This paper contributes to the European Commission's review of its 2016 Joint Communication on international cultural relations. Drawing on a comparative study of soft power governance across twenty-five jurisdictions (British Council, 2026), which applies an Assets-Infrastructure-Outcomes framework, and on a practitioner-academic workshop convened in Brussels in March 2026, it argues that the review requires a more fundamental reconsideration than an institutional refresh would provide. The paper advances four arguments: that EU-level coordination should extend beyond culture to education, science, and development cooperation through strategic alignment rather than structural unification; that the updated Communication should arrive as a genuine strategy with binding commitments, a dedicated budget line, and an accountability framework; that European regions with genuine assets should be recognised as active contributors to EU soft power; and that credibility, resting on authenticity and reciprocity, is the variable that most consistently distinguishes effective from ineffective systems. Applying a five-test evaluative framework, the paper concludes that the EU's soft power challenge is fundamentally a strategic conversion problem: it holds major assets across education, research, culture, development finance, and regional networks, but lacks the machinery to convert them into trusted relationships in the geographies where its interests are most directly contested.