The European Union as a Security Actor: Moving Beyond the Second Pillar

Abstract

It is suggested in this article that there is a discrepancy between, on the one hand, literature that focuses on the European Union (EU) as a security actor and, on the other, contemporary security studies literature. This difference concerns the fact that the literature on the EU as a security actor treats security in a narrower sense than how it is approached in the literature on security studies. Over the past few decades, security studies literature has begun to fully acknowledge that the concept of security has broadened beyond traditional ‘hard’ security concerns and can encompass many different issues, for example the security implications of climate change. However, the literature on the EU as a security actor very often associates security only with the second pillar of the EU’s organisational structure; in particular the intergovernmental cooperation embodied by the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The main purpose of this article is to utilise the broader security studies approach to security as a means to expand the understanding of security in the context of the EU’s performance on the international stage. This is important because it allows the Union’s ‘actorness’ in the field of security to be examined in a more holistic manner.