EU as a security actor

Question 1

What are the overarching stages of EU/European security progression?

Answer 1

• 1991-93: Maastricht Treaty and birth of the CFSP
• 1992-93: WEU integration into the EU + Petersberg tasks
• 1998: St. Malo summit and birth of ESDP
• 1999: Helsinki Headline Goal
• 2003: Berlin Plus Agreement + Birth of the ESS
• 2007: Lisbon Treaty and CSDP
• 2008: ESS focus on better world
• 2016: GSS replaced ESS

Question 2

What was the Petersberg Tasks?

Answer 2

• WEU capabilities integrated to allow EU to assist in peacekeeping, disarmament and humanitarian missions within its direct neighbourhood

Question 3

What were the goals of the St. Malo agreement?

Answer 3

• Push by Fra+UK for union to have capacity for autonomous action with credible force
• it was a reaffirming of prior commitments to one another

Question 4

What was the Helsinki Headline goals?

Answer 4

• Rapid response: idea that EU would be able to amass a rapid response team anywhere in the world and stay deployed for a year by 2003.
• Unachievable numbers: The numbers for this were unachievable though so it failed mostly

Question 5

What was the Berlin Plus Agreement?

Why was it helpful?

Answer 5

• NATO capabilities: that EU would be able to deploy NATO capabilities if the NATO was unable to act
• Helpful: NATO may not be as welcomed in some states than that of the EU. e.g. ENP

Question 6

What was the ESS?

What were its main strategic goals?

Answer 6

• Strategic Culture: attempt to clearly outline europe’s strategic culture identity (must be secure internally and externally)
• Main strategic goals: to secure a better world and protect it from things such as terrorism, WMDs, regional conflicts and state failures.

Question 7

What made the EU ‘Sui generis’ (unique)?

Answer 7

• not a state, not an international structure like NATO

- focused on mechanisms and capabilities to not overshadow another e.g. security, economics (security-development nexus)

Question 8

What was the aim of the GSS?

what were its strategic priorities

Answer 8

• Beyond Petersburg Tasks: to move beyond Petersburg tasks for better cooperation between eu and nato

Strategic priorities:

• Security
• resilience
• integrated approach to crises
• internal/external nexus
• public diplomacy

Question 9

What are two overarching challenges to the EU being a security actor?

How does constructivism look at EU? 3 things

Answer 9

• Sui Generis Challenge: its Sui generis nature Poses challenge to existing IR approaches (smith)
• Supra or Inter?: between intergovernmental and supranational

Constructivism:
- looks at what the EU can do, rather than the states which make it up e.g. capabilities, opportunities and presence

• opportunity (structural context)
• presence (ability to exert influence beyond EU borders without trying)
• capability (internal context of EU (in)action

Question 10

What is the capabilities-expectation gap?

Answer 10

• whereby the expectations may outweigh the capabilities of a given thing
  e. g. it may choose to use diplomacy rather than military capabilities as unable

Question 11

What is a limit to C-E gap and who suggests to focus more on what the EU actually does?

What does this method lead us to say of the EU?

Answer 11

• C-E does not tell the full story
• K. Smith says to instead focus on stuff the EU can do, such as regional integration, human rights control, good governance and conflict prevention

Leads us to say:
- Normative power Europe (Manners, 2006)

Question 12

What is the aim of O’loughlin in his piece on ‘The EU’s peace and security narrative: views from EU strategic partners in Asia’?

What were his findings?

Answer 12

• looks at the latest gss and compares the EU’s strategic partners of peace and security with narratives about the EU held in the EU’s strategic partners in Asia
• Findings: Asia’s claims compared to EU’s claims on what the eU is as an actor and its response to policy issues on the ground vary greatly

Question 13

What is the aim of Wagner in his piece ‘Liberal power europe’?

What does this allow us to overcome?

Answer 13

• attempts to outline how the EU is considered a liberal power and what this allows us to overcome
• Allows us to overcome:
• Norms as driver: norms as driving force foreign policy, as well as its constraints
• draws attention through the contestation of norms to EU foreign politics

Question 14

What is the aim of Bremberg’s piece ‘The EU as security community-building institution: venues, networks and cooperative security practices’?

What are his findings?

Answer 14

• attempts to answer how EU promotes security beyond its borders by looking at how the EU works as security community building institutions with non-MS through practice theory in IR
• Findings argue that common practice precedes collective identity in processes of security community-building in that the EU has helped bring together and perpetuate a community of security practitioners in the western mediterranean

Question 15

PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation)?

What is it a continuation of?

Answer 15

• Introduced through Lisbon 2009
• 2017 initiated
• Continuing the Helsinki headlines as to improve EU’s military capabilities by making the policy binding

Question 16

Why did Wagner argue it is hard to define Europe as a Security actor?

Answer 16

“Because it is more than a regime and less then a federation”

Question 17

What did Wagner argue were the three main problems with Manners normative power Europe?

Answer 17

1) Unique?: Due to its argument that EU is unique it makes it closed off to looking at other fields of analysis e.g. democratic distinctiveness theories.
2) Liberal Constraints: It does not take into account that states can be constrained in typically liberal ways.
3) Politics?: It takes the politics out of European policy.

Question 18

How is Wagners Liberal Power Europe similar to Manners (2006) NPE?

Answer 18

• Both argue normative commitments are part of how EU operates
• EU can be studied in its own rights as an actor

Question 19

Which three EU states have opted out of PESCO and why?

Answer 19

Denmark: has a permanent opt-out from the common defence policy

Malta: wants to see how PESCO develops first in light that it may violate neutrality clause of Maltese Constitution.

UK: due to it buggering off

Question 20

How Does PESCO link into Andrew Cottey’s work on the neutral states? (Ireland, Finland, Austria, Sweden and Sweitzerland)

Answer 20

Shows that the term post-netural is more accurate for these states,

Despite the states “neutrality” includes four of the five neutral states (not Switz cause not in EU)

Is designed to be inclusive by allowing states to opt in and out of the projects as they are allowed.

Question 21

Who first conceived of the EU in terms of security actorness?

Answer 21

Bretherton and Volger (2006) assumption that we need to move away from understanding security actors as merely states- the mere fact that the EU exists and its influence on states/civilians suggests the EU has presence).