European Security Research Articles

The EU’s hegemonic imaginaries: from European strategic autonomy in defence to technological sovereignty

ABSTRACT Discourses around “strategic autonomy” and “sovereignty”, traditionally used at the state level, have been recently circulated within the EU supranational context regarding the European defence technological and industrial base, dual-use and disruptive research and innovation, and advances in the tech and digital domains. This article explores whether a high-politics logic intrinsic to “strategic autonomy” and “sovereignty” has been transplanted at the EU-level to enhance the strategic priority of various lower-politics policy fields across tech and digital policy initiatives and instruments. This logic has the hegemonic effect of shaping collective thinking and opening windows of opportunity for EU policymaking, by mainstreaming a security imaginary into broader technological governance processes. The article examines the EU’s scaled-up rhetoric around floating signifiers such as “strategic autonomy” and “technological sovereignty”, as well as the diffusion of overlapping “sovereignty” agendas enacted transversely in the defence, tech and digital sectors. The argument is that their meaning is not yet fixed but articulated via hegemonic interventions across different interconnected policy fields. This makes for conceptual “travelling” and “stretching” with a potential impact on the future of European security integration, by creating of a more unified security imaginary of the EU as a strategically independent and technologically sovereign space.

Lessons (to be) learned? Germany’s Zeitenwende and European security after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

ABSTRACT In Germany, the Russian war on Ukraine is widely perceived as a “Zeitenwende,” a watershed moment undermining key foreign policy beliefs. Despite mounting evidence contradicting them, German elites previously failed to adapt core beliefs regarding Russia and the use of force because these beliefs were not only deeply embedded in largely uncontested identity constructions but also shaped the definition of economic interests, which in turn made ideational adaptation more costly. Moreover, Germany’s extraordinarily beneficial geopolitical situation in the post-Cold War era meant that the country could afford not to learn. Although the “Zeitenwende” will trigger significant change, it is unclear which lessons exactly Germans will now be learning and how far that adaptation will go. Given Germany’s key position in Europe and its previous role in shaping the European and transatlantic policy toward Russia, the results of these learning processes will significantly shape the emerging European security order.

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON EUROPEAN INTEGRATED BORDER MANAGEMENT

In the wake of the Schengen Agreement, the EU has assumed the role of maintaining European security, and border integration management has been ranked among the top priorities for the EU. It is necessary to improve border integration management to advance the integration process. Despite this, border integration management in the EU has been challenging, particularly since the refugee crisis of 2015. This article analyzes the current directions and trends of relevant research on border integration management in the EU. Three main areas of research on border integration management are currently being conducted: migration policy, border control agency, and border integration problems. The study concluded that theoretical and organizational analysis need to complement border management research.

The Ukraine Crisis: Causes, Conundrum and Consequences

Located at the geopolitical centre of Eurasia, Ukraine has been an important arena for great power game for nearly three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The West, principally the United States and Europe, and the Russian Federation have therefore been heavily involved in Ukraine's internal and external development. Their ideological, economic, and geopolitical interests clashed in a fierce battle that led to multiple political regime changes in Ukraine, and ultimately plunged Europe into an intractable security situation. This paper takes the rivalry between the US, Europe and Russia in Ukraine as a starting point to examine the dilemma facing European security in the context of the great power game, the root causes behind the Ukraine crisis, its far-reaching consequences for geopolitics and global patterns and the implications for regional peace in other parts of the world.

EU Searching for Gatekeepers: Lebanon in European Externalized Migration Management

Today 1 per 5 people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. Lebanon, largely impacted by the Syrian-refugee crisis, followed a “non-policy” and later confining policy for refugees-management. Based on the EU Global Strategy of 2016, migration is identified as principal threat for European security. Recently, EU has exerted its external migration governance in refugee-hosting countries like Lebanon. Having the Union implemented a resilience-building approach, which ended up ignoring the Lebanese system’s structural deficiencies and not accomplishing the desired outcomes, this Policy Brief recommends:
 
 Establishment of legal binding EU-Lebanon refugee governance agreement
 Further EIDHR funding conditional to human rights and good governance alignment
 Incentives to Lebanese private sector for refugees’ recruitment

European Union’s Securitization and Favoritism Phenomenon: Lesson Learned from the 2015 Europe’s Migrant Crisis

This research article aims to portray the phenomenon of how Europe’s perspective and attitudes toward migration. Race, culture, and politics all play a prominent role in Europe’s reception of migrants. This article precisely focused on the role of the European Union (EU) during the 2015 migrant crisis. As Europe faced the struggle where 1.3 million refugees and migrants illegally entered Europe by the sea in 2015, compared to roughly 200,000 in 2014. The author argues that European countries have responded to the issue discordly, with some welcoming migrants and others rejecting them. This article founds the reasons, namely: (1) securitization within the EU, i.e., raising the issue of migration as a “matter of European security”; and (2) the phenomenon of favoritism, as evidenced by selective solidarity, racism, and anti-immigrant rhetoric. This article attests that both securitization and favoritism culture in Europe must be recalculated and used as lessons learned so that there is no bias in allowing forthcoming migrants and so that the EU continues to exist.

The energy dimension of the EU Eastern Partnership initiative in restructuring Europe’s security architecture

This article analyses the energy dimension of relationships which have been developed between the ‘Eastern Partnership’ (EaP) partner countries within the context of European security. The essence of the EaP and the main priorities of the initiative’s energy platform will be determined. The peculiarities of their relations with the European Union and the Russian federation will be analysed. One discovery which has been made is the fact that the involvement of the addressee countries within the EaP grants them significant advantages in the implementation of the overall energy policy, and the EU is understood by them as being a guarantor of energy security. Emphasis is placed on the fact that Russia seeks to establish the fullest possible levels of control over energy supplies which are sent to Europe, and to the EU, and indeed even to reduce the dependence of the EaP partner countries on energy imports from Russia. Something which became obvious was the fact that while Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, and Ukraine were forming closer ties with the EU, Azerbaijan and Belarus on the contrary continued (and continue) to adhere to the authoritarian status quo. From this it can be concluded that the EaP partner countries face new challenges and threats, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy, which will determine the transformation of energy relations, in particular within the dimension of security.

Convergence of European security and defense preferences? A quantitative text analysis of strategy papers, 1994–2018

Since the end of the Cold War, the EU aims to advance to a relevant and autonomous actor in international politics—especially concerning security and defense politics. Scholars interested in whether the EU member states actually converge in their security and defense preferences often analyze strategy papers qualitatively, focusing on selected countries at specific points in time. In this article, we propose a dictionary approach for analyzing the development of security and defense preferences within the EU over the last three decades using quantitative text analysis. We make use of 163 strategy papers, published by all EU member states and the EU itself since 1994. The findings show that EU member states react similarly to international events, but do not converge substantially in their preferences. Furthermore, there is no substantial convergence to the position of the EU itself. We finally discuss usefulness and validity of quantitative text analysis in comparative research more broadly.

Defence cooperation and change: How defence industry integration fostered development of the European security community

This article situates recent initiatives to deepen security and defence cooperation in the European Union in the historical perspective. It proposes a model of constitutive relationship between the process of change in a security community and the formation of a transnational defence industry community of practice which yields positive feedback (‘productive returns’) to the security community as a broader assemblage within which it was constituted. This model is applied to the paradigmatic case of European security community that formed after the World War II (WWII). The analysis shows that the key driver for defence integration traced by means of social network analysis (SNA) in this case was economic rather than political, and for an extended period of time it developed without formal institutions. The productive return of the ‘defence industry machine’ as a distinct community of practice that was constituted through the integration process consisted in the sense of deeper belonging and a shared sense of working well together in a traditionally highly nationalised defence milieu.

Agenda OTAN 2030 y Concepto Estratégico 2022

The critical moment for European security in the wake of Russia's aggression against Ukraine has altered the strategic environment and forced the Atlantic Alliance to rethink its position. Its new strategic concept to be adopted in 2022 in Madrid is marked by this historic event. However, this new strategy is in turn guided by the NATO 2030 Agenda, adopted in 2019, which establishes a series of guiding principles: unity, collective defence, resilience, safeguarding infrastructure and technological superiority. Thus, this strategic essay aims to reflect on this process in order to make the Alliance and NATO key players in the defence of the international security order. To this end, it analyses the key elements of this environment and how the organisation intends to respond to these challenges, which has direct and potential implications for Spain.

Nato’s Nordic Expansion, A Decision at Stake. Consequences Upon the European Security Landscape

Abstract The international security environment, particularly the European one, is at a significant turning point, leading to substantial, long-term structural changes. From this point of view, the perspective of Finland and Sweden joining NATO under unfavorable European security conditions has a critical impact on the strategic environment. Without any certainty at the time of writing this research, the analyzed extension is approached as a possibility with a high degree of fulfillment, given the approving elements displayed a month before the NATO Summit in Madrid, June 28-30, when a new strategic concept will be launched. The accession of the two Nordic states represents, from an unquestionable standpoint, a return to the specifics of the Cold War period, characterized by ideological and political clashes between the West and the East, between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. More specifically, we are witnessing a maneuver to contain Russia, with the Baltic Sea becoming a NATO Sea and looking at the launch of a new deterrence policy by expanding the European security zone under the power of collective defense. Although, de facto, Finland and Sweden could be assimilated into the circle of the allied states, given the military cooperation between them and the Alliance that has been going on for almost three decades, de jure membership gives weight to the adherence process, including by the political symbolism of Article 5.

Options for Ensuring Command and Control Arrangements for European Union Operations – The Dimension of Cooperation with NATO –

"The operational dynamics associated with the development of European security and defence cooperation has undergone significant developments in recent years, reflected in the European Union’s numerous operational commitments. In this context, the issue of developing command and control arrangements to support an ever-expanding operational agenda has been a constant concern. We can talk about structuring a model used by the European Union in which there are a number of options that this organisation can use in structuring its own operations. In this inventory, the conduct of EU operations using NATO means and capabilities was the approach initially addressed, which continues to be used in the context of the two organisations’ commitments in the Balkans. In addition to the operational aspects, the use of this cooperation framework has allowed the deepening of the NATO-EU Strategic Partnership, with a positive impact on strengthening European and Euro-Atlantic security."

Opțiuni de asigurare a aranjamentelor de comandă și control pentru operațiile Uniunii Europene – dimensiunea de cooperare cu NATO

"The operational dynamics associated with the development of European security and defence cooperation has undergone significant developments in recent years, reflected in the European Union’s numerous operational commitments. In this context, the issue of developing command and control arrangements to support an ever-expanding operational agenda has been a constant concern. We can talk about structuring a model used by the European Union in which there are a number of options that this organisation can use in structuring its own operations. In this inventory, the conduct of EU operations using NATO means and capabilities was the approach initially addressed, which continues to be used in the context of the two organisations’ commitments in the Balkans. In addition to the operational aspects, the use of this cooperation framework has allowed the deepening of the NATO-EU Strategic Partnership, with a positive impact on strengthening European and Euro-Atlantic security."

Integration and the European Security Solution: Overcoming the Security Dilemma

Article Open Access by Mykola Gnatiuk1 1 National University of «Kyiv-Mohyla Academy» (Kyiv, Ukraine) DOI: https://doi.org/10.29202/up/10/3 Received: 27 May 2022 / Accepted: 14 June 2022 / Published: 20 June 2022 View Full-Text Review Reports Cite This Paper Abstract One of the key drivers of European integration has been the transformation of Europe from a «continent … Читать далее Integration and the European Security Solution: Overcoming the Security Dilemma

Political narrative, collective EU security and the State of the Union

ABSTRACT The EU has always struggled to convince its member states for more security powers. The European Commission Presidents often use the State of the Union address to build a narrative on the need for the European Union to become a security player. The State of the Union address was established with the Lisbon Treaty and serves to highlight the priorities of the Commission. This makes it one of the most important addresses in political terms. Such a speech draws attention to the function of narratives and their role in shaping human communication which can be used by politicians to transfer ideologies, beliefs and information to a wider audience [Shenhav, S. R. (2005). Concise narratives: A structural analysis of political discourse. Discourse Studies, 7 (3), 315–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605052189; Della Sala, V. (2018). Narrating Europe: The EU’s ontological security dilemma. European Security, 27(3), 266–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2018.1497978]. This paper will evaluate issues of security as tackled in the State of the Union addresses from the first delivered by Jose Manuel Barroso in 2010 to the last speech delivered by Ursula von der Leyen in 2021. This will serve to evaluate the evolving narrative concerning European Security as the Commission attempted to build a stronger case for transforming the EU into a security player.

Positioning member states in EU-NATO security cooperation: towards a typology

ABSTRACT With the growing density and the plethora of security organisations on the regional and international level, the research programme on interorganisational relations has received increasing scholarly attention. The complexity of European security – in light of the Ukraine conflict since 2014, Russia’s more assertive foreign policy behaviour, and on-going crisis management operations in the Africa, the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East – has revived EU-NATO cooperation. The analysis from the perspective of member states and how they can be positioned in the EU-NATO interorganisational relations, however, has received little exploration. This article, therefore, addresses the roles and positions of member states within the relations between the EU and NATO as Europe’s prime security organisations. Member states have numerous political strategies at their disposal to trigger, strengthen or obstruct interorganisational relations, ranging from forum-shopping to hostage-taking and brokering. Drawing on insights from regime theory, network analysis, organisation theory and interorganisationalism, this article proposes a typology of member states in EU-NATO cooperation. Against the backdrop of this special relationship, the typology is developed which aims to detect and illustrate member states’ positions and strategies.

The Borderline between Private and Public Security

A few years ago, a White Paper was published by the Confederation of European Security Services (CoESS) with the collaboration of the Institut National des Hautes Études de Sécurité (INHES) on the security market of the European Union. The authors identified several reasons why public and private security providers in the member states share the market and why they are bound to cooperate for the public good, that is, the security itself. However, the states’ law enforcement capacities cannot cover all security demands of the public due to the finite (mainly budgetary) resources that always set capacity limits hence congestions in the assignments of police services occur from time to time. Private security operatives fill into the supply gaps occurring in a fragmented security landscape in Europe. Due to the variables in the market share, countries made their patterns in public and private security components, the statutory frameworks, and the traditions concerning the role played by the commercial security sector in overall security provisions. Here a typology may be formed from the clusters of countries following alternative approaches, respectively. There is a border zone between the two sectors. The exclusive public security domain gives way to areas of common interest and moves on to where private security takes precedence, and public actors only play a supervisory role. This article examines the boundary zone in multiple approaches, attempting to stipulate the red line between the two security elements.

A Weakening Transatlantic Relationship? Redefining the EU–US Security and Defence Cooperation

The aim of this article is to discuss how a weakening transatlantic relationship influences European defence cooperation and integration. It also asks how these observed patterns of weakening EU–US relations can be explained and what the consequences might be for the EU’s efforts to build a stronger and more coherent security and defence policy. Building upon a “comprehensive neo-functionalist” approach first coined by the Norwegian scholar Martin Sæter, European security and defence policy should be seen as part of an externalisation of EU integration as a response to weakening transatlantic relations. The debate on European “strategic autonomy,” the Strategic Compass, and the European “defence package” should therefore be considered as part of such an externalisation process of actively influencing and reshaping the transatlantic relationship. When analysing European security and defence, the article also shows that it is misleading to regard European integration as something to be subordinated to NATO. Nevertheless, a European security deficit does exist due to differing perspectives among member states on how the EU process should relate to NATO. The article, therefore, concludes that strategic autonomy can only be developed with close EU–NATO cooperation. Furthermore, a more multipolar world order where the EU no longer can rely upon a transatlantic security community to the same extent as before challenges the EU’s role as a defender of multilateralism and poses new challenges to the EU’s common foreign and security policy.

Partnership and Cooperation Agreements and the European Union's energy security in the context of Central Asia

This article presents a qualitative research with the aim of analysing and prognosing the future of relations between the European Union and hydrocarbon exporting countries in Central Asia, based on bilateral Partnership and Cooperation Agreements. The results of analysis, set within the broader geopolitical competition for influence in the region, distinguishes Turkmenistan's significant role as both potentially important state for the future of the EU's energy security, as well as the greatest challenge in building relations with the states of the region in a framework that requires a common axiological foundation.

Have the lessons of the Second World War been learned? Analysis of the ability of the European Union countries to mobilise common resources to counter threats of military invasion

The subject of the research throws light on the political dimension of a little-explored page of European history – the military-political metamorphoses of the European Union within the political situation of the last two decades – in the face of possible threats of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, escalation of the confrontation between Serbia and the partially acknowledged state of Kosovo and between Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus. This subject has repeatedly come into the focus of researchers, but they considered it purely in the context of the history of the European Union, and not as an independent scientific problem. In addition, scientists highlighted most of the issues from the economic standpoint, completely forgetting about other areas of the association. The purpose of this study is to examine the activities of the European Union in the field of military security and defence, the political and economic component of this issue, measures to enhance the mobility of decision-making and the results of the work performed. The methodological foundation of the study is a combination of general historical and political science methods, among which the leading place is occupied by retrospective and institutional. Analytical work with the materials and the selection of specific works for each of the objectives was accompanied by using critical-dialectical, historical-systemic, action and problem-chronological methods. As a result of the study, it was identified that the political, economic and military components of the EU’s defence capability are to respond quickly to potential threats as a broad diplomatic and sanctions leverage, the development of the European Security and Defense Policy, which provides for the deployment of rapid reaction forces and other possible structures, and expanded bilateral agreements with the North Atlantic Alliance, which encourage close cooperation in times of crisis. The practical value of the work is identified in the possibility of using these facts in further study of the development of the European Union in the early 21st century, and the problems of supranational entities in Europe