The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

302 THE NORDIC COUNTRIES, THEIR REGION AND EUROPEof a more comprehensive security approach. These changes seem to have beeninitiated or accelerated in response to the European integration process. 4The argument of this chapter is twofold. First, the Nordic countries’ securityapproaches, which have traditionally diverged, are increasingly converging andthat this process started with the end of the cold war. Second, this convergencemust be seen in relation to the European integration process and the developmentof EU security policy. It is this process of ‘Europeanization’ that is thefocus of the chapter.Section II starts with a clarification of what is meant by ‘EU security policy’.While some look only at the ESDP process, a broader approach is advocatedhere that also includes the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU’scounter-terrorism efforts and the European Commission’s activities in the areaof conflict prevention. Section III reviews developments in the Nordic countries’security approaches since the early 1990s and discusses whether and towhat extent it is possible to argue that they have been Europeanized. In particular,it examines the impact of three important changes in the EU: the 1992Treaty of Maastricht and the establishment of the CFSP; 5 the 1998 Anglo-French St Malo summit as a milestone in the creation of the ESDP; and theadoption of the European Security Strategy (ESS), a constitution for the EU andthe concretization of what is here called ‘a comprehensive European securitypolicy’ in 2003–2004. Section IV makes some overall comparisons on the basisof these findings and draws some conclusions.II. EU security policy: more than the European Security andDefence PolicyIt is no longer sufficient to look only at the ESDP when discussing the EU’ssecurity policy. In fact, the ESDP is, at least as it is most often defined, onlyone part of the EU’s security policy. It is difficult or perhaps impossible to isolatethe ESDP not only from the rest of the EU’s foreign and security policy, butalso from the EU’s activities with regard to external relations and the fightagainst terrorism. The ESS, adopted in December 2003, 6 provides a much betterindication than any previous EU document of what the Union’s security policyis all about: a comprehensive approach to security. 74 Rieker, P., ‘Europeanisation of Nordic security: the EU and the changing security identities of theNordic states’, Doctoral thesis, University of Oslo, Department of Political Science, 2004; and Rieker, P.,‘Europeanisation of Nordic security? The EU and the changing security identities of the Nordic states’,Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 39, no. 4 (2004), pp. 369–92.5 The Treaty on European Union (Treaty of Maastricht) was signed on 29 July 1992 and entered intoforce on 1 Nov. 1993. The consolidated text of the treaty as amended is available at URL .6 Council of the European Union, ‘A secure Europe in a better world: European Security Strategy’,Brussels, 12 Dec. 2003, URL .7 Rieker, Doctoral thesis (note 4).