While the European Union (EU) has been finding itself increasingly involved in providing security in its “near abroad,” the proposal of a “Stabilisation and Association Process for Countries of South-Eastern Europe” has marked the commencement of a nearly all-encompassing commitment to progress in the countries of the Western Balkans. In this context, Kosovo—for which the European perspective of the Western Balkans has been declared open—provides a text book example covering all aspects of external assistance as well as security and defense policies. Among the latter, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in the territory of Kosovo (EULEX Kosovo) is indeed characterized by a number of extraordinary factors and circumstances. It is not only EULEX Kosovo's unparalleled European and local staff size or its partly executive mandate that set this EU mission apart from other civilian missions of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) which have thus far been deployed to the Western Balkans. Unsurprisingly, the complexity of the mission has generated difficulty in comprehending its deployment, mandate and implementation. Yet, against the backdrop of the 2003 Security Strategy which makes the credibility of the EU's foreign policy dependent on its achievements in the Balkans, a clear understanding of EULEX Kosovo appears paramount.

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This working paper explores issues of security integration in a number of external policies of the European Union (EU), and looks at both security policies per se and the security rationale contained in other policy contexts. Following a twin-track approach of presenting both a legal and a political assessment respectively, the contributions have been clustered around three themes: energy security and the EU's relations with neighbouring states, the EU's targeted sanctions policy, and security sector reform pursued by the EU in third countries. The first contribution on energy security seeks to clarify the EU's energy dependency on Russia as a security concern and assesses the EU's response, in particular the Energy Charter Treaty, to Russia's strategic use of its new energy monopoly. The second paper focuses on the countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and analyses a number of critiques with respect to energy policy in the context of the ENP. Within the targeted sanctions theme, one contribution discusses the legal complexities with respect to their adoption and implementation in the EU's multilevel structure, whereas the other looks more broadly at their rationale and highlights a number of problems related to their strategic use by the EU and the UN. On the last theme, the notion of Security Sector Reform (SSR), the first contribution raises the issue in the context of the Western Balkans. While acknowledging the potential importance of EU leverage through membership conditionality, it argues that-for reasons both endogenous and exogenous to the EU's SSR approach-accession is not an automatic best case scenario for sustainable reform in these countries. The second contribution looks at the EU's SSR strategy in the light of local ownership and the quest for a holistic approach by examining the reframing of some existing policies and the adoption of new instruments and actions under the SSR agenda.

This article assesses the status, denomination and terms of participation of the European Union (EU) in the United Nations (UN) Peacebuilding Commission within the wider context of the EU at the UN, especially at the General Assembly and the Security Council. Although EU-UN cooperation at an institutional and operational level is considered by both organizations as mutually beneficial, neither the procedural rules of the UN which are only open to state membership nor the complex constitutional architecture of the EU are conducive for "Europe" to always acquire a satisfactory status in UN bodies and agencies. Therefore this contribution first reconsiders the relevant legal parameters for status determination and participation at both the UN and EU level-regarding the latter with parallel analysis of the amendments brought about by the Treaty of Lisbon. It then examines the negotiating history that led to the eventual compromise of a "de facto common delegation" for EC/EU representation within this new "intergovernmental advisory body." It is contended for reasons that are linked, inter alia, to the peculiar International Organizations Law Review 5 (2008) 299-322 * The author wishes to thank the representatives of the European Commission Delegation, the Council Secretariat and the Slovenian EU Presidency in New York, as well as the members of the Permanent Representations of Austria and Luxemburg to the United Nations in New York and of DG RELEX who have consented to be interviewed for their helpful comments and interesting insights. The opinions expressed here are strictly personal.