What boundaries for the European Union as a security actor?

Abstract

The European Union's discourse as a security actor evolved after 2003 most spectacularly in its spatial dimension, determined by both internal developments of the EU and external ones of the security environment. As a security actor consecrated in the first decade of the years 2000 by means of the European Security and Defense Policy and as a pacifying force on the European continent through the process of enlargement, the EU gradually aimed further and further, in order to stabilise states and regions, to promote a comprehensive concept of security and to protect its citizens, according to the dicton that "the first line of defense starts abroad". Hence the continuous expansion of the geographical scope of both the EU's representation as a security actor and of its actions This paper aims at exploring the discursive construction of the EU's security identity, with a special focus on the geographical boundaries of the EU's self-representation as an international security actor.