Explaining the European Union's Security Role in Practice

Abstract

European states may no longer expect inter-state violence, but they do expect complex threats emanating from storms, epidemics, terror attacks and earthquakes. The EU has answered these threats through the rapid and far-reaching institutionalization of European security cooperation. However, member states hesitate to use their common capacities. While both intergovernmental and constructivist approaches treat this pattern as evidence of weak integration and as unimportant to the European security community, we examine this cooperation through the lens of practice theory and reveal how the growth of EU capacities is fully compatible with a critical and cautious approach to activating these resources in the everyday work of national officials. Using unique empirical data retrieved through participant observation in the first multisectoral crisis management exercise held by the EU, the findings of this analysis sketch the contours of a new type of security community.

Genesis of the Crisis Response Civil Component in the European Union: Parameters, Problems, and Interaction with Russia

“…Этим, в частности, объясняются численные несоответствия между заявленными и реальными показателями миссий. Для решения этой проблемы создаются т. н. экспертные команды, в рамках которых ведется подготовка по специализированным вопросам, контрактным условиям и моральным аспектам, примером являются гражданские кризисные оперативные команды (Civilian Response Teams) 7 .…”

“…Степень научной разработанности вопроса гражданского измерения Европейской политики безопасности и обороны (ЕПБО) не позволяет охарактеризовать ее как достаточную. Теме внешней политики и политики безопасности ЕС в целом посвящено значительное количество публикаций отечественных и зарубежных авторов [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Оборонное измерение ЕПБО находится в безусловном фокусе внимания отечественной и иностранной европеистики [10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…URL: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/de/ec/00200-r1. d0.htm (accessed 31 Mar 2022) 7. Multifunctional Civilian Crisis Management Resources in an Integrated Format -Civilian Response Teams.…”

The EU-China Security Paradox

“…As the 'balance of power' that the US had established in many world regions cracked as a result of Trump's policies, international attention shifted to China to fill the security vacuum left by the US. In a similar vein, the EU was forced to reassess its security role (Ekengren and Hollis, 2020) as the US-EU security relationship kept deteriorating. Over the course of the Trump presidency, it became obvious that for Trump, the US' importance for European security was a main point of leverage.…”

Institutionalising EU Cyber Law: Can the EU Institutionalise Its Many Subjects and Objects?

“…The rapid growth of EU security institutions, norms and capacities has been shown not to lead to the convergence of national systems and a corresponding rapid growth of the use of these resources. EU security institutionalisation has been shown to not necessarily correlate to the building of efficient supranational systems (Ekengren and Hollis, 2019;Buono, 2012 e.g. European Border and Coast Guard as independent EU agencies represent a continuing trend of agencification of the AFSJ and its gradual institutionalisation.…”