Security, Borders, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Vol. 4 No. 15, May 2004

Ibryamova, Nuray V. (2004) Security, Borders, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Vol. 4 No. 15, May 2004. [Working Paper]

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Abstract

In 2003 the European Union adopted its first security strategy, which identified the key threats and challenges to European security, its strategic objectives, as well as the possible means for addressing these objectives. The document, presented by CFSP1 High Representative Javier Solana, was an important milestone in the development of the EU as a regional security actor with potential to play a global security role. The strategy, entitled “A Safer Europe in a Better World,” also signified that the security of Europe was indivisible from that of the rest of the world, and especially its immediate neighborhood. As European integration deepens, there is a growing perception that the member states cannot adequately protect their societies as a result of their borderless frontiers, resulting in an increasing internal insecurity. The current round of enlargement is also implicated in this process, as it poses a number of challenges in this area. This enlargement brings the European Union’s eastern border deep into the territory of the former Soviet Union in the Baltic region, and reaches states that are still in the process of institution-building The management of these new borders will have a significant impact on the stability of the rest of Europe, which finds itself outside the EU, as well as on the internal security of those who are inside. This essay aims to look at some of the discursive links between security and the eastern enlargement of the European Union and the role of security in creating the two “Europes,” as witnessed by the renewed emphasis on the new eastern external border of the EU. It argues that it is primarily societal security threats that have been important in the context of enlargement, contributing to the implementation of internal security policies, whose effects are sometimes conflicting with the overall objective of peaceful, stable and prosperous Europe. The article begins by looking at the linkage between the lifting of internal borders and non-traditional military threats, such as immigration and organized crime. It then examines how the eastern enlargement has been implicated in the securitization of these cross-border activities and the policy responses to the perceived security deficit. It concludes by discussing some of the consequences of the strengthening of the external borders of the EU on its new members as well as on its new neighbors to the east.

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