Balancing between exclusion and inclusion: the impact of enlargement and new security challenges on EU’s external border policies

Challenge: State of the Art January 2005

This working paper will argue that one can identify two simultaneous and mutually contradictory processes of building security vis-à-vis ’outsiders’ in today’s Europe: one pulling towards exclusion and one towards inclusion.

The process of exclusion is closely linked with the enlargement and the growing progress in home and justice affairs (JHA) of the EU. [1] As the ’area of freedom, security and justice’ expands and deepens within the union, the outer edges grow sharper. [2] States that are neither EU members nor candidate countries are permanent outsiders of new Europe. Many of the outsider states are weak and often considered to be hotbeds of organised crime and other threats. After the enlargement, the dangerous outside has moved closer: there is no buffer zone between the core and the outside. This development drives the EU to strengthen its external borders.

Alongside the factors that pull towards exclusion there are factors that drive towards greater engagement, integration and inclusion of the outsiders. First and foremost the process of inclusion is strengthened by the nature of new security threats. In the new security environment where interstate wars are no longer the main threat, traditional approaches to state security are no longer efficient. New threats are blurring the boundaries of internal and external security. [3] Internal wars, terrorism, transnational organised crime and their fringe phenomena, such as uncontrolled flood of displaced persons, are all threats that need to be dealt with in close cooperation with outsider states and their civil societies. In order to tackle with these threats cooperative security and engagement of outsiders become a necessity. The basic idea of common, cooperative security is that security is multidimensional in character. It marks a move away from the state-centric security thinking: security should be seen as a comprehensive process that encompasses various actors and issue areas. Economic development, human rights, good governance, democracy are all seen as important building blocks of security. [4]

It is widely agreed that prevention through cooperation and engagement is the most effective strategy against new security threats. The EU seeks to create constructive and long-term partnerships with the outsiders through building the ’area of peace, stability and prosperity’ that encompasses the EU and its neighbouring area. This policy is based on the belief that exclusion and political and economic marginalisation of neighbouring states could have dramatic consequences for wider European security.

There will never be Europe without frontiers or without insiders and outsiders. As Liam O’Dowd rightly points out, borders reflect the human need for order, control and protection. They also serve as markers between ’us’ and ’them’. However, at the same time these boundaries need to be permeable and fluid in order to accommodate change and interaction between the inside and the outside. [5] Therefore the challenge for the EU is to increase security and freedom within the EU without excluding and marginalising the outsiders and accommodating and encouraging interaction with (and potential change within) those states.

The EU has responded to the risk of marginalisation by various new strategies and programmes. The common strategies on Russia and Ukraine, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the four Common Spaces with Russia envisage a region of shared values and deepening cooperation and integration process between the enlarged EU and its neighbouring areas.

This working paper sets out to examine whether the EU has succeeded in finding the right balance between inclusion and exclusion in its policies towards Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In particular, this study will be looking at EU’s external border policies and cooperation with the outsider states. The tension between inclusion and exclusion is nowhere more apparent than at the EU’s new borders with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The importance of border issues is further highlighted by the fact that in the eyes of individuals from the outsider states, borders represent the most concrete way of exclusion.

Proposed outline

The working paper will consist of three parts. The first part describes the context and looks more closely to the debate on new threats and conceptions of security as well as the discussion on the EU enlargement and its potential impact on the outsiders.

In the second part the EU’s relationship with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus will be studied more closely. Special attention will be given to the EU’s external policies and JHA cooperation with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and, in particular, how this cooperation has changed after 9/11 and the enlargement. The final section of the second part will be build around the question how EU policies have been and are perceived by the outsider states - that is, their policy-makers and public opinion.

The third part attempts to answer the question has the EU succeeded in finding a right balance between exclusion and inclusion in its policies towards Russia, Ukraine and Belarus? Firstly, its success must be judged against its efficiency in preventing international crime and terrorism penetrating the EU area. However, this is not yet quite enough. Secondly, its success must be judged against the outsider perceptions of the EU. How do policy-makers and public opinion see their state’s relationship with the EU? Do they feel they are excluded from the new Europe and its development and that they are merely objects of decisions made by the EU? What kind of forms does the dissatisfaction take politically? Or, do they instead believe that they have access to new Europe and that they are active subjects in the process - in other words, that they are actors capable of influencing policies that concern them and their relationship with the EU? Is their partnership with the EU based on trust, interaction and mutual gains?

Review of core literature

One strand of the core literature consists of books and articles dealing with different conceptions of security and borders, insiders and outsiders. The second, more empirical strand of relevant literature deals with EU strategies and policies towards the outsider states before and after the enlargement. This section also includes several official documents, reports and analyses by official bodies and policy-orientated research centres. The study also draws from opinion polls, newspaper articles and official statements by Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian officials and other sources.

Albert, Mathias, David Jacobson, and Yosef Lapid, eds. Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relations Theory. Vol. 18, Borderlines. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2001.

Algieri, Franco, Josef Janning, and Dirk Rumberg, eds. Managing Security in Europe: The European Union and the Challenge of Enlargement. Gèutersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation, 1996.

Anderson, Malcolm. Border Regimes and Security in an Enlarged European Community: Implications of the Entry into Force of the Amsterdam Treaty. Florence: European University Institute, 2000.

Anderson, Malcom, and Joanna Apap. "Changing Conceptions of Security and Their Implications for EU Home and Justice Affairs." Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies, 2002.

This policy paper deals with the changing conception of security that points towards blurring distinction between the internal and external dimensions as well as towards widening understanding of what constitutes a security threat. The paper tries to link the discussion on new security threats together with the recent developments in European integration process. It claims that questions which used to be considered as internal security issues have been both Europeanised and externalised since the end the cold war. These two processes have had a major impact on structures, methods and priority areas of JHA. The authors go on to show that the external projection of internal security agencies has generated increasing overlapping and occasional competition between police and military agencies. According to them, internal-external policy coordination is a complex matter which should operate in two directions: external security policy tools should create synergies with internal policy objectives and, secondly, internal security policies should contribute to the general political objectives of the EU’s external policy. The second part of the study is dedicated to a more detailed study of the impact of 9/11 on conceptions of security and the EU policies. The post-9/11 development has caused friction between security (increasing control, surveillance and intrusive investigatory procedures) and freedom (civil liberties, rights of non-EU nationals etc.). The dangers of post-9/11 policy are that the tendency towards negative rather than positive measures is further strengthened and that democratic control of security issues is weakened. The authors doubt whether the post-9/11 reorientation of the western policy is going to be permanent but they claim that 9/11 will nevertheless have some long-term implications to the dynamics and priority areas of JHA.

Anderson, James, Liam O’Dowd, and Thomas M. Wilson, eds. New Borders for a Changing Europe: Cross-Border Cooperation and Governance. London: Frank Cass, 2003.

Batt, Judy. "The EU’s New Borderlands." CER Working Papers, October 2003.

Batt, Judy. "Border Regimes and Border Protection in the Enlarged European Union." In Policy Papers 6. Florence: European University Institute, 1999.

Batt, Judy, Dov Lynch, Antonio Missiroli, Martin Ortega, and Dimitrios Triantaphyllou. "Partners and Neighbours: A CFSP for a Wider Europe." In Chaillot Papers no. 64. Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, September 2003.

Berezin, Mabel, and Martin A. Schain, eds. Europe without Borders: Remapping Territory, Citizenship, and Identity in a Transnational Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Bigo, Didier. Border Regimes and Security in an Enlarged European Community: Police Co-Operation with CEECs: Between Trust and Obligation. San Domenico di Fiesole: European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre, 2000.

Bigo, Didier. "Internal and External Security(ies): The Möbius Ribbon." InIdentities, Borders and Orders, edited by Mathias Albert, David Jacobson and Yosef Lapid, 91-136. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2001.

The significance of the article - from the viewpoint of this study - lies in its discussion on the nature of the merger of internal and external security. Bigo argues that even if security needs to be understood much wider of a concept has traditionally been the case, one should still differentiate between national/state security and societal/identity-related security. The article proposes a ’Möbius ribbon’ understanding of security which underlines the overlap of internal and external security but puts effective limits to securitisation processes. Most importantly, the Möbius ribbon understanding of security is able to deal with uncertainty and change in internal and external societies as it is infinite and open topology. Further, the author claims that the merger of internal and external security is happening at three levels in a way that fundamentally alters our understanding of security as a concept. First of all, state borders are challenged by the freedom of movement of goods, ideas and people and the enemies are increasingly ’enemies within’. Secondly, norms of human rights and cosmopolitanism compete with traditional closed nationalism. Borders have at least at places and partly lost their meaning as barriers (against insecurity, disorder and the Other). Thirdly, the author claims that security has been ’individualised’. Discourses in today’s societies tend to connect individual fear (e.g. fear of unemployment) too easily with the fear of collective survival.

Brown, Chris. "Borders and Identity in International Political Theory." In Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relations Theory, edited by Mathias Albert, David Jacobson and Yosef Lapid, 117-36. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2001.

Bucken-Knapp, Gregg, and Michael Schack. Borders Matter: Transboundary Regions in Contemporary Europe. Copenhagen: Danish Institute for Border Region Studies, 2001.

Christiansen, T., F. Petito, and B. Tonra. "Fuzzy Politics around Fuzzy Borders: The European Union’s near Abroad." Cooperation and Conflict 35, no. 4 (2000): 389-415.

Dannreuther, Roland. European Union Foreign and Security Policy: Towards a Neighbourhood Strategy. London: Routledge, 2003.

Edwards, Adam, and Peter Gill, eds. Transnational Organised Crime: Perspectives on Global Security. London: Routledge, 2003.

Futo, Peter, and Michael Jandl, eds. 2003 Yearbook on Illegal Migration, Human Smuggling and Trafficking in Central and Eastern Europe: A Survey and Analysis of Border Management and Border Apprehension. Vienna: International Organisation for Migration, 2003.

Gardner, Hall, ed. NATO and the European Union: New World, New Europe, New Threats. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.

Grabbe, Heather. "The Sharp Edges of Europe: Extending Schengen Eastwards."International Affairs76, no. 3 (2000): 519-36.

This article discusses the impact of the EU enlargement and, in particular, of extending the Schengen regime eastwards. At the beginning Grabbe outlines briefly the linkage between so-called ’micro-security’, new myriad threats and the blurring distinction between internal and external affairs in security matters. She goes on to examine real and perceived security threats to the EU and how the EU has responded to those threats. The main body of the article deals with EU’s internal and external border policies and the dilemmas and points of friction between the insiders, soon-to-be insiders and outsiders of the EU. Grabbe highlights the fact that EU’s border policies have major security implications for eastern Europe: disruption of bilateral relationships, transboundary cooperation and regional economic integration could have dramatic consequences for the development of EU’s neighbour states. There have already been signs of growing dissatisfaction of the outsider states whose political leaders have claimed that the EU is replacing the Iron Curtain with a paper curtain. The article finishes off with practical policy recommendations for the EU. The recommended measures include a less restrictive approach to migration control, supplementary financial aid and political support to applicant states that are furthest from joining, involvement of applicant countries in sketching out the external policies concerning their neighbours and, finally, a development of more consistent regional strategy.

Haukkala, Hiski, and Arkady Moshes. "Beyond "Big Bang": The Challenges of the EU’s Neighbourhood Policy in the East." Helsinki: Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 2004.

Monar, Jörg. "Justice and Home Affairs in a Wider Europe: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion."ESRC ’One Europe or Several?’ Programme Working Paper, no. 7 (2000).

This working paper studies the development of EU’s home and justice affairs and its implications for the insiders and outsiders alike. The paper is build around the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that derive from the tension between security and freedom that is omnipresent in JHA. The study starts off by looking at the underlying rationale of the ’area of freedom, security and justice’. Further - and most interestingly from the viewpoint of my own study - it analyses more in detail the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion the JHA is generating in the wider Europe. This is done at three levels: at the level of EU member states, non-member states in Europe and finally at the level of citizens of the outsider states. In conclusion the author argues that JHA process has generated powerful effects throughout the wider Europe and that - at least so far - the effects of exclusion have been much stronger than the effects of inclusion. In particular, the negative impact of JHA is felt by the nationals of neighbouring non-member states. They are increasingly confronted with the exclusive nature of ’fortress Europe’. Although the EU has declared its aim to be an open and secure EU, the security dimension has prevailed over openness. Monar calls for a more balanced approach from the EU which can only be achieved through more open and honest public debate on the nature and objectives of JHA.

Monar, Jörg. "The Dynamics of Justice and Home Affairs: Laboratories, Driving Factors and Costs." Journal of Common Market Studies 39, no. 4 (2001): 747-64.

Newman, David. "Boundaries, Borders, and Barriers: Changing Geographic Perspectives on Territorial Lines." In Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relatios Theory, edited by Mathias Albert, David Jacobson and Yosef Lapid, 137-50. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2001.

O’Dowd, Liam, and Thomas M. Wilson, eds. Borders, Nations and States: Frontiers of Sovereignty in the New Europe. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996.

O’Dowd, Liam. "The Changing Significance of European Borders." InNew Borders for a Changing Europe, edited by James Anderson, Liam O’Dowd and Thomas M. Wilson, 13-36. London: Frank Cass, 2003.

The starting point of this article is that the nature and functions of borders have been changing dramatically in Europe since the end of the cold war. The article aims to outline and analyse some of the key dimensions of this change. The article provides some very interesting insights into the debate on the nature of borders by delineating four different conceptual understandings of borders: borders as barriers, bridges, resources and symbols of identity. The overview of European border policies is structured around these different conceptualisations of borders. The author points out that despite the abolition of borders as barriers within the union through the single market, the barrier thinking is still very much alive in the debate and policies concerning the external borders of the union. With regard to borders as bridges, O’Dowd highlights the proliferation of ’Euroregions’(regions with cross-border boards and secretariats addressing local social, economic and environmental problems) along the external eastern borders of the EU. Borders also serve as resources: they are places of economic, social and political opportunity for various actors and groups. This function is manifest at the new eastern borders of the union: mass of nationals of the outsider states travel back and forth the borders engaging in small-scale cross-border trade. Finally, the author claims that borders in today’s Europe are not only symbols of identity in the traditional sense of exclusive sovereignty but also as symbols of cross-border identities: sustained cross-border cooperation often contributes to a shared we-feeling. All these four dimensions are present in the process of changing borders in Europe. O’Dowd concludes that there are major ambiguities and tensions in border issues but what is important is how they are handled: whether border regimes are open and democratically accountable or whether they are closed and coercive.

Smith, Karen. European Union Foreign Policy in a Changing World. Cambridge: Polity, 2003.

Spohn, Willfried, and Anna Triandafyllidou, eds. Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration: Changes in Boundary Constructions between Western and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge, 2002.

Townsend, Adam. "Guarding Europe." CER Working Papers, May 2003.

Ulrich, Christopher J., and Timo A. Kivimäki. Uncertain Security: Confronting Transnational Crime in the Baltic Sea Region and Russia. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002.

Waever, Ole, ed. Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe. London: Pinter Publishers, 1993.

Zielonka, Jan. "How New Enlarged Borders Will Shape the EU?"Journal of Common Market Studies39, no. 3 (2001): 507-36.

This article links the discussion on the nature and the final goal of the European project with the debate on Europe’s new borders and their functions in an inspirational way. Zielonka distinguishes between two possible models of future development of the EU: the Westphalian model and neo-medieval model. The latter points towards overlapping authorities, divided sovereignty, diversified institutional arrangements and multiple identities. The former model points towards concentration of power, hierarchy, sovereignty and clear-cut identity. The models have also different implications for border policies: Westphalian model is based on hard external borders whereas the neo-medieval model is about soft border lines that can accommodate change easily. The article claims that the enlargement makes the building of federal state type Europe even more difficult than it has been so far. The future of the union is characterised by growing diversity which should not be seen as a negative feature. On the contrary, the author claims that pluralism should be seen as Europe’s greatest historical and cultural treasure. The author envisages European borders that will not look like ’fortified lines on the ground but like zones where people and their identities mingle’. Furthermore Zielonka argues that hard border regime is overly excessive, impractical, unsustainable and in contradiction with the wider strategic objectives of the EU. He goes on to show that the demand for and effectiveness of hard borders has been overstated in the current political discourse. In the final section of the article the author outlines policy options for the EU and its enlargement process. The first option is to opt for a very limited enlargement in stages in order to keep as much of the Westphalian model as possible. The second option is to accompany the enlargement with the creation of smaller core group of states that gets on with more advanced level of integration. The Westphalian model would be applied only to this core group while others would cooperate under a more neo-medieval umbrella. The third option, and the solution that Zielonka himself advocates, is to adjust the neo-medieval model to the contemporary European environment. This would mean the acceptance of the fact that European order is neither anarchy nor hierarchy but instead a multi-layered and multi-actor order based on pluralism. The aim of the border policies should be building up a more pan-European society, based on human rights and economic distribution. Further Zielonka argues that finding a new principle of solidarity and community may be the only way to maintain a minimum degree of democracy in the de-territorialised European environment.

Zielonka, Jan, ed. Europe Unbound: Enlarging and Reshaping the Boundaries of the European Union. London: Routledge, 2002.

Web documents

* Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating terrorism. COM(2001) 521 final 19/09/01.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/cfsp/doc/com_01_521.pdf

* Overview of EU action in response to the events of the 11 September and assessment of their likely economic impact. COM(2001) 611 final 17/10/01.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/cfsp/doc/com01_611.htm

* A secure Europe in a better world; the European security strategy. The European Council, 12/12/2003.

http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf

*European Neighbourhood Policy Strategy Paper

http://europa.eu.int/comm/world/enp/pdf/strategy/Strategy_Paper_EN.pdf

* European Neighbourhood Policy Country Report: Ukraine. Commission Staff Working Paper, Brussels, 12/05/04.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/world/enp/pdf/country/Ukraine_11_May_EN.pdf

Report on ’Wider Europe - Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours’ (Napoletano Report), European Parliament, 5/11/2003.

http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?L=EN&OBJID=31192&LEVEL=4&MODE=SIP&NAV=X&LSTDOC=N

* Proposed Action Plan EU-Ukraine, 09/12/2004.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/world/enp/pdf/action_plans/Proposed_Action_Plan_EU-Ukraine.pdf

* Council Conclusions on the ENP, 14/6/2004 and the Conclusions of the European Council on the ENP, 17-18/6/2004.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/world/enp/pdf/040614_GAERC_Conclusion_on_ENP_(provisional_version).pdf

* Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on relations with Russia, COM(04) 106, 9/2/2004.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/russia/russia_docs/com04_106_en.pdf

* Kaliningrad: Transit. Communication from the Commission to the Council, COM(2002)510 final.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/north_dim/doc/com02_510.pdf

* Common strategy between the European Union and Russia.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/ceeca/com_strat/russia_99.pdf

* Common strategy between the European Union and Ukraine.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/ceeca/com_strat/ukraine_99.pdf

* EU-Russia Summit, 25/11/2004, the Hague. Joint press release.

http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/er/82799.pdf