European Union Security Research Articles

‘Talking the Talk or Walking the Walk’: Understanding the EU's Security Identity

AbstractHow do European Union security practices constitute the EU as an ‘actor’ in global politics? Debates about the EU's actorness are as old as the concept of European integration itself. Christopher J. Bickerton has argued that rather than debating the EU's role in global politics from the perspective of ‘actorness’, research should focus on the functions of EU policy practices and the role they play in defining and creating that ‘actorness’. His approach leaves unquestioned the relationship between identity, interests and these practices. This article reorients these discussions towards the literature on security, identity and foreign policy. It argues that security practices are performative, that they play an active role in constructing the ‘selves’ they claim to protect and the ‘others’ deemed threatening or as targets for intervention. It proceeds by examining twenty‐first‐century European security practices in order to understand what, if any, security identity the EU is constructing.

New threats – different response: EU and NATO and Somali piracy

When the European Union (EU) launched its first military naval mission, EU NAVFOR Somalia, Atalanta, the states who are members of both the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made a political choice: to prioritize the EU over NATO in their multilateral military efforts to fight piracy and its consequences. Thereby, Atalanta challenges the conventional assumption that EU security cooperation will remain limited. It also challenges the widely held belief that the European states will chose to act through NATO if dealing multilaterally with international security issues. How can we explain this decision? This analysis suggests that it can be explained in two phases where different mechanisms were at work. In the first phase, which can be accounted for from a neo-realist perspective, France, who held the Presidency, used particular favorable geopolitical conditions to put an autonomous EU operation on the agenda. However, agreement on the EU option cannot be explained as a result of strategic bargaining. Instead, in a second phase and in line with an alternative hypothesis building on the theory of communicative action, the EU member states came to support the French suggestion due to legitimacy considerations regarding the legal framework of the two operations.

US mainland, EU archipelago? Convergence and divergence on transnational organized crime

The fight against organized crime has become a top security priority for the European Union (EU). While a new policy area is emerging, it is difficult to understand who is in lead and how the process develops. This article delves into the post-Lisbon EU security model, exploring how Washington and Brussels collaborate in combating organized crime in a context of changing definitions, actors and policies. It argues that US definitions, operational models and policies influence EU institutional thinking and policies, shifting the emphasis from prevention and rule of law to execution and intelligence. The dynamics of policy convergence and divergence on criminal matters in the transatlantic community reflect tectonic shifts in the deepest levels of thinking security in the West, affecting the moulding of a European security identity.

The Arab Spring and its influence on European Union Policy

<i>The scale of incidents related to Arab Awaking and the consequences of movement in MENA region surprised the European Union and international community. However, the report of the Arab Human Development Report predicted in 2009 � that the Arab world will face security challenges associated with growing population, which can lead to internal tensions between different communities. The Arab Spring has contributed to the creation of new political, economic and social realities which forced EU to take necessary action to adapt to this situation. Significant efforts were taken according to financial support which was delivered in increased budgets of European Neighborhood Policy projects, The European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Due to the fact of immigration from region increases anxiety on the South of EU. In order to prevent illegal border crossing EU established Joint Operation Hermes 2011 � to resolve problem. However the Tunisami consequences are still considered as a threat to European Union security.</i>

Development of EU (European Union) energy market agenda and security of supply

The paper critically discusses the reform of the energy sector in the European Union from the beginnings of the liberalisation processes in 1996 until present. Through EU energy policies and relevant legislation the goals to achieve are sustainable development, security of supply and competitiveness, together with focussing on the needs of customers. The paper analyses all three above-mentioned pillars and customer protection requirements from the viewpoint: customers should have high quality energy delivered at affordable prices. We call for competitiveness to be further underlined by the market. Despite some concerns related to market models, with the latest impetus from the European institutions the market will, and is able to, develop and to integrate also renewable sources. Where the market does not deliver sufficiently, regulators have to ensure customer protection, especially for vulnerable customers in a period of increasing prices.

The Conflicting Aims of the European Neighborhood Policy and its Secondary Effects

Protecting the external borders of the European Union (EU) has been one of the key priorities of European policy makers in the last decade. Extending border controls beyond EU territories in order to fight ongoing issues such as migration has been one of the major strategies conducted by the EU to guarantee the security of Europe's borders. The European Neighborhood Policy has played a pivotal role in ensuring that the neighbors complied with the EU's interest by offering political and economic rewards. Compliance is also enhanced through the “Seville Doctrine.” The paper challenges the idea that the “war on migrants” is a common shared interest for the EU and North African states, arguing that it is rather an EU security interest which does not necessarily correspond with the neighbors priorities. Finally, the paper focuses on the implementation of externalization in Morocco and critically analyzes the non-desired secondary effects generated by the adoption of EU-made migration policies.

Overseeing Secrets in the EU: A Democratic Perspective

AbstractFormulating policy and overseeing implementation require access to information. Yet in (national) security matters executive officials have considerable discretion to conceal from the public and from parliaments information they consider sensitive. If executive officials are given largely unchecked power to conceal from the public and from parliament(s) whatever information they consider sensitive, part of the essential machinery of democracy is disconnected. Secrecy becomes a danger when it undermines the very values invoked to protect it: democratic self‐government and security. Technical European Union (EU) security classification rules receive little attention from outsiders and are adopted and amended in iterative processes as low‐level internal rule‐making. Oversight mechanisms in the EU, in particular by parliaments, can supply some countervailing pressure, but remain a recurrent challenge. Is more public discussion needed on when and for how long secrets can be kept and how oversight mechanisms are constructed in new EU horizontal legislation?

European Union security policy through strategic culture

European Union security policy through strategic culture

The EU's security actorness: the case of EUMM in Georgia

This article addresses conceptually the European Union (EU)'s security actorness, explaining its meaning, identifying the factors that are constitutive to the concept, and analyzing whether the EU is a security actor in Georgia, through its increased presence and engagement in the country and its eventual implications for the South Caucasus. The article argues that the complementary nature of the different EU tools deployed on the ground and their comprehensive nature have contributed to the EU's consolidation as a security actor in the South Caucasus. However, and despite the successful assessments of the European Union Monitoring Mission in the context of common security and defense policy development, the mission's deployment and its contribution to regional stability are influenced to a great extent by the role and involvement of external players, in particular in this case, that of Russia.

Living Apart Together: EU Comprehensive Security from a Trade Perspective

In contributing to the debate on the European Union (EU)'s comprehensive approach to security, this article examines the structural-operational interface between trade and security. It hypothesizes that the challenge of comprehensive security to combine structural activities with operational measures is most pronounced in the trade-security interface. As the oldest, most integrated and most powerful external policy domain of the EU, trade policy has acquired a high degree of institutional autonomy, operates according to its own logic and standard procedures and has a distinct organizational esprit de corps. This inhibits the integration of the EU's trade policy into the more comprehensive security portfolio. To operationalize this hypothesis, the article empirically explores the coherence between EU trade and security discourses and the extent to which trade measures have been used for security policy ends, as envisaged in the 2003 European Security Strategy. The empirical analysis confirms the hypothesis that coherence between the trade and security areas is limited, and that this relates to the institutional insulation of the EU trade policy sphere. However, the findings reveal that external factors, such as international trade law and preferences of the trade partners, should also be considered to further explain the relatively limited coherence between EU trade and security.

Institutionalizing the ‘Comprehensive Approach’ to EU Security

Since 2003, the European Union (EU) has developed into a provider of international security services. This capacity has involved a new policy tool, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), as well as other EU external policy competencies. However, given the complex nature of EU institutions, and the extent to which EU policy domains overlap, the EU has also attempted to impose more coherence on its foreign security actions to improve their effectiveness and raise its overall global profile as a political actor. These efforts are increasingly framed as the 'comprehensive approach' to European security actions. The comprehensive approach refers to the EU's more pro-active, and more coordinated, integration of its various external policy tools to address specific international security problems. This article explains how processes of experiential institutional learning helped generate new ideas regarding the comprehensive approach by examining a range of CSDP operations launched by the EU since 2003, each of which has required a considerable degree of institutional improvisation. This improvisation has inspired new institutional roles and capacities not found in formal treaties, and it suggests a capacity for endogenous institutional development on the part of the EU.

European Union Security Policy in the FormerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia: A Constructivist Approach

To whom it may concern: it is with regret that the publisher and the editors of the European Foreign Affairs Review have received proof of a serious lack of academic rigor by the author of an article published in 2013 (European Foreign Affairs Review, Volume 18, Issue 3, pp. 419-477). In response to this finding, a clear breach of our policies on professional ethics and against our high integrity standards, it has been decided to retract the relevant article from the publication. We are committed to do all that may be reasonably expected to guarantee the quality of the journal contributions and to avoid future similar cases.

A Toolkit for Evaluating the Design and Implementation of European Union Security and Defence Policy Mandates

The paper elaborates a toolkit for the systematic assessment of CSDP operations. It is derived from international relations theories and enables analysts to go beyond existing evaluation research of the CSDP, which is largely ad hoc and idiosyncratic in character. The kit classifies operations on the basis of their mandated activities. Common Security missions perform three roles: bargaining, arguing and information brokerage. These roles can be further broken down into specific actions: deterrence, compellence, facilitation of EU conditionality, mentoring, advising, training, monitoring and mediation. Drawing on IR theories, the toolkit identifies conditions that enable the successful completion of these actions. The paper uses examples to illustrate how the toolkit can be used to evaluate to what extent the roles assigned to CSDP operations by Brussels match the scope conditions present in theatre; to what extent Brussels has equipped its operations with the required role-specific policy instruments; and to what extent mission managers (in Brussels and in theatre) are successful in organising the means they have been given to increase the likelihood of successful mandate implementation.

European [Security] Union: Bordering and Governing a Secure Europe in a Better World?

The past 20 years, since the 1992 Treaty on European Union, have seen the gradual creation of both an “Area of Freedom, Security and Justice” and a “Common Foreign and Security Policy”. More recent is the development of a “European Neighbourhood Policy” over the past 10 years. All three of these policies involved the navigation and negotiation of security, borders and governance in and by the European Union (EU). This article analyses these practices of bordering and governance through a five-fold security framework. The article argues that a richer understanding of EU security discourses can be achieved through bringing the five dimensions to the analysis and using them to study both the interlinking and the interweaving of security, bordering and governance. Overall, the analysis presented here suggests that the five dimensions of broadening, deepening, thickening, practice and being can all contribute to a more expansive understanding of how EU security in the 2000s has been related to bordering and governance processes, and how these have been increasingly interwoven within the EU.

AU-EU “Strategic Partnership”: Strengthening Policy Convergence and Regime Efficacy in the African Peace and Security Complex?

ABSTRACT This article appraises strategic partnership between the African Union (AU) and European Union (EU). It examines the context and nature of AU and EU security relations and explores the conditions under which partnership has a positive impact in this regard. This includes an evaluation of convergence between the two organizations and its effect or lack thereof on African security. The article concludes that events leading up to and initiatives following the 2007 Joint Africa–European Union Strategy have produced a degree of AU and EU convergence, which has had limited impact on the efficacy of the African security regime, the level of which remains mediocre at best.

AN OLD PARTNERSHIP IN A NEW SETTING: ACP–EU RELATIONS FROM A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

AbstractGlobal economic, demographic and geopolitical as well as internal developments since the signature of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement in 2000 have had a profound impact on relations between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group. The paper analyses the process of adaptation in the areas of development cooperation and in the political and security context, reflected in two revisions in 2005 and 2010. It discusses the influence of the Lisbon Treaty on the objective of poverty reduction, and the role of EU values and security concerns. The negotiation of new trading arrangements compatible with the World Trade Organisation triggered a veritable storm in ACP–EU relations. The paper discusses factors, which proved to be major hurdles to the successful and timely conclusion of the Economic Partnership Agreements, as real trade between the two groups saw a reversal of the downward trend and the ACP recovered part of the previously lost market share of ACP goods in total EU imports. The exclusivity of the flagship partnership has started to crumble as the importance of new partners increased both on ACP and EU side. The author maintains that with the Cotonou Partnership Agreement's purpose defined as solely supporting the development of the ACP countries, it is not surprising that it does not count among the strategic partnerships from the EU perspective. Yet, it is too early to predict the future of the ACP–EU relationship beyond 2020, but both the EU and the ACP have an interest in starting off their discussions and negotiations on their future relationship on the right footing. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

EU Associates: Third-State Involvement in EU Foreign Policy Decision-Making

The European Union (EU) invites neighbouring states to contribute to the implementation of its foreign and security policy, but it does not offer involvement in relevant EU decision-making. This article makes the case for an associate status in the framework of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It examines how third states can be involved in both CFSP decision-shaping and decision-taking and discusses the political implications and legal requirements of such arrangements.

European Union Accession, Turkey and Organized Crime

The European Union (EU) has required accession states to adopt its acquis communitaire in internal security. Turkey has presented an important case because it has been seen both as a source of threat to the EU, in terms of the spread of organized crime and illegal drugs, and as a problematical candidate for accession. This article looks at the impact of the EU's accession process upon the internal security policies of Turkey, from its application for membership in 1987 to the present. It argues that the EU has exerted a substantial influence on Turkish policy, especially during the period when the prospect of accession was strongest. In spite of the paralysis in its accession negotiations, Turkey remains aligned with EU internal security policy because it has come to internalize the EU's security standards and share its fears of the domestic threats associated with organized crime and drug trafficking.

The European Union and sub-Saharan Africa – from intervention towards deterrence?

This article argues that aspirations of maintaining a dominant influence over sub-Saharan security issues has spurred the French and British leadership of European Union (EU) foreign and security policy integration, just as it has informed military capability expansions by the armed forces of the main EU powers. While Europe's initial African focus was on stabilising a continent marred by state failure, civil wars and genocides, changes in the global security context, especially the shift towards multipolarity manifest in China's growing engagement, has prompted a complementary focus on deterring other powers from making military inroads into the subcontinent. Hence Europe's sub-Saharan security focus is shifting from stabilisation towards deterrence. This helps explain recent military procurements which, in spite of the extremely challenging fiscal position of most EU member states, feature large-scale investments in long-range deterrence capabilities.

Counterterrorism cooperation in the transatlantic security community

While the notion of a European security community encounters little resistance in the security community literature, the transatlantic security community, comprised of the European Union (EU) and United States of America (USA), has suffered routine criticism in the aftermath of 9/11. This article seeks to lend empirical support to the claim that the transatlantic security community is alive and well, though not without its political arrhythmias. Drawing on the idea that community membership enhances norm convergence, this article examines the process of norm convergence in EU–US counterterrorism cooperation. We argue that the recent EU–US agreements on Passenger Name Records and the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme represent a form of cooperation, that is, the convergence of values, which is essential for late-stage security community integration. Detainee practices, however, represent a harder case for the transatlantic security community. Despite these difficulties, we argue that this controversy does not preclude a priori the possibility of agreement. Although these transatlantic differences might shake the foundations of the EU security community, we argue that the current controversies provide an opportunity for the EU to reaffirm its commitment to its values, thus reinforcing its foundations as an independent security community. This account of cooperation, political disagreement notwithstanding, upsets the Kaganian account of transatlantic relations.