The EU Internal Security Strategy: Towards a More Coherent Approach to EU Security? (original) (raw)

Governing Internal Security in the European Union

The Maastricht treaty on the European Union (EU) erected a three-pillar edifice of European integration whose third pillar comprised various forms of cooperation in justice and home affairs. Many practices had existed much before 1992 and their inclusion into the new organization was a kind of cosmetic surgery. That face-lifting of cooperation in justice and home affairs had obvious consequences for the nature of the third pillar and the overall balance of EU policies. The third pillar was a strictly intergovernmental area where the EU members kept their sovereign right to decide upon their home affairs and judicial cooperation, as well as regulate migration flows and safeguard their national borders. EC institutions did not have much say on those matters, and any progress of cooperation depended on consensus between the members. The Maastricht treaty established legal/formal and institutional grounds for EU cooperation in managing internal security through intergovernmental consultations regarding the movement of persons in the EU, and concomitant flanking measures in the fields of police and judicial cooperation. EU politics of internal security was formally strengthened in the Amsterdam Treaty, and practically through incorporation of acquis Schengen into the legal framework of the Union. The gradual widening of the Schengen area, the abolition of controls at internal borders and the reinforcement of flanking measures, especially at external borders, allowed the EU to set up a comprehensive and relatively efficient system of internal security. Although the Amsterdam treaty, reforming the EU, intended to improve the fluctuation of numerous policy fields, its provisions concerning justice and home affairs were controversial. Firstly, a relatively simple and transparent structure of third-pillar cooperation was replaced by a multilevel asymmetrical and entangled cross-pillar construction in an "area of freedom, security and justice." Provisions relating to immigration, visas, asylum and other policies related to free movement of persons were transferred to the Community pillar. The third pillar was reduced to police and criminal justice cooperation. The Schengen acquis was inserted into the framework of the EU although its provisions were granted a special autonomy. Discussions about the reform of the EU have dominated a general political and theoretical discourse on European integration at the threshold of the 21st century. A host of supranational institutions and intergovernmental bodies along with politicians and government officials from the EU members have perseveringly deliberated upon the most suitable and desirable shape of a future EU. The 2007 Lisbon treaty ended the long and tortuous trip to a new arrangement for European integration although its fate is still undecided. Moreover, the formal abolition of the pillar structure was partially undermined by special provisions concerning, first of all, internal security matters, especially police cooperation and criminal justice. The process of constitutionalisation of the EU came amidst a great global security debate. The symbolic and political impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, when Western civilization lost the feeling of stability and entered a new stage: a ‘war on terror,' brought about new challenges for the EU in the area of security. Transnational processes, in which the EU and its Communities have, for decades, assumed a leading and creative role, changed the traditional perception and understanding of security. One of the objectives of European integration has been to make inhabitants of the continent feel safer and more confident in the institutions of public life. The challenge of transnational threats such as terrorism, cross-border organized crime, large-scale migrations, asymmetrical conflicts or WMD proliferation had also to be met by the European states. Confronted for decades with such disquieting events and phenomena, the Europeans managed to work out, within the framework of European integration processes, certain arrangements allowing for more effective and long-term cooperation in preventing and combating the major threats to European security.

New Challenges for the EU Internal Security Strategy

"In the past number of years, the EU and its member states have experienced a number of changes, as well as challenges, in the areas of politics, economics, security and law. As these areas are interconnected, changes and challenges to or in any of them have implications for the others, as well as implications for the populations and institutions of the EU or those coming into contact with its international power and influence. This edited collection will focus primarily on security and law, and most notably the EU’s internal security strategy. The EU’s Internal Security Strategy, adopted by the Spanish presidency early in 2010, followed on from the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, building on previous developments within the EU in the Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ) policy. The focus of the EU Internal Security Strategy is to prevent and combat “serious and organised crime, terrorism and cybercrime, in strengthening the management of our external borders and in building resilience to national and man-made disasters”. The Internal Security strategy intersects and overlaps with the European Union’s Counter-terrorism strategy, the Strategy for the External Dimension of JHA, and the EU’s Security Strategy. The role of and interaction between these strategies, their supplementing documents, and their implications for crime, victims, the law, political relations, democracy and human rights, form the backdrop against which the chapters in this collection are written. Building on original research by its contributors, this collection comprises work by authors from a wide variety of academic and professional areas and perspectives, as well as different countries, on a variety of areas and issues related to or raised by the EU’s Internal Security Strategy, from intelligence-led policing to human trafficking and port security. This book examines, from a wide variety of discipline perspective, to include law, geography, politics and practice, both this further refinement of existing internal provisions on cross border crime, and the increasing external relations of the EU in the AFSJ. The collection is divided into five parts. The first part will examine the fundamental relationship between policing and security. Part two will examine the relationship between security and location. While a great deal of attention has been focused on airports and passenger air travel since 9/11, in part two we have decided to concentrate on another specific but less examined location, EU commercial maritime ports. The third and fourth parts of this collection focus on two particular types of crime as case studies, commercial/financial crime and human trafficking. The fifth and final part of the book examines the “bigger picture”, the relationship between the EU’s internal and external security policy. Within each part, the contributors examine different, but overlapping, legal, political, practical and analytical cases, themes and issues. Dr. Maria O’Neill, Law Division, University of Abertay Dundee, UK. Maria is an EU lawyer, who specialises in the EU’s provisions on Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters. She is the coordinator of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies collaborative research network on “Policing and European Studies”. She has a number of publications in this area, to include a recent book on The Evolving EU Counter-Terrorism Legal Framework, with Routledge. Ken Swinton, Law Division, University of Abertay Dundee, UK. Ken is a Scottish qualified solicitor, legal academic, and editor of a number of Scottish based law publications, to include the Scottish Law Gazette. He specialises in Financial Services law. Dr. Aaron Winter is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Abertay. He holds a DPhil in Social and Political Thought from the University of Sussex. His research examines racism, the extreme-right, terrorism and political violence. He is co-editor of and a contributor to Discourses and Practices of Terrorism: Interrogating Terror (Routledge, 2010) and the author of White Separatism and the Politics of the American Extreme-Right: Civil Rights, 9/11 and a Black Man in the White House (Ashgate, forthcoming)."

Devising a European Internal Security Strategy

The present study examines the steps taken since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in the field of internal security and assesses commitments made in the areas of fundamental rights and civil liberties. The study examines the development of the EU Internal Security Strategy, with special attention paid to fighting terrorism and organised crime. It also investigates the activities of the main EU agencies involved in internal security policies. The study finally sketches out the key challenges lying ahead for EU internal security policies, with particular consideration paid to the role that the European Parliament will be called upon to play.

The internal-external security nexus: more coherence under Lisbon?

Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU has intensified its efforts to establish closer coordination between the internal and external dimensions of the EU’s security policies, i.e. between the fields of justice and home affairs (JHA) and foreign policy, based on the assumption that this serves the interests of all actors involved. More inward-looking actors, typically from the ministries of the interior and justice in individual Member States, believe that they can strengthen their internal problem-solving capacities if the EU uses its foreign policy instruments and capabilities in a targeted and focused way to improve internal security and to engage third countries in achieving its goals in the JHA domain. At the same time, JHA expertise and actors have become an indispensable resource for traditional foreign policy actors in terms of dealing with today’s security challenges and achieving the EU’s main foreign policy objectives, such as promoting the rule of law and preventing state failure. This paper seeks to analyse the issue of coherence and complementarity between EU internal security policies and external relations/foreign policy, focusing on the impact of the Treaty of Lisbon on existing political and institutional challenges. A key political challenge has been that the mainstreaming of internal security objectives in EU external relations, frequently driven by a security rationale that relegated human rights and civil liberties-related issues to secondary status, has risked undermining the stated normative principles of EU foreign policy-making. At an institutional level, the EU has had difficulties in living up to the expectations of its ambitious strategic papers, not least due to the tendencies of each Council formation (Justice and Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs Council) to protect its own turf. The paper argues that the EU can address the institutional and political challenges by strengthening existing coordination mechanisms and fully exploiting the possibilities which the Lisbon Treaty offers. The European Parliament, now a legislative actor equal in standing with the Council in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), should become more engaged in the process of negotiating international agreements in the JHA field and the Council should no longer put its priorities on the back burner in relation to issues such as readmission of third-country nationals and data protection involving high stakes in the sphere of human rights and civil liberties. The problem of insufficient institutional cooperation between the Justice and Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs Councils can be tackled by, firstly, establishing a strong JHA expertise in the European External Action Service and, secondly, involving the JHA Council structures in a more comprehensive and systematic way in the planning and conduct of CSDP civilian crisis management missions and in CFSP thematic and geographical working groups. The paper concludes by underlining that the EU’s success in moving towards comprehensive coherence will also be determined by the political will and ability of internal and foreign policy actors to overcome their habit of thinking in different security mindsets and to develop a shared understanding of European security challenges.

The EU's Internal Security Strategy

The adoption of an Internal Security Strategy (ISS) in the European Union (EU) in 2010 raised not only expectations but also a number of questions from EU scholars and practitioners. Where did it come from? Who was behind the strategy? What will be its effect on actual cooperation and policy outcomes? This article takes a historical perspective to help answer these questions. We examine the ISS from three perspectives – its origin, its formulation and its eventual content – and examine how these perspectives illuminate the likely impact of the ISS. Using some ‘ideal-type’ benefits attributed to strategies generally – including political-symbolic benefits, cohering effects and operational guidance – we assess whether the history of the ISS is likely to enable or constrain success. While further research is needed, our analysis of developments in the months after adoption of the ISS suggests that its history may serve to undermine its impact on both cooperation and policy.

Developing an EU Internal Security Strategy, fighting terrorism and organised crime

Developing an EU internal security strategy, fighting terrorism and organized crime

European Parliament/LIBE Committee, 2012

The EU's Internal Security Strategy: Living in the Shadow of its Past

The EU's Internal Security Strategy: Living in the Shadow of its Past, 2013

The adoption of an Internal Security Strategy in the European Union in the early months of 2010 raised not only expectations but also a number of questions from Brussels observers. Where did it come from? Who was behind the strategy? Does it represent the interests of the many actors involved in internal security cooperation? What will be its effect on actual cooperation and policy outcomes? This paper takes a historical perspective in helping to answer these questions. We examine the history of the ISS from three perspectives – its origin, its formulation, and its eventual content – and examine the extent to which those perspectives offer clues as to the likely impact of the ISS. Using some “ideal-type” benefits attributed to strategies generally – including political-symbolic benefits, cohering effects, and improved operational guidance – we assess whether the history of the ISS is likely to enable or constrain success. While further research is needed, our analysis of developments in the months after adoption of the ISS suggests that its history served to undermine its impact on cooperation generally and policymaking specifically.

The EU Internal Security Strategy: Towards a More Coherent Approach to EU Security? (original) (raw)

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