doing? Can the European Union be proudly European without being eurocentric? How? What would a non-eurocentric European Union look like?