Aberystwyth University

The European Security Continuum and the EU as an International Security

Provider
Shepherd, Alistair Johannes Ken

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Global Society
DOI:
10.1080/13600826.2015.1018146
Publication date:
2015
Citation for published version (APA):
Shepherd, A. J. K. (2015). The European Security Continuum and the EU as an International Security Provider.
Global Society, 29(2), 156-174. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2015.1018146

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 The European Security Continuum and the EU as an
International Security Provider1

Dr. Alistair J.K Shepherd

Department of International Politics

Aberystwyth University
Penglais,
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion,
SY23 3FE,
Wales, UK

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44(0)1970 628636

Fax: +44(0)1970 622709

1
This article is a revised version of papers presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop 2 ‘Towards a Theory of the
EU as an International Security Provider’, Mainz, Germany, March 2013, and at a follow on Workshop at Roskilde
University, Denmark, November 2013. I would like to thank the participants at those workshops, the special issue editors
and the two anonymous reviewers of Global Society for their very helpful comments and suggestions.
Abstract

The European Union has long been seen as a distinctive or sui generis actor in international politics,
epitomised by the notions of civilian or normative power, or more recently, by the ‘Comprehensive
Approach’. However, these conceptualisations of the EU as a distinctive international security
provider are being challenged by the blurring of the traditional internal-external security divide. The
threats and challenges identified in the various EU security strategies increasingly transcend
geographic and bureaucratic boundaries, creating a European security continuum, which
complicates the conceptualisation and operationalization of the EU as a security provider.
Significant friction continues to exist in the formulation and implementation of security policy as EU
institutions and capabilities struggle to overcome the traditional architecture separating internal
and external security. In parallel the cross fertilization of internal and external security norms and
practices undermines understandings of the EU’s role as a normative international security
provider.

Keywords

EU, security, internal-external, normative power

1
INTRODUCTION

The European Union (EU) has long been seen as a distinctive or sui generis actor in international
politics, epitomised by the plethora of conceptualisations of EU power, including: civilian,
normative, transformative, post-modern, ethical, smart and soft. What many of these
conceptualisations have in common is that the EU is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as focusing more
on ‘milieu goals’ rather than ‘possession goals’2 with generally more (although not entirely) benign
motivations. More recently the EU’s distinctiveness as an international security provider has been
more pragmatically couched in the language of the ‘Comprehensive Approach’, whereby the EU
seeks to address security challenges holistically; something NATO cannot do, being primarily a
military organisation, and other international organisations, such as the United Nations, are
struggling with. However, these conceptualisations of the EU as a distinctive international security
provider are being challenged by the evolving security environment. In particular, over the last 15
years there has been a significant trend within EU security strategies towards the blurring of internal
and external security. This increasing focus on the interconnections between internal and external
security threats suggests the emergence of a European security continuum where geographic
(domestic and foreign) and/or bureaucratic (civilian and military) distinctions begin to erode.

This is particularly pertinent as the EU’s two overarching security policies, the Common Security
and Defence Policy (CSDP)3 and the Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ), increasingly
transcend the internal-external divide, with AFSJ operating inside and outside the EU and CSDP
drawing on both civilian and military instruments. The central proposition of the article is that the
internal-external divide is being undermined in three ways, (a) the changing nature of the threats (b)
changing threat perceptions, and (c) the EU’s responses. However, not all security challenges blur
these boundaries to the same degree or in the same ways: some (such as organised crime) may
transcend geographic boundaries; some (such as state failure) may transcend bureaucratic
boundaries; others (such as terrorism) may transcend both; while a few (such as interstate conflict)
may transcend neither. Hence, this security continuum can act as a framework to assess the nature of
the security threats identified by the EU and its’ responses to those threats in terms of a dual blurring
of the geographic (domestic-foreign) and bureaucratic (civilian-military) dimensions of security. At

2
Wolfers, Arnold, Discord and Collaboration: Essays in International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962)
3
CSDP was called ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) until the Lisbon Treaty entered into force in
December 2009, for the sake of consistency CSDP will be used throughout this article.

2
one end of the continuum are the transboundary4 challenges where geographic and bureaucratic
divides are increasingly irrelevant. At the other end challenges are still demarcated by both
geographic and bureaucratic division. While this trend is not new, the prominence of claims about an
internal-external security nexus has increased significantly with implications for the EU as an
international security provider. As Kirchner has argued: ‘the extent to which the EU can be deemed a
security provider depends considerably on the definition of security or, more precisely, on the type of
security threat that is envisaged.’5

This emerging European security continuum creates both a practical and normative challenge for the
EU as an international security provider. First, it creates significant challenges for the EU’s
institutional architecture and capability profile, which are mired in bureaucratic turf wars and
struggling to overcome the legacy of the EU’s pillar structure. Second, the EU’s responses to the
increasing interconnections between internal and external security problematizes perceptions of the
EU as a distinctive normative6 or civilian power7 pursuing ‘milieu goals’. These conceptualisations
construct the EU as a security provider seeking to act as an exemplar and a ‘force for good’ in the
international system based on promoting shared norms and values such as liberty, democracy, rule of
law and human rights, utilising different capabilities and being driven by more benign motivations,
which focus on goals that others, indeed all, can benefit from (milieu goals) rather than pursuing
goals that benefit only itself (possession goals). As the security agenda widens and the EU’s
responses tend toward protecting its own interests first, coercively if necessary, its distinctiveness
begins to erode. Yet, the emerging security continuum also provides an opportunity for the EU to
reframe and reassert its distinctiveness as an international security provider, through making a reality
of the Comprehensive Approach (CA) by drawing holistically on the full spectrum of instruments at
its disposal, while limiting the shift away from pursuing milieu goals.

The guiding question the article addresses is: in what ways does the EU’s security discourse
challenge the traditional internal-external security divide and what are the practical and normative
implications for the EU as an international security provider? It argues that the current institutional

4
See: Boin, A and Rhinard, M. (2008) ‘Managing Transboundary Crises: What role for the European Union.’
International Studies Review 10(1): 1-26
5
Kirchner, Emil, ‘The Challenge of European Union Security Governance’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 44,
No. 5 (2006), p. 952
6
Manners, Ian ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 40, No.
2 (2002), p. 235-258
7
Duchêne, Francois, 'Europe's role in World Peace', in Richard Mayne (ed.), Europe Tomorrow Sixteen European's Look
Ahead (London: Fontana, 1972)

3
and capability framework is limiting the CA’s success, while the EU’s responses to the blurring of
internal and external security undermine its distinctiveness as a normative international security
provider. The article structures this analysis and argument in three parts. First, it examines the EU’s
framing of security, with a particular focus on its discourse on the blurring of the internal-external
divide, because the type of security threat will influence the nature of the EU as a security provider.
This discourse is made up of the EU’s security strategies and policies, which are analysed to identify
when, why and how the blurring of internal and external security is invoked. Second, the article
draws out the practical implications of this discursive framing for EU security practices. In doing so
it examines the institutional and capability opportunities and obstacles created by the emerging
European security continuum. Finally, the article analyses the conceptual and normative
consequences of these changing discourses and practices of security for understandings of the EU as
an international security provider.

FRAMING SECURITY: THE EU’S INTERNAL-EXTERNAL DISCOURSE

Following the launch in 1999 of CSDP and AFSJ there has been a clear discursive trend across EU
security strategies to make explicit the increasing connections between internal and external security
and, therefore, the need to improve coordination between internal and external security institutions.
For example, the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) argued that ‘The post-Cold War
environment is one of increasingly open borders in which internal and external aspects of security
are indissolubly linked’8, while the 2009 Stockholm Programme went as far as claiming that ‘internal
and external security are inseparable.’9 More specifically, the ESS, the 2008 ESS Implementation
Report, the 2010 Internal Security Strategy (ISS) and the Commission’s ISS in Action, identify an
ever expanding range of challenges: terrorism, cybercrime, cybersecurity, the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD), illegal migration, energy security, organised crime, state
failure, environmental change, regional conflict, natural and man-made disasters and border security.
As the number and complexity of security challenges increased, so did references to the increasing
linkages between internal and external security. As Catherine Ashton, the former High
Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR), argued: ‘we know that
internal and external challenges are interconnected. Take illegal immigration or terrorism. Neither is

8
Council of the EU, A Secure Europe in a Better World, European Security Strategy, (Brussels, 12 December 2003), p. 2
9
Council of the EU, The Stockholm Programme – An Open and Secure Europe Serving and Protecting the Citizens
(Brussels, 2 December 2009), p.73

4
purely an internal or external issue.’10 Yet, this discursive construction of an emerging security
continuum is barely reflected in the implementation of the ESS or ISS.

This is partly because the ESS and ISS, while providing overarching frameworks within which the
EU and its member states identify common security threats and challenges, are two quite distinct
strategies.11 First, they were drafted very differently. The ESS was quickly drawn up within the
office of Javier Solana, then High Representative for CFSP. The ISS had a much longer gestation
period, being promoted by the Commission, Council and EU Presidencies over several years before
being adopted under the Spanish Presidency in February 2010. Second, the strategies differ in their
recommendations for action. The ESS and its 2008 Implementation Report are quite vague in their
policy proposals. The ISS and, in particular, the Commission’s ISS in Action make much more
specific recommendations for tackling the challenges identified. Third, the strategies had different
rationales. The ESS was about rebuilding commonality on international security issues in the wake
of the 2003 Iraq war, while the ISS was about improving coordination, policy and action through the
development of a ‘European security model’.

Yet despite these differences, the ESS and ISS display some strikingly similar characteristics. Two
are particularly relevant to the emerging European security continuum: (a) claims that internal and
external security are inseparable; and (b) the threats identified. First, both strategies explicitly claim
that the internal-external divide is eroding. The ESS argues we live in a world of ‘increasingly open
borders in which the internal and external aspects of security are indissolubly linked’ 12, emphasising
the geographic blurring of security challenges. The strategy continues, ‘none of the new threats is
purely military; nor can any be tackled by purely military means’,13 suggesting the bureaucratic
distinction between military and civilian security is becoming less clear cut. The dual blurring
discourse is continued in the 2008 ESS Implementation Report, which emphasises the EU’s desire to
‘improve the way in which we bring together internal and external dimensions’ of security.14
Specifically, it calls for the ‘coherent use of our instruments, including political, diplomatic,
development, humanitarian, crisis response, economic and trade cooperation, and civilian and

10
Council of the EU, Remarks by HR Catherine Ashton at Munich Security Conference (Brussels, 6 February 2010)
11
There is a long standing debate as to whether the ESS is actually a strategy. For example see: Toje, Asle ‘The 2003
European Union Security Strategy: A Critical Appraisal’, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol 10, No. 1, (2005) pp.
117-133 Biscop, Sven & Andersson, Joel (eds.), The EU and the European Security Strategy: Forging a Global Europe
(London: Routledge, 2007)
12
Council of the EU, A Secure Europe in a Better, op. cit., p. 1
13
Ibid., p. 7
14
Council of the EU, Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy – Providing Security in a
Changing World (Brussels, 11 December, 2008), p. 4

5
military crisis management.’15 However, these calls refer primarily to EU policies and missions
overseas, not yet signifying bureaucratic linkages with the EU’s internal security structures.

Nevertheless, the ISS discourse explicitly makes a case for ‘a greater interdependence between
internal and external security’ stressing that internal security ‘must be understood as a wide and
comprehensive concept which straddles multiple sectors.’16 The ISS devotes an entire section to the
external dimension of internal security, claiming ‘a concept of internal security cannot exist without
an external dimension, since internal security increasingly depends to a large extent on external
security,’17 signifying a geographic merging of security. The strategy, therefore, calls for greater
cooperation between Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) and CSDP through the ‘participation of law
enforcement agencies and Justice Freedom and security bodies at all stages of civil crisis
management,’18 suggesting a bureaucratic blurring of security. This discursive framing is
consolidated in the Commission’s ISS in Action, which clearly argues for a dual blurring of security
claiming that ‘many of today’s security challenges are cross-border and cross-sectoral in nature.’19 It
continues, ‘in striving to reach our security objectives, the contribution from both EU internal and
external policies is crucial.’20 To do so, it is ‘important to ensure coherence and complementarity
between internal and external aspects of EU security.’21 The ISS also identifies institutions
associated with external security as crucial to tackling some key internal challenges. For example, to
implement the ISS the Commission calls for the European External Action Service (EEAS) to ‘be
invited to participate to ensure consistency with the wider European Security Strategy and to exploit
synergies between internal and external policies, including risk and threat assessments.’ 22 The
Commission’s communication also calls for the linking of the different situation awareness centres
across the EU to better coordinate responses to crises and disasters, and the use of maritime
surveillance capabilities to enhance border management. However, as with the ESS and as explored
later, these calls for enhanced linkages between the EU’s internal and external security institutions
remain largely rhetorical, with little progress in bringing together internal and external security
institutions more systematically. Nevertheless, the ESS and ISS demonstrate how the EU is

15
Ibid., p. 9
16
Council of the EU, Draft Internal Security Strategy for the European Union: “Towards a European Security Model”
(Brussels, 8 March 2010) p. 2, 5
17
Council of the EU, Draft Internal Security Strategy, op. cit., p. 16-17
18
Ibid., p. 17
19
European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and Council. The EU
Internal Security Strategy in Action: Five Steps towards a more secure Europe (Brussels, 22 November 2010), p. 2
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., p. 3
22
Ibid., p. 15

6
discursively constructing a European security continuum through a dual (geographic and
bureaucratic) blurring of security. This blurring may lead to the cross fertilisation of internal and
external security norms and practices, which may undermine the EU’s normative security provider
self-image.

This blurring is supported by the second striking commonality of these two security strategies;
overlapping threats and challenges, despite the strategies’ different orientations. The ESS is
externally orientated, seeking to identify the threats and challenges within the international system
which are likely to affect the security of the EU, its member states, and its citizens. Meanwhile the
ISS is directed at the challenges to citizen’s security originating from within the EU. Yet a number of
security challenges appear in both strategies, including: terrorism and radicalisation, organised crime,
arms trafficking, cybercrime and cybersecurity, energy security, neighbourhood and border security,
and resilience to accidents and disasters whether natural or man-made. While the ISS and
Commission’s communication may emphasise different aspects of a particular security threat than
the ESS, they are identifying similar issues. This overlap suggests, as the Chairman of the UK’s
Serious Organised Crime Agency argued, that ‘there is a seamless relationship between an internal
security strategy and an external one.’23

Turning briefly to the EU’s framing of some specific security challenges it is clear that the internal-
external divide is being eroded. In both the ESS and ISS terrorism is a clear example of a security
threat that transcends the internal-external divide. The 2005 Counter Terrorism Strategy argues the
EU ‘is an area of increasing openness, in which the internal and external aspects of security are
intimately linked…This is an environment which terrorists abuse to pursue their objectives.’24
Managing regional conflict, while usually seen as a foreign policy issue, requires a range of
capabilities beyond the diplomats and military, including: rule of law, civil protection, administrative
expertise, aid, trade, and development policy. In this vein the ISS transcends the internal-external
divide when it calls for greater cooperation between external (CSDP) and internal (JHA) bodies.
Transcending the divide in the opposite direction CSDP’s crisis management missions and the
prevention of, or response to, state failure are integral to ameliorating internal security threats, such
as illegal immigration, organised crime and terrorism. Indeed, the increasingly transnational nature
of organised crime creates a dual blurring of internal and external security. The ESS argues ‘the

23
Andrews, Ian, in European Union Committee - Seventeenth Report: The EU Internal Security Strategy (May 2011)
para. 43
24
Council of the EU, The European Union Counter Terrorism Strategy (Brussels, 30 November 2005), p. 6

7
internal threat to our security has an important external dimension: cross border trafficking in drugs,
women, illegal immigrants, and weapons accounts for a large part of the activities of criminal
gangs.’25 Furthermore, in 2011 the JHA Council called for COSI (Standing Committee on Internal
Security) ‘to ensure that these crime priorities are taken into account in other policy areas,
particularly in the Unions’ external action.’26 In order to combat the cross-border trafficking of
drugs, people, weapons and counterfeit merchandise, internal security policies and agencies have
been externalised and external security missions have developed more traditional internal security
(policing) features. For example Europol, which was originally established to tackle drug trafficking
in Europe, adopted an external strategy in 2004 and quickly widened its remit to other forms of
international (primarily organised) crime.27 A move in the opposite direction is the use of CSDP
missions to tackle organised crime, originally in the Balkans and more recently in the Sahel and with
EUNAVFOR off the coast of Somalia. While EUNAVFOR is a military mission outside the territory
of the EU its primary role is to ‘fight piracy and armed robbery’, in other words organised crime.
This is explicitly stated in the ESS Implementation Report, which ‘highlighted piracy as a new
dimension of organised crime.’28 The EU’s efforts to tackle organised crime illustrate it is an internal
and external security challenge, that traditional geographic and bureaucratic distinctions are
increasingly problematic, and the capabilities being used affect the nature of the EU as a security
provider. Finally, following the 2008 ESS Report cybersecurity is now a prominent challenge for
both internal and external security strategies. The EU’s 2013 Cybersecurity Strategy makes clear
reference to the dual blurring of internal and external security. The geographic blurring is apparent in
the strategy’s argument that ‘the global reach of the Internet means that law enforcement must adopt
a coordinated and collaborative cross-border approach’, while bureaucratic blurring is evident in the
strategy’s desire that ‘synergies between civilian and military approaches in protecting cyber assets
should be enhanced.’29 This framing of security as blurring the internal-external divide, as an
emerging security continuum, may undermine the EU’s more normative approach through possible
recourse to military capabilities. Yet it also provides an opportunity for the EU to rearticulate its

25
Council of the EU, A Secure Europe in a Better, op. cit., p. 4
26
Council of the EU, Council Conclusions on setting the EU’s priorities for the fight against organised crime between
2011 and 2013, (Brussels, 10 June 2011)
27
Mounier, Gregory, ‘Civilian Crisis Management and the External Dimension of JHA: Inceptive, Functional and
Institutional Similarities’, Journal of European Integration, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2009), pp. 45-64
28
Council of the EU, Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy, op. cit., p. 8
29
European Commission & High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Joint
Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the
Committee of the Regions. Cybersecurity Strategy of the European Union: An Open, Safe and Secure Cyberspace
(Brussels, 7 February 2013)

8
distinctiveness as comprehensive international security provider. However, to successfully do so
requires significant adjustments to the practice of EU security.

PRACTICING EU SECURITY

Institutions: Breaking Down Chinese Walls?

The institutional divide between internal and external security in the EU is rooted in the 1992 Treaty
on European Union, which established separate pillars for JHA (internal security) and the Common
Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP - external security). This structure was inevitable as it reflected
the member states reluctance to cede sovereignty in security and allowed for intergovernmental
decision-making. The separation of JHA and CFSP also mirrored the European state model, which
sought to ensure there was a differentiation between the state’s monopoly on the use of violence
internally (within its borders) and externally (outside of its borders). This led to discrete institutions
being responsible for domestic security (the police, judiciary and customs) and foreign security
(primarily diplomats and the military) with very different legal bases and contrasting approaches to
the use of force.

Under the separate pillars of JHA/AFSJ and CSFP/CSDP a profusion of councils, committees,
coordinators and working groups responsible for security issues were established in the Council,
Commission and, since 2010, the EEAS. The difficulty has been to coordinate the work of these
bodies and develop coherent policies and actions while respecting the distinct competences of each
pillar. It is commonly accepted that communication, let alone coordination, between the
Commission, Council or EEAS (inter-institutional), and even within DGs or departments (intra-
institutional), is problematic.30 Instead what often occurs are turf wars as competing bodies try to
ensure their primacy in overlapping policy areas. This means that, institutionally, the EU, like its
member states, still has a rather compartmentalised approach to security policy despite the rhetoric
on the blurring of internal and external security.

Nevertheless, the launch in 1999 of the AFSJ and CSDP, while separate, sowed the seeds for the dual
blurring of internal and external security institutions. In particular, the externalisation of AFSJ since

30
Christiansen, T., ‘Intra-Institutional politics and inter-institutional relations in the EU: towards coherent governance?’
Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 5, No. 3, (2001), pp. 747-769

9
the 1999 Tampere Programme’s call for JHA to be able to develop ‘stronger external action’ 31 has
moved rapidly to tackle security challenges beyond the EU’s borders.32 Within CSDP the use of both
civilian and military capabilities for crisis management means the bureaucratic divide between
internal and external security is less clear cut. As CSDP missions tackle challenges such as terrorism
and organised crime the emerging security continuum becomes more apparent; a trend continued
under the Lisbon Treaty (LT).

The LT contained a number of reforms designed to enhance consistency and coherence across EU
security policy, in theory strengthening the EU as an international security provider. First, the LT
gave the EU, not just the EC, a legal personality. This provided the EU with ‘authority’, in principle,
to sign agreement and treaties with third parties across all policy areas, including security. This,
however, does not resolve arguments over who within the EU has legal competence for particular
security issues. In the past such disputes have been taken to the European Court of Justice; such as
the 2004 case between the European Parliament and the Commission over the Passenger Name
Record legislation, and the 2005 case between the Council of the EU and the Commission over
tackling small arms proliferation in West Africa. With the blurring of internal and external security
these types of disputes are likely to increase. Hence, while some international security agreements
have been signed, without resolving inter-institutional competition, a single legal personality will not
dramatically enhance the EU’s security provider role.

Second, the LT reformed the EU’s foreign, security and defence policy structures. The LT formally
ended the EU’s pillar structure (while retaining different decision-making structures), created a High
Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) (who was also
Commission Vice-President (VP) for External Affairs), and established the EEAS headed by the
HR/VP. The EEAS brought together personnel from the Council, the Commission External Relations
DG and member states with the explicit objective of enhancing the EU as an international security
provider. The HR and EEAS seek to do this through improving cooperation, coordination,
consistency and coherence both between member states and EU security policies and between
different EU institutions. However, it is the latter that has been the principal focus, with the HR
‘dual-hatted’ so that s/he is responsible both for CFSP/CSDP and External Relations in the
Commission.

31
European Council, Presidency Conclusions Tampere European Council (Brussels: 16 October 1999)
32
Monar, Jorg, The External Dimension of the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Progress, potential and
limitations after the Treaty of Lisbon (Stockholm: Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies, 2012)

10
Yet, the dual hatting of the HR/VP has not brought greater coherence or consensus on
understandings of security between, or even within, the Commission and the EEAS. This creates
problems for intra- and inter-institutional cooperation on issues such as the terrorism, energy,
organised crime and immigration. These issues are primarily the responsibility of the Commission
and there are continuing tensions between those DGs and the EEAS, highlighted during the
negotiations establishing the EEAS when several functions of the External Relations DG were
moved to other Commission DGs to avoid them being integrated into the EEAS.33 These fears
continue to affect coordination across these security issues. In effect, institutions and departments are
often still functioning on a pre-Lisbon basis; with the abolition of the pillar structure more symbolic
than practical. Personalities, politics, budgets and bureaucratic inertia all contribute to the
perpetuation of an invisible pillar structure. The divisions are encapsulated by turf wars between and
within the EEAS, Commission and Council, and by mutual wariness between civilian and military
personnel. Hence, despite some institutional changes, much more is needed to make a reality of the
CA and avoid institutional disjointedness undermining the EU’s ‘capacity to act’34 as an international
security provider.

Nevertheless, the EEAS has potential to enhance the EU’s ability to address the blurring of internal
and external security and rearticulate its distinctiveness as a security provider. This was evident in
the Commission’s ISS in Action, which invited the EEAS to ‘exploit synergies between internal and
external policies’ and argued that ‘COSI…and the Political and Security Committee [PSC] should
work together and meet regularly.’35 This was followed in 2011 by the Hungarian Presidency calling
for the ‘tightening of links between external and internal aspects of EU security’, including sharing
intelligence, incorporating internal security actors in the planning of CSDP missions, integrating
threat assessments, training, implementing the solidarity clause and in communicating on EU
security with third parties.36 Steps in this direction were taken in June that year with the launch of a
‘working method for closer cooperation and coordination in the field of EU security’, which focused
on two key proposals. First, quarterly inter-institutional meetings between the EEAS, Council and
Commission, where representatives from the PSC, COSI, relevant Council and Commission
directorates (e.g. justice, home affairs) and other bodies would exchange information; however, the

33
Author’s interviews with EU officials (Brussels, October & December 2013)
34
Rhodes, Carolyn, (ed.), The European Union in the world community, (Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 1998)
35
European Commission, The EU Internal Security Strategy in Action, op. cit., p. 15
36
Council of the EU, Tightening the Links between External and Internal aspects of Security (Brussels, 4 February 2011)

11
meeting would have no decision-making powers.37 Second, the plan advocated joint meetings of
preparatory bodies within the Council such as a PSC-COSI meeting, but also possibly: the
Committee for Civilian aspects of Crisis Management (CIVCOM) and the COSI support group, Civil
Protection and External JHA councillors (JAIEX), the Council working group on terrorism (COTER)
and the Terrorism Working Group (TWG) with the counter terrorism coordinator also participating,
and JAIEX meeting with geographical preparatory bodies.38 However, despite institutional linkages
being created, these meetings have seldom led to any substantive progress in enhancing the EU’s
capacity to tackle the blurring of internal and external security.39

In the longer term, however, bringing together COSI and the PSC, as well as the establishment of the
multi-institutional, cross-sectoral Crisis Platform, could lay the foundations for overcoming the
‘institutional fragmentation’40 so strongly evident across EU security policymaking. The Crisis
Platform, convened by the EEAS, can bring together a range of civilian and military bodies from
across the EEAS and, importantly, Commission DGs. While designed to address specific external
conflicts or disasters its role in developing the EU’s mission in Mali, including a counter-terrorism
element, illustrates its potential as a forum for bridging the divide between those institutions tackling
internal and external security. 41 Allowing the bodies responsible for internal and external security to
coordinate better would help the EU add to, rather than duplicate, member states capacities. This is
important for enhancing the EU’s legitimacy as an international security provider among its member
states and EU citizens. Yet, bringing these bodies closer together also risks raising further serious
political sensitivities about accountability, securitisation, and further turf wars. However, if handled
judiciously, with appropriate accountability and focused on practical measures, then adjusting
institutional structures to address the emerging European security continuum has the potential to
enhance the EU’s distinctive role as an international security provider. To do would also need greater
coordination of EU capabilities, in particular between its civilian and military instruments.

Coordinating Civil-Military Capabilities: Towards a Comprehensive Approach?

37
Council of the EU, Working Method for Closer Cooperation and Coordination in the field of EU Security (Brussels, 6
June 2011), p. 3
38
Ibid., p. 4
39
Author’s interviews with EU officials (Brussels, September 2014)
40
Setter, S., ‘Cross-pillar politics: functional unity and institutional fragmentation of EU foreign policies’, Journal of
European Public Policy, Vol. 11, No. 4, (2004), pp. 720-739
41
Author’s interviews with EU officials (Brussels, September 2014)

12
Like its institutional architecture the security capability profile of the EU has struggled to adapt to
the emerging security continuum. Coordination needs to be improved in three areas to enhance the
EU’s ability to contribute to international security. First, the tools available through the Commission
(such as aid, development, conflict prevention and civil protection) need to be better coordinated
with the tools available under the CFSP and CSDP. Second, both the Commission and the EEAS
could draw more systematically on the instruments and expertise available through JHA, covering
police and judicial cooperation. Third, the divisions between civilian and military capabilities also
need to be bridged, both within CFSP/CSDP and between CFSP/CSDP and other policy areas.

The traditional understanding of internal and external security capabilities is based on the European
state model. This ensured that threats to security from within the borders were tackled by civilian
policing and threats to security from outside the borders were managed by the military. While, this
distinction was never clear cut, EU security strategies suggest this divide is blurring at the EU level.
For example, the Solidarity Clause explicitly calls for the use of military capabilities, if necessary, in
preventing and responding to terrorist attacks and natural or man-made disasters within and outside
the EU.42 This gradual blurring has been coupled with a slow but definite transformation of the role
of the security services, police, intelligence bodies and armed forces within states.43 The way CSDP
has developed illustrates this transformation and how internal-external distinctions are becoming
increasingly cumbersome. Already in 2002 the need to bring together CSDP’s civilian (mostly
internal) and military (usually external) capabilities was highlighted in a report submitted to the
European Convention by the Working Group on Defence. The report suggested the development of a
pool of civilian and military civil protection capabilities, which would need to exercise together
regularly to improve effectiveness when deployed.44 While little came out of this report directly,
CSDP has, with varying success, drawn on an expanding range of capabilities from judicial
personnel and civilian police, through to strategic airlift and combat troops. However, fully fledged
civil-military coordination has remained quite elusive with the CSDP missions in the Horn of Africa
being a rare example of relative success.

CSDP operations themselves have further problematized the distinction of the military being used
externally and the police internally. In certain extreme circumstances it has always been possible for
42
‘Treaty of Lisbon Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union’, Official Journal of the European Union (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European
Communities, 2008)
43
For example see: Andreas, P. & Price, R., ‘From War fighting to Crime Fighting: Transforming the American National
Security State’, International Studies Review Vol. 3, No. 3, (2001), pp. 31-52
44
European Convention WG VIII, Final Report of Working Group VIII – Defence, (Brussels, 16 December 2002)

13
the military (under civilian control) to undertake internal roles. However, this was the exception and
developments such as the Solidarity Clause and references to increasing the EU’s ‘resilience to crises
and disasters’45 suggests a move towards normalising such exceptions. In parallel, EU internal
security capabilities are increasingly operating externally in tackling terrorism and organised crime
(e.g. EUCAP Sahel) or in post conflict stabilisation and border management operations (e.g.
EUBAM Libya). While the military prefer for police and other agencies to be deployed alongside
them, rather than, as happened previously, having to undertake policing roles themselves, this is not
always possible. As well as the military performing policing functions there continue to be
difficulties in deploying civilian police into volatile post-conflict environments. This blurring of
roles suits neither police nor military personnel,46 contributing to the increasing use of gendarmerie
capabilities. At the European level the agreement on a European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) in 2004
may act as a useful transitional capability between civilian and military capabilities. The 800 strong
EGF, which became operational in July 2006, is made up of contributions from six EU states
(France, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Spain) and is deployable alongside civilian
police, the military, or both. While not an EU capability as such, it will be ‘first and foremost at the
disposal of the EU’ and would in such circumstances be under the political and strategic control of
the PSC.47 As internal and external security agendas converge gendarmerie forces are of growing
importance,48 as demonstrated by EGF’s deployment within the EU’s Operation Althea in Bosnia
between November 2007 and October 2010, as well as its role in NATO’s mission in Afghanistan
since 2009, and its contribution to the UN mission in Haiti in 2010.

A significant move to better coordinate civilian and military capabilities came in late 2008 when the
European Council called on the HR to ‘establish a new, single civilian-military strategic planning
structure for ESDP operations.’49 This new structure, known as the Crisis Management and Planning
Directorate (CMPD), was designed to merge the strategic planning functions of DG E VIII (military
crisis management) and DGE IX (civilian crisis management) as well as incorporating elements of
the EU Military Staff’s (EUMS) CivMil Cell.50 The CMPD was a belated response to the EU’s long

45
European Commission, The EU Internal Security Strategy in Action, op. cit., p. 13
46
Hills, Alice, ‘The Inherent Limits of Military Forces in Policing Peace Operations’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.
8, No. 3, (2001), pp. 79-98
47
EuroFuture (2005) ‘Substitute Missions in Crisis Management: Interview with Brigadier General Gerard Deanaz, EGF
Commander’ (Summer 2005), pp. 60-62
48
See: Lutterbeck, David, ‘Between police and Military: the New Security Agenda and the Rise of gendarmeries’,
Cooperation and Conflict Vol. 39, No. 1, (2004), pp. 45-68
49
European Council, Presidency Conclusions Brussels European Council (Brussels 12 December 2008), p. 17
50
Drent, Margiet & Zandee, Dick, Breaking Pillars: Towards a Civil-Military Security Approach for the European
Union (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ January 2010)

14
standing claim that ‘none of the new threats is purely military; nor can any be tackled by purely
military means’51 and its commitment ‘to strengthening synergies between its civilian and military
crisis management instruments.’52 It is also (at least on paper) another step towards
comprehensiveness in EU security provision. However, as Manners argues, the introduction, indeed
prioritisation, of military capabilities risks undermining the EU’s normative power53 and therefore
diminishing its distinctiveness as a security provider.

Given the CA’s focus on external security it is unsurprising that efforts to improve the coordination
of capabilities have been mostly within the EEAS and CSDP. Yet, in the longer term synergies in
capabilities across institutions and policy areas are crucial. The EU already accepts that it must
enhance its capacity to act externally in order to protect internal security.54 As Rees has argued, it is
time the EU realises that the inflexible separation of instruments for foreign policy and internal
security is no longer appropriate as transnational challenges defy such distinctions.55 Such an
acknowledgement would enhance the EU’s claims to being an international security provider by
strengthening ‘the availability of, and a capacity to utilize, policy instruments.’56 The EU has, in
principle, available to it the full range of instruments expected of an international security provider,
from aid to diplomacy and from economic sanctions to military force. In fact it may be uniquely
placed in this regard, thus providing the opportunity to enhance its distinctiveness. Through
improving the coordination between capabilities, especially civil-military, it will move closer to
fulfilling its ambition to be a distinctive international security provider capable of tackling the
complexities of the emerging European security continuum.

PROVIDING INTERNATIONAL SECURITY?

The emerging European security continuum has been partly driven by changes in the nature of
threats. However, it has also been significantly driven by changes in threat perception, by the EU’s
security discourse, and its efforts to adapt its institutions and capabilities. Hence, the politics and
practice of providing security are as important in shaping the security continuum as the actual

51
Council of the EU, A Secure Europe in a Better, op. cit., p. 7
52
European Council, Action Plan for Civilian Aspects of ESDP, (18 June 2004), p. 5
53
Manners, Ian, ‘Normative Power Europe Reconsidered: Beyond the Crossroads’, Journal of European Public Policy,
Vol. 13, No. 2, (2006) pp. 182-199
54
Council of the EU, Draft Internal Security Strategy, op. cit.
55
Rees, Wyn, ‘Inside Out: the External Face of EU Internal Security Policy’, European Integration, Vol. 30, No. 1,
(2008), pp. 97-111
56
Bretherton, Charlotte & Volger, John, The European Union as a Global Actor (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), p. 30

15
threats. Politics and practice also influence the prospects for nature of the EU as an international
security provider.

The first section of the article argued that the blurring of internal and external security in the EU’s
security discourse provides an opportunity to rearticulate its distinctiveness as an international
security provider. The EU’s Cybersecurity Strategy illustrates the EU’s potential to provide a
comprehensive approach to security, combining internal and external challenges, institutions and
capabilities. This strategy drew from departments across the EEAS (Global Affairs, Directorate K
(security policy) and the EUMS) and Commission (DG HOME and DG CNECT), spanning the
challenges of cybercrime, cybersecurity and cyber-defence. However, negotiating such a
comprehensive strategy was complicated by significant institutional differences, to the extent that the
strategy almost became a solely CFSP communication.57 This would have undermined the
comprehensiveness, distinctiveness, and added value the EU could bring to tackling this security
challenge. It would have also failed to understand the multifaceted and intertwined nature of cyber
security/crime/defence, which transcends the internal-external divide both geographically and
bureaucratically. Similarly, the development of the EU Maritime Security Strategy involved internal
and external, civilian and military bodies from the EEAS (EUMS, Directorate K, and CMPD) and
Commission (DG MARE and DG MOVE). Another example of the potential of the EU to bring
together internal and external security actors is the aforementioned Crisis Platform, which has
generally been seen to have been beneficial in, at the very least, bringing the relevant institutions,
directorates and units together.58 If only to exchange information this already improves coordination
and is the first step towards a comprehensive approach to security. These strategies and
developments, and the institutional frictions they overcame, illustrate that the CA might be securing
a foothold within the EU’s nascent security culture, thereby enhancing the EU’s distinctiveness as a
multifaceted international security provider.

Finally, the 2013 Joint Communication from the EEAS and Commission on the Comprehensive
Approach provides an opportunity to better address the emerging security continuum. While it
focuses on ‘external conflict and crises’ it does so as a way of mitigating ‘the negative effects – for
the EU, its citizens and its internal security – of insecurity and conflict elsewhere.’59 The

57
Author’s Interviews with EU Officials (Brussels, October-December 2013)
58
Ibid.
59
European Commission & High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security (2013) Joint Communication
to the European Parliament and the Council: The EU’s comprehensive approach to external conflict and crises
(Brussels, 11 December)

16
communication has an entire section devoted to ‘linking policies and internal and external action’,
which highlights that ‘EU internal policies and actions can have significant external
effects…likewise, external action and policy can also impact on EU internal dynamics.’ 60 In the
longer term it might be worth considering a comprehensive approach that brings together internal
and external security. Such an approach would be beneficial for two reasons. First, the nature of the
threats and challenges identified by the EU are increasingly transboundary; occurring inside and
outside the EU and requiring a range of different institutions and capabilities to tackle them. Second,
such a comprehensive approach would provide a platform for overcoming the EU’s institutional
stove-piping, bureaucratic turf wars, and divergent security cultures. There are significant difficulties
and dangers in trying to develop such an all-encompassing approach, but not doing so might be
problematic given the emerging security continuum. It would also be a missed opportunity to
rearticulate the EU’s distinctiveness as a security provider.

Despite the opportunities presented by the emerging security continuum, as the second section of the
article outlined, inter- and intra-institutional turf wars are a major practical obstacle limiting the
potential of the EU to fulfil its potential as distinctive international security provider. In addition to
the practical obstacles discussed above, a number of normative and conceptual problems may also
inhibit the EU. First, despite the Joint Communication on the Comprehensive Approach, different
understandings of what the CA actually implies persist. Even within institutions, such as the EEAS,
there are differences about how the CA should be pursued, what the best institutional arrangements
are, and what capabilities are best suited to particular security challenges.61 Within these discussions,
the availability, role, and use of military instruments within the CA are particularly contentious. The
key is to be able to select and coordinate the most appropriate tools for a particular security
challenge, whether they are from within the EEAS, the Commission or both. For example, the
proliferation of WMD is an important issue for CFSP,62 but the Commission through its TACIS
programme in the Former Soviet Union has also pursued non-proliferation. Yet, even after the LT
and the Joint Communication on the CA, these two approaches, while nominally linked through the
HR/VP, are still not particularly well coordinated.

The second conceptual challenge is the different understandings of security across the EU. Without a
reasonably common definition of security it is difficult, Kirchner argues, to assess whether the EU
60
European Commission & High Representative, Joint Communication, op. cit.
61
Author’s interview with EU officials (Brussels, October & December 2013)
62
Council of the EU, EU Strategy Against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Brussels, 10 December
2003)

17
can be a security provider.63 While EU security strategies overlap in their threat assessments there
remain differences over priorities, approaches, and even whether some challenges are (or should) be
considered and addressed as security issues. There is a longstanding debate, within academia and the
EU, about the advantages and dangers of ‘securitising' policy issues.64 In the EU this is related to turf
wars over which institution has responsibility for which issue and, therefore, over how it is framed.
This can be seen in the Commission’s securitisation rhetoric and technologies in policy areas such as
immigration, organised crime and border control. Yet other branches of the Commission, such as DG
ECHO (Humanitarian Aid), fiercely resist securitisation. DG ECHO is adamant humanitarian aid
should be neutral, impartial, and independent focusing on humanitarian need.65 For DG ECHO
security is framed as human security. Hence, it is important not to be seen as part of the actions of
the EEAS or other parts of the Commission, while recognising ECHO’s role and contributing to the
CA. It does so through the mantra of “in but out”, whereby they aim to be part of the “overall effect”
through coordination and collaboration but ensure the principles of neutrality and the humanitarian
needs based approach remain.66 This effort to ensure neutrality, and, crucially the perception of
neutrality, has been complicated by the introduction of an EEAS Crisis Response department, with a
responsibility for the overall planning, organisation and coordination of crisis related activities. This
overlaps with both the civil protection and humanitarian aid remit of ECHO, creating significant
institutional friction and potentially undermining the distinctiveness of EU security provision.

This friction is exacerbated by the EEAS Situation Room replicating some of the functions of DG
ECHO’s Emergency Response Centre (ERC) and was heightened further by the suggestion in the
2013 EEAS Review that the Situation Room should be co-located with the ERC.67 Creating a single
24/7 ERC has the potential to streamline capabilities, reduce duplication (and therefore costs) and, in
the spirit of the CA, bring increased coordination. However, it would also be seen as infringing on
the impartiality and neutrality of DG ECHO as it would potentially put military personnel (or at least
personnel with a defence remit) inside the Commission (those ‘Watchkeeper’ staff which were in the
EUMS and are now co-located in the Situation Room). This raises concerns about the securitisation
and militarisation of crises, while also antagonising the EUMS who highly value the Watchkeeper

63
Kirchner, Emil, ‘The Challenge of European Union Security Governance’, Op. Cit., p. 952
64
See: Buzan, Barry, De Wilde, Japp & Waever, Ole, Security: A new framework for analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner,
1998), and, Balzacq, Theirry, Securitisation Theory: How security problems emerge and dissolve (London: Routledge,
2010)
65
Author’s Interviews with EU Officials (Brussels, October-December 2013)
66
Author’s Interviews with EU Officials (Brussels, October & December 2013)
67
Ashton, Catherine, EEAS Review (Brussels: European External Action Service, July 2013)

18
capability.68 More practically, it raises difficulties in terms of the size of the facility and its lack of
secure communications. Finally, such a move would not enhance coordination with DG HOME’s
crisis room, which focuses on internal security. While the institutional battles could, eventually, be
worked through, the fundamental differences in understandings of security will be harder to
overcome. It would move the EU away from the human security approach, thereby affecting the
distinctive nature of the EU as an international security provider.

Differing conceptions of security would also come to the fore if, as the EEAS Review calls for, the
EEAS was to ‘reinforce its capacity’ to deal with issues such as energy security, environmental
protection and climate change, migration, and counter terrorism. These policy areas are primarily the
responsibility of the Commission and there are heated debates (even within the EEAS) over the value
of enhancing the EEAS’ capacity to address these issues.69 Instead, as the Commission has the
expertise and resourcing, the focus should be on improving communication, cooperation and
coordination between the EEAS and the Commission; something the dual hatting of the HR/VP did
not really facilitate under the first HR/VP Catherine Ashton.70 Initial signs are that the new HR/VP,
Federica Mogherini, is seeking to prioritise enhancing the EEAS-Commission relationship. In
particular, including the former Director General of the Commission’s DG HOME, Stafano
Manservisi, as her Chef de Cabinet may facilitate greater coordination between internal and external
security.71

More fundamentally, moving these policy areas, if only in part, into the EEAS has the potential to
reshape the normative basis of the EU as an international security provider. With immigration policy
heavily securitised, the EU is often perceived as being less interested in the plight of the migrants
(milieu goals or human security) than the domestic politics of it member states (strategic interests or
possession goals). With the migration crisis in the Mediterranean escalating and Frontex’s Triton
mission off the coast of Italy being criticised for its small size and focus on border control rather than
search and rescue, the pressures on the normative approach of the EU are intensifying. Operation
Triton seems to reinforce the image of fortress Europe with navy and air force assets seen to be
protecting the interests of EU security rather than acting in the interests of human security. This
undermines the EU’s desire to be seen as a distinctive normative security provider acting as a ‘force
for good’ on the international stage.
68
Author’s interviews with EU officials (Brussels, October & December 2013)
69
Ibid.
70
Authors interviews with EU officials (Brussels, October-December 2013 & September 2014).
71
Authors interviews with EU officials (Brussels, September 2014).

19
The emerging European security continuum, while opening up opportunities for the EU to assert
itself as a security provider, is likely to reshape these normative conceptualisations. If an internal-
external security nexus exists then a seemingly logical response is to ensure greater cooperation,
coordination and even integration of the EU’s internal and external institutions and capabilities.
However, the consequences of such developments have drawn criticism from a number of scholars,
such as Dider Bigo.72 The central concern relates to the issue of the securitisation and even
militarisation of policies that should remain in the realm of ‘normal politics’ and can lead to
‘exceptional’ security measures becoming the norm.73 It is not just the EU discourse that securitises
policy areas, the EU’s security instruments and technologies are, as Balzacq argues, at least as
important.74 These developments challenge the perception of the EU as a distinctive security
provider with more (although not entirely) benign motivations. It is difficult to make a case for the
EU as distinctive civilian, normative or ethical power while its approaches to managing immigration
are interpreted as reinforcing notions of ‘fortress Europe’ and its counter-terrorism policies are
criticised for emphasising security over justice and liberty.

Similarly, having access to a range of coercive instruments (not just military) may undermine notions
of the EU as a normative power, focused on human security.75 While there are debates about means
and ends, the overall perception (from within and outside of the EU) is that as the EU engages with
an expanding array of security issues, utilising an increasingly interconnected range of instruments,
its distinctiveness as a normative power (if it is) is in danger of being undermined. A number of
scholars, such as Karen Smith and Ian Manners, raise concerns that developing a military capability
negates the EU’s claims to being a civilian or normative power.76 While it is difficult to argue that
CSDP has militarised the EU, securitisation has occurred, but driven more by the Commission’s
internal security agenda than the EEAS’s external agenda. This is supported in other policy areas by
scholars, such as Hette and Soderbaum, who suggested that the EU is moving towards a ‘soft

72
Bigo, Dider ‘When two become one: Internal and External securitisations in Europe.’ In Kelstrup, M. and Williams,
M. (eds.) International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration: Power, Security and Community
(London: Routledge, 2000)
73
See: Neal, Andrew, Exceptionalism and the Politics of Counter-Terrorism: Liberty, Security and the War on Terror
(London: Routledge, 2009); Huysmans, Jef, The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU (London:
Routledge, 2006)
74
Balzacq, Thierry, ‘The Policy Tools of Securitisation: Information Exchange, EU Foreign and Interior Policies’,
Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (2008), pp. 75-100
75
For more on EU and Human Security see: Galius, Marlies & Kaldor, Mary, A Human Security Doctrine for Europe:
Projects, principles and practicalities (London: Routlege, 2008)
76
Smith, Karen, European Union Foreign Policy in a Changing World. (Oxford: Polity, 2003); Manners, Ian,
‘Normative Power Europe reconsidered: Op. Cit.

20
imperialism’ through the more coercive use of conditionality in its enlargement and neighbourhood
strategies, undermining its civilian and normative power claims,77 and, therefore, its distinctiveness.
Similarly, as the EU identifies and engages with this emerging security continuum, the interchanging
use of civilian, gendarmerie and military capabilities to tackle issues such as organised crime,
immigration, civil protection and terrorism risks the perception of the EU shifting away from its
more benign, civilian or normative characteristics.

A final possible implication of the eroding internal-external security divide is that calls for greater
coordination and even integration of committees, working groups and institutions, raise significant
questions about oversight, accountability, legitimacy and transparency. In particular it becomes
increasingly problematic to maintain oversight and clear lines of accountability as the formal and
informal networks of agencies, institutions, experts and working groups expand. For example,
Europol, an EU agency, explicitly operates as a network structure,78 both within the EU (Frontex),
but also increasingly with third countries (the USA) and organisations (the UN Office on Drugs and
Crime). In addition, the numerous agencies providing information to Europol have their own
networks so tracing the origins of information or keeping track of who uses the data Europol collates,
and how, becomes very difficult. These developments, often leading to a more opaque network of
security actors, can undermine perceptions about the legitimacy of EU as an international security
provider.

CONCLUSION

This article has argued that the EU’s discourse on the blurring of internal and external security is a
significant factor shaping the potential for, and understandings of, the EU as an international security
provider. Its importance is not just for the EU’s institutional architecture and capability profile, but
also for its enduring ambition to be a distinctive (normative) international security provider. Being
distinct is important for the EU in at least two ways. First, institutional distinctiveness is, according
to Jupille and Caporaso, crucial for, ‘autonomy.’79 Distinctiveness is essential in differentiating the
EU from other potential security providers such as the UN, NATO, AU, or OSCE, as well as from
the so called great and rising powers, such as the US, China, Russia, India, Brazil, and South Africa.
77
Hettne, B & Soderbaum, F., ‘Civilian Power or Soft Imperialism: The EU as a Global Actor and the Role of
Interregionalism’, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 10, No. 4 (2005), pp. 535-552
78
See: Hillebrand, Claudia, Counter-terrorism Networks in the European Union: Maintaining Democratic Legitimacy
after 9/11 (Oxford: OUP, 2012)
79
Jupille, J. & Caporaso, J.A., ‘States, Agency and Rules: The European Union in Global Environmental Politics’, in
Rhodes, C. The European Union in the World Community (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998)

21
With an emerging security continuum the potential for the EU to draw on a wide range of
capabilities through the CA, could be the basis for a rearticulated (practical) distinctiveness as an
international security provider. Few other international organisations have the potential of the EU for
a genuinely comprehensive approach to the challenges of international security. Despite the
obstacles, its faults and its mistakes, the EU is still, in parts of the world, the preferred or only
security provider that is willing to become involved.

Second, distinctiveness is important normatively. The EU has long identified itself as a civilian or
normative power, especially in its contributions to international security. For example Bailes has
argued that CSDP could be described as ‘do-gooding’,80 running missions for the benefit of others
rather than itself. However, increasingly CSDP missions, such as capacity building to tackle
organised crime and terrorism in the Sahel, anti-piracy in the Indian Ocean or border assistance in
Moldova and Libya, are clearly defined in terms of EU strategic and security interests. This has
implications for the EU’s normative or ‘force for good’ rationale, placing, as Merlingen argues,
strategic interests above normative ones.81 Pursuing EU interests and normative distinctiveness are
not necessarily mutually exclusive. The missions mentioned above are also in the interests of the
states, regions and populations within which they operate. However, the perception created both
within and outside of the EU, is of interests trumping normative aspirations. This pushes the EU in a
direction that undermines its self-identification as a distinctive international security provider, more
influenced by normative milieu goals than possession goals.

To conclude, the emerging European security continuum impacts on the EU as an international

security provider in three ways. First, it provides opportunity. The EU’s range of instruments (at least
on paper) gives it the potential for much greater agency and for rearticulating is distinctiveness in a
practical and pragmatic way as possibly the only organisation with genuine potential to become a
comprehensive security provider. This would, in turn, allow it to provide the ‘added value’ so often
sought by member states. Second, it creates obstacles. The continuing political tensions,
machinations, and turf wars within the Brussels bureaucracy and/or between the member states
undermines the EU’s ability to act comprehensively and to redesign its institutions and capabilities to
better address the blurring of internal and external security. Third, the European security continuum,
and the EU’s rhetorical, institutional and technological responses to it, has a more fundamental
80
Bailes, Alyson, ‘The EU and a ‘better World’: What Role for the European Security and Defence Policy?’,
International Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 1, (2008), pp. 115-30
81
Merlingen, Michael, ‘Everything is Dangerous: A Critique of ‘Normative Power Europe’, Security Dialogue, Vol., 38,
No.4 (2007), pp. 435-53

22
implication for the EU as an international security provider. As internal and external threats become,
at least rhetorically, conflated the EU is increasingly framing its role in international security as
indispensable for protecting the EU, its member states and its citizens. This moves the EU away from
its normative power self-image with a responsibility to act as a ‘force of good’ in the world. The
European security continuum might be reorienting the EU towards pursuing Wolfers’ possession
goals rather than milieu goals.82

The European security continuum, therefore, provides an opportunity both practically and
normatively to carve out a distinctive, comprehensive role for the EU as an international security
provider. Yet, the obstacles of institutional and capability coordination mean this ambition is still
some way off being realised and, more profoundly, the notion of the EU’s distinctiveness as a
normative power focused on ‘milieu goals’ is in danger of being seriously undermined.

82
Wolfers, Arnold, Discord and Collaboration, Op. Cit.

23