The European Union security exception: beyond control?

Abstract

Executive discretion and dominance in the European Union is salient due to the considerable reinforcement of both political and administrative power in recent years towards types of decision-making that eschew electoral accountability and democratic control. This includes not only new executive actors such as the President of the European Council, the High Representative of Common Foreign and Security Policy and the European External Action Service but also the expansion and intensification of the remit of existing actors such as the Secretariat General of the Council, the European Central Bank, security agencies and committees. At the EU level we have (semi-) autonomous administrative executive power that is not embedded in a democratically elected government at the same level of governance but still adopts decisions with highly relevant political implications. This democratic gap is fed by far-reaching secrecy arrangements and practices exercised in a concerted fashion by various executive actors at different levels of governance and resulting in the blacking out of crucial information and documents – even for parliaments and courts. The more recent security crisis induced accelerated decision-making and security measures with fundamental implications for civil liberties brought to a fore by the Paris attacks combined with the refugee influx. The state of the security exception has been greatly reinforced in Europe – through legislation, both national and supranational. In December 2015, the European Commission adopted a series of measures aimed at transforming the current system of border management into the European Border and Coast Guard.