Turning Points and Shifting Understandings of European Security: The European Neighbourhood Policy’s Development

Abstract

The chapter aims at contributing to the conceptualisation of the EU’s security role and of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as a regional security policy. We argue that there have been shifts in the EU’s approach towards regional security in the framework of the ENP and that a clear trend towards a more systematic combination of structural and hard security elements is visible, reflecting both new EU institutional capabilities and a propitious international environment, demanding integrated and comprehensive approaches to security. We argue that the EU’s security actorness in the neighbourhood has benefited from this developing comprehensive approach, ingraining a mix of normative and geopolitical aspects reflected in the EU’s self-perception and its international image.