The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

THE NORDIC COUNTRIES AND EU SECURITY POLICY 303This indicates that the discussion about EU security policy cannot be separatedfrom a discussion about the concept of security. In fact, whether or not oneagrees that the EU has developed a distinct approach to security depends onhow one defines ‘security’. While there is general agreement that there is arelationship between integration and security, those who defend a more traditionaland more militarily focused definition of security still tend to ignore theEU as an important security actor. The EU’s persistent lack of any militarypower that is comparable to that of the USA makes it difficult for these traditionaliststo characterize the EU in this way. 8 For those who understand securityin a broader sense, however, the situation will look quite different. For them,the EU’s potential to coordinate diverse tools of security policy—economic,political and military—makes it one of the most important security actors of thepost-cold war period. 9 Not surprisingly, it is also the latter view that isemphasized by the EU itself (represented by both the Commission and theCouncil of the European Union) through its official documents and speeches.While existing multilateral security policy frameworks, such as NATO andthe Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have alsoadapted to the new security context, the most interesting development hasoccurred within the EU. This is because the EU is the only multilateral frameworkwithout a security policy legacy from the cold war period. While this maybe understood as reflecting a certain reluctance by the member states to relinquishnational sovereignty in the traditional security area, it is precisely thisreluctance that seems to have facilitated the development of a somewhat‘innovative’ approach to security—an approach that emphasizes the value ofcombining different security policy tools.What, then, is the precise content of this comprehensive EU security policy?Is it more than just wishful thinking and declarations? There are in fact manyconcrete manifestations of this policy, which are looked at here under the categoriesof external and internal security policy. The most obvious examples of acomprehensive external security policy are the EU’s enlargement process, theStability Pact for South Eastern Europe, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership,the Programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts, and the increased focuson civilian and military ‘integrated missions’ within the ESDP framework,which include the missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Examples8 Bull, H., ‘Civilian power Europe: a contradiction in terms?’, ed. L. Tsoukalis, The European Community:Past, Present and Future (Blackwell: London, 1983); Walt, S. M., ‘The renaissance of securitystudies’, International Studies Quarterly, vol. 35 (1999), pp. 211–39; and Hill, C., ‘The capability–expectation gap, or conceptualizing Europe's international role’, Journal of Common Market Studies,vol. 31, no. 3 (1993), pp. 305–28.9 Wæver, O., ‘Identity, integration and security: solving the sovereignty puzzle in EU studies’, Journalof International Affairs, vol. 48, no. 2 (1995), pp. 46–86; Sjursen, H., ‘New forms of security policy inEurope’, ARENA Working Paper 01/4, ARENA–Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Oslo,2001, URL ; and Manners, I., ‘European [security] Union: fromexistential threat to ontological security’, COPRI Working Paper 2002/5, Copenhagen Peace ResearchInstitute (COPRI), Copenhagen, 2002, URL .