EU Security Policy Research Articles

The role of the European Union’s securitisation policies in exacerbating the intersectional vulnerability of refugees and asylum seekers

ABSTRACT This article compares the European Union's (EU) reception and resettlement of European and non-European refugees and asylum seekers from an intersectional viewpoint. It does so using data collected during fieldwork in Greece focusing on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV). The goal is to examine, through an empirical and theoretical study, the gendered, racialised, national and religious nature of the EU's approach to its external policies, border security approaches and its constitutive nature based on contingent, relational and non-additive vulnerabilities and inequalities that have been inherited from the EU's colonial past. The study asks how the influx of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine exemplifies the gendered, racialised, national and religious dimension of the EU's approach to border security. It examines how the EU's approach showcases the paternalistic approach to refugees' vulnerability through essentialisation, which leads to their vulnerabilisation. It looks at the intersectional impact of the gendered, racialised, national and religious constitutive nature of non-European refugees, as well as the gendered, racialised, national and religious notion of ‘others'. Based on the comparison, the article contends that, theoretically, State or EU security and human security policies should not be mutually exclusive. However, as the empirical data illustrate, there are multiple competing ‘insecurities’ which are prioritised over others.

Populists in the Shadow of Unanimity: Contestation of EU Foreign and Security Policy

The arrival of populist political parties to power in several member states and the increasing politicisation of EU foreign policy has made intra-European consensus more difficult to reach in the past decade. This article examines the impact of populist contestation on EU foreign policy negotiations in the Council, a policy area governed by unanimity. This decision-making mode makes the policy especially vulnerable to the impact of contestation and, at the same time, gives power to those willing to use their veto. Drawing on the idea of unpopulist politics, this study shows how Hungary and, to a lesser degree, Poland have contested the established formal and informal norms (such as consensus-building or reflex coordination) through discursive and behavioural non-compliance. The “domestication” of EU foreign policy has meant that, in general, populists show less willingness to compromise and resort to non-decisions to demonstrate the EU’s weakness. However, there are exceptions, and it is possible to see variations in populist strategies when faced with similar challenges, as exemplified by the EU’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. By testing the scope conditions under which unpolitics might be activated, we show that the same crisis situation did not lead to a uniform response amongst populist governments. This is because both the nature of the crisis and perceptions of risk/gain were understood differently (and actively constructed as such) by populists in power. This finding emphasises the social, relational, and multi-level nature of unpolitics as a phenomenon.

Editorial: How to Get Rid of Vetoes in EU Foreign and Security Policy?

Editorial: How to Get Rid of Vetoes in EU Foreign and Security Policy?

Strategic autonomy of the EU in the light of CSDP and the changing world order

The development of the European Union’s activity as a security actor is closely linked to the need for global capacity for action in this domain, with a clearly “softer” role definition than NATO, which is derived from a collective security concept. The aim of this study is to identify how and under what circumstances the European Union’s self-definition in the field of security and defense policy has evolved, how it has attempted to make the EU be present in the changing world order as an independent actor asserting its strategic autonomy with a specific voice. The paper looks back not only on the development of the EU security and defense policy, but also highlights the two decades of Hungarian operational involvement in it. Our central assumption is that the strengthening of the EU’s strategic autonomy, in which CSDP is one of the core instruments, cannot be avoided amid the challenges of the modern era if the EU wants to preserve its competitiveness and adaptive responsiveness.

(Not) Coming of age? Unpacking the European Union’s quest for strategic autonomy in security and defence

ABSTRACT Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine brought back the debate about the European Union’s strategic autonomy ambitions in security and defence. The notion had slipped off the EU’s radar following the post-2016 thematic shift in strategic autonomy discussions to global economic interdependencies. Our article contributes to an appraisal of the strategic autonomy debate in security and defence since Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, while also tracing the emergence and revival of the concept over the past 25 years. By unpacking the EU’s quest for strategic autonomy as a process of maturation since the late 1990s, we examine the extent to which the EU has grown into an autonomous security and defence actor. We further discuss the implications of maturation for EU security and defence policy. Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews with policymakers and foreign policy experts in seven member states, our study brings the underexplored aspect of national acceptability of EU external action to the fore. We show that significant progress has been made regarding both ideational and material aspects of EU security and defence policy. Yet, prevailing differences in underlying national beliefs, perceptions and goals about security and defence continue to hamper the Union’s further maturation.

“Zeitenwende” as coming of age? EU foreign & security policy through war & peace*

ABSTRACT The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought war back to the European continent and led to considerable change in EU member states’ foreign policies. The consequential degree of EU foreign policy unity, as well as shifts in long-lasting national and collective security and defence taboos, has represented a significant departure from past practices. We use these processes of change as a starting point to set the scene for this special issue and to inform its main research question: in what manner, if at all, has the EU come of age as a foreign and security actor during Russia’s war on Ukraine? This introduction situates the main question of the special issue into the wider scholarly debates on actorness and the EU’s geopolitical ambitions. It conceptually develops the analogy of “coming of age” to examine a prospective maturation process of the EU as a foreign and security actor. In doing so, it not only interrogates what the EU as a mature foreign and security actor would look like, but it also develops the framework, identifies four maturation processes and reflects on necessary caveats for drawing inferences about the state of maturation of the EU as foreign and security actor.

Coordinative Europeanization and Russia’s war of aggression: how crises shape Europeanization dynamics in EU foreign policy

AbstractThe European Union’s response to Russia’s war of aggression has run contrary to expectations of EU foreign policy inaction and incoherence as well as warnings of de-Europeanization and renationalization of foreign policy. Drawing on the concept of coordinative Europeanization, we argue that the response to the war has allowed for a more horizontal, cooperative decision-making process involving both member states and EU institutions, as well as a reversal of traditionally Western European-centric dynamics of horizontal Europeanization. With the aim of investigating these changes further, this paper relies on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as a case study to explore how crises shape Europeanization dynamics in EU foreign and security policy. Relying on primary and secondary sources as well as interviews with EU and national officials, we show how the coordinative Europeanization we have witnessed since the start of the war can be attributed to the characteristics of the crisis itself. In so doing, the paper contributes to the literature on Europeanization of foreign policy as well as to studies focusing on the effect of crises on the process of European integration.

The Ideational Power of Strategic Autonomy in EU Security and External Economic Policies

AbstractThis article undertakes a comparative analysis of European Union security and external economic policies to explore the different trajectories of strategic autonomy (SA) in these two domains. In so doing, it contributes to a better understanding of endogenous drivers of policy change in response to geopoliticising pressures. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, it analyses three dimensions of ideational power: power in, power through and power over. The evidence, based on documentary analysis and interviews, demonstrates that though SA presented a more significant challenge to pre‐established paradigms in external economic relations, the role of the Commission as an ideational entrepreneur, supported by its coercive power, facilitated the adoption of the idea of (open) SA. Conversely, French President Emmanuel Macron was unable to persuade others of the adoption of a sovereigntist conception of SA in security, with the exception of defence industrial policy, where the Commission enjoys budgetary power and competences.

THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES IN EU ASYLUM AND REFUGEE POLICY AFTER 2015

The current migration waves in the European Union, especially after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, are causing a lot of confusion. This has forced EU institutions and individual member states to rethink their policies towards refugees. Analysis of the migration phenomenon within the EU, due to its importance in both the European and international arenas, is crucial to achieving this goal. The research problem of this article is to discuss the impact of the migration and refugee crisis on EU refugee policy after 2015. The main hypothesis is that as a result of the “refugee crisis” in 2015, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a change occurred in the way EU security policy was conducted. An additional conditionality turned out to be the currently ongoing war in Ukraine, which caused a huge relocation of the population and, at the same time, revised the EU’s asylum legislation, showing its loopholes and inconsistencies. The research methodology includes a critical review of relevant literature, official documents, policy documents, primary and secondary legislation, statistical data, and content analysis.

Weathering the Geopolitical Storms: The Ever-elusive Success of EU Policy towards Iran

ABSTRACT Between 2003 and 2022, European Union policy towards Iran was the result of continuous course corrections made by EU institutions and member states to dodge internal disagreements and navigate the agitated waters of a region – the Middle East and the Gulf – mired in multipolar competition and beset by fragmented governance arrangements. A comprehensive review of official documents, relevant literature and interviews conducted with Iranian and European officials and experts demonstrates that a combination of prioritisation, compartmentalisation and multilateralisation kept EU foreign and security policy towards Iran on a fairly proactive and coherent course for almost twenty years. However, the forces unleashed by the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and more recently by Iran’s collusion in Russia’s war on Ukraine as well as the turmoil inside the Islamic Republic itself put the limits of the EU’s capacity to mitigate the effects of geopolitical rivalries, Middle Eastern fragmentation and intra-EU contestation on its Iran policy in sharp relief.

The Eastern Neighbours and EU Security Policy: A Differentiated Integration Perspective

The EU’s decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova a candidate country status and the recognition of Georgia’s European perspective in June 2022 has significant effects for both the EU’s enlargement and security and defence policies. So far, ‘hard’ security issues have played little role in the framing of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Association Agreements (AAs) with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Their full integration into EU security and defence arrangements will thus require considerable strategy-making and implementation efforts. This article discusses the extent to which existing external Differentiated Integration (DI) constellations can be seen as ‘building blocks’ for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia’s prospective full integration into the EU’s security and defence architecture. It is shown that, in legal and practical terms, such DI constellations are conducive to the deepening of these countries’ integration with the EU in the security and defence domain. From the political viewpoint, the focus on DI with the new accession countries may, however, be (mis)used as a substitute for fullscale integration into the EU security and defence architecture. We, nonetheless, suggest several pilot domains that can be used to test the limits of new accession countries’ DI with the Union. EU security and defence policy, EU enlargement policy, accession, European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), Russia’s war against Ukraine, European Defence Agency, European Defence Fund, Permanent Structured Cooperation

The Ukraine war and the emergence of the European commission as a geopolitical actor

ABSTRACT The European Commission has traditionally held a weak position in the policy domain of EU security and defence policy and has been seen as a ‘least likely’ case of supranational integration. Nevertheless, in recent years, the Commission has steadily expanded its role and ambition within this policy field – a process which gained in momentum after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Thus, this article investigates how the war in Ukraine has led to the establishment of new security and defence initiatives and to a stronger geopolitical role for the Commission. This paper theorises that the war in Ukraine is serving as an engine of integration. The article traces how the Commission seizes the windows of opportunity created by crises to strategically expand its mandate on security and defence policy and in the development of the sanctions policy regime.

EU ENLARGEMENT POLICY IN 2022: KEY CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNION’S TRANSFORMATION POWER CONCEPT

The article examines the key conclusions and recommendations to candidate countries and potential candidates for accession, set out by the European Commission in the annual Communication on the EU enlargement policy in 2022. For better understanding of the essence of the Commission’s Communication, this article the author analyses the realities faced by the EU with the beginning of the Russian Federation’s full-scale war against Ukraine. According to scholars and experts, the war changed Europe more profoundly than any event since the end of the Cold War. It is found that the war clearly emphasized the attractiveness of EU membership and strengthened its transformative power, which was formed thanks to the values, diversity of the societies of the Member States, fundamental freedoms and way of life of the Union. In this context, one can agree with the statement of scholars that the real challenges that the EU cannot avoid if it wants to become more authoritative and strategically autonomous are the strengthening, not the weakening of the European level (institutional and legal systems, common EU policies) under a strict democratic control. The analysis of the conclusions and recommendations in the Commission’s Communication allowed us to conclude that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the policy of EU enlargement was returned to the forefront of the EU’s agenda. Evidence of this was, firstly, granting the status of a candidate for accession to Ukraine and Moldova and a potential candidate – to Georgia, and, secondly, a joint search by the EU and its Member States for ways to activate and speed up the process of European integration of the countries of the Western Balkans region. In addition, it should be noted that the cross-cutting themes of the Commission’s conclusions and recommendations are EU security and energy policy, key areas of the Green Course, in particular decarbonization of the economy, as well as the issue of recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. A separate emphasis in the Commission’s Communication is placed on the reforms continued by the countries of the Western Balkans, which are necessary to fulfill the accession criteria.

Towards a common vision? Populist radical right parties’ positions on the EU common foreign and security policy towards Russia

ABSTRACT The growth of populism in the EU member states, as a large-scale internal challenge to the European integration project, has a projection on foreign policy of both national states and the European Union. The EU foreign policy, towards Russia, is the area where the deviation of populist programs and strategies from the positions of the mainstream is most clearly manifested. In this regard, it is necessary to determine the foreign policy orientations of the populist radical right parties of the EU member states regarding the EU foreign policy, towards Russia, and opportunities for their synchronization. The main conclusion of this research is that populist foreign policy orientations highlight the internal heterogeneity of the populist phenomenon. Populism in power and in opposition does not have the capacity to change the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia. The nature of populism as an ideology, the instrumental use by right populists of the ‘theme of Russia’ for ‘internal consumption’ and their mainstreaming in power are a significant barrier to the real challenge of the EU policy towards Russia.

Exploring the dynamics of policy change in EU security and defence: policy entrepreneurs behind the Strategic Compass

Drawing on Kingdon’s Multiple Stream Approach, the article analyses the political dynamics that led to the introduction of the Strategic Compass, which gained prominence in the context of the Russian war in Ukraine. Due to its comprehensiveness and adoption at the highest political level – the European Council – the study considers the Compass a manifestation of policy change. Assuming that change in EU security policy originates from various sources, the article identifies Germany, France, the High Representative, and the European Commission as potential policy entrepreneurs. By examining their entrepreneurial strategies, it traces their footprint on policy change. The analysis reveals a particularly strong influence of French diplomacy on the process of shaping the Compass and points to the key role of the High Representative, despite the institutional constraints of the office. The article also highlights the usefulness of MSA for studying foreign policy change and, in particular, the dynamics between entrepreneurs.

A unified autonomous europe? Public opinion of the EU's foreign and security policy

ABSTRACT The Russian invasion of Ukraine has pushed the EU into a new phase where both the political elites and the public start to rethink its foreign and security policies. This paper uses a unique survey in seven European countries in the wake of the war to examine European public opinion on how the EU's foreign and security policies should be made and how autonomous they should be. We find that Europeans not only favour increasing military capacity at the national or NATO level but also prefer increasing military capacity at the EU level, though to a lesser degree. We also show that perceptions of both short-term and long-term threats, European identification and mainstream left-wing ideology lead Europeans to favour a more militarily powerful, unified and autonomous EU.

The strengthened role of the European Union in defence: the case of the Military Mobility project

ABSTRACT This article retraces and reconstructs the process of developing and launching the European Union’s Military Mobility project. Situated in the agenda-setting and policy-transfer literature, this article explicates the establishment and implementation of the Military Mobility project and helps to explain the entire policy and development process around the Military Mobility initiative to date. By drawing on process tracing, this article methodologically unpacks the process surrounding this policy development at the EU level. The results show that the European Commission has expanded its competences within the defence field by purposefully and politically acting upon the worsened security situation in and around Europe, while actively building coalitions and managing good working relations with the actors involved in the project. Moreover, the findings show that the EU services have learned from NATO in the defence domain. Thus, this analysis contributes to a greater understanding of the new role of the European Commission in the field of EU security and defence policy.

Super Atlanticist in the EU? Vilnius Between Washington and Brussels

When in the early 2000s, the European Union prepared to take in a host of Central and Eastern European countries, some policy observers were quick to assert that the newcomers, given their staunch Atlanticism, would increase the US political clout in the EU’s corridors of power. Sceptics, on the other hand, pushed back by contending that with the deepening of the EU integration process, the foreign and security policies of Central-Eastern Europe would eventually align closer with Brussels. This article, using Lithuania as a case study, seeks to reflect on how these competing hypotheses have panned out in practice. The analysis concludes that Lithuania, despite being institutionally anchored in the EU, has sought to retain its special relations with Washington, thus occasionally causing some disruption to the EU’s consensus. Stated differently, it has exhibited the behaviour of a super atlanticist. Lithuania, the United States, the EU, Alliances, Super Atlanticism

Making Use of a Window of Opportunity: The Czech Presidencyʼs Performance in Foreign and Security Policy

This article assesses the achievements of the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU regarding foreign and security policy in the second half of 2022, while taking into account the external context provided by the Russian war in Ukraine, national conditions in which the presidency was conducted, and issue-specific characteristics related to EU foreign and security policy. It discusses where the Czech presidency has managed to contribute to progress, such as the implementation of the Strategic Compass and the reinvigoration of the enlargement process, as well as pointing out shortcomings where it failed to deliver results. Overall, the article argues that by skilfully setting and scheduling the agenda and staying on top of the key policy dossiers, Prague successfully leveraged the window of opportunity triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine to push tangible progress within security and defence issues forward.

Europejska autonomia strategiczna w percepcji państw Europy Środkowej

The article concerns programs and activities related to the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy. Research studies the so-called “European strategic autonomy” and its perception in Central European countries. Authors used extensive literature on the subject, official documents, including the EU treaties, declarations of the European Council, conclusions and decisions of the EU Council. The first stage of the European Security and Defense Identity was for the countries of Central Europe a preliminary period to membership in the EU and NATO. These institutions were not treated as competitive. Although during the implementation of the European Security and Defense Policy, NATO was considered by the Central Europe courtiers as a more credible organization. As a result of the reforms and the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty (LT), there were concerns among new members about the limitation of their sovereignty. This had a negative impact on the implementation of the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy. Therefore, the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) was introduced eight years after the LT entry into force. Central European countries joined PESCO and submitted their projects. Now we are entering the next stage in the development of European strategic autonomy e.g., in 2022, the “Strategic Compass” will be announced and a debate on the EU conference on the “Future of Europe” will be held.