The EU as a Post-Lisbon Regional Security Complex

The caesura has been precisely defined. It covers the period from the time the Lisbon Treaty came into effect (2009) to the year the work planned for November 2019 was completed. The meaning of the start date is clearly justified in the introduction above, as it refers to changing the status of the EU itself (granting it international-legal entity) as well as unifying the acquis, decision-making process and structure. In addition, the course my research then took was influenced by individual political developments, which are contained in the established caesura and go beyond these frames. Such events include the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center of 11 September 2001, the concept of the Axis of Evil (Rogue States) initiated by George Bush Jr. in 2002, Kiev Euromaidan and Russian interference in ←17 | 18→Ukraine (annexation of Crimea in 2014), the migration crisis ongoing since 2015 and the EU summit in Brussels on migration in June 2018.

This book was written with the aim of analyzing the current nature of the EU as a regional security complex (RSC), following the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon, as well as with the aim of revising all elements of this integrated security area contemporarily using the methodology of Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver. The book also aims to show the changes and evolutionary trends that are taking place in the EU as a result of the ongoing globalization process and in the face of contemporary non-traditional threats in the securitization process and in the face of challenges in the context of shaping a common position and perception of security problems (climate change, Russia’s policy, etc.)

The analytical goal of the research project is also to review the process of the securitization of ongoing EU problems as a separate regional security complex after the Lisbon Treaty came into force. I will also try to answer the following research questions:

The research hypothesis was formulated as follows: contemporary features of the EU as a security community having a legal and international entity after the Lisbon Treaty came into force prove the existence of an independent and separate regional security complex based on the mutual defense clause in accordance with Article 42.7 of the Treaty on EU. The European Union Regional Security Complex (the EU RSC) continues to show that the EU is a highly polarized security structure. In connection with this research hypothesis and research problems, first of all I plan to examine in detail the most important structural features of the EU Regional Security Complex, the most important securitized problems and existing patterns of amity and ←18 | 19→enmity. However, it is the analysis of constructed speech acts and, above all, the indicated reference objects as part of the developed questionnaire that will verify whether the securitization process in the European Union is accepted by the target audience (EU citizens or EU territory residents), or is it only a securitization movement with only propaganda, information and political significance. The latter means that the EU political elites have not managed to transform challenges or political problems taking place within the public, political or academic debates into security problems occurring in the framework of the security debate/ discourse.

With regard to the research methodology used in this book, special attention should be paid to the application of the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT – the first time this has been simultaneously done in international literature) to present the structure of the EU Regional Security Complex and to analyzing the response of audiences to a formulated speech act by EU decision-makers using a specially designed research questionnaire in Polish and English.

The conducted surveys and structured interviews made it possible to deepen the context of the practical transformation of the concepts of securitized problems from the EU and intergovernmental level to the level of the respondents.

These anonymous studies were conducted among over 120 students in the field of International Relations, Global Studies, Internal Security and International Security from countries such as Poland, Germany, Malta, Spain, Lithuania, Great Britain, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Bulgaria. In addition, the study also covers non-EU nationals from countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, India, Ecuador, Indonesia, Thailand, Republic of Korea, China, Taiwan and Namibia. In many cases, the citizens of EU countries and/or those who belonged to the indicated target groups were covered by the study. So they are not indifferent to the security problems of Europe and the EU. The analysis also covered students from outside the EU in order to obtain a broader verification of perception and knowledge of proposed and formulated speech acts by authorized ←19 | 20→political decision makers, including heads of state and heads of government of individual EU countries and institutional structures. The adopted threat concepts have been developed in the EU forum by unanimity. This approach also allowed me to specify and examine the differences in perception of the proposed and securitized categories of problems in the ongoing security debate in the EU.

To sum up, the research methodology adopted in the work corresponds to the methodological assumptions of the field of social sciences, including disciplines such as security studies and political and administrative sciences. In the field of applied research techniques, the most important are primarily structured interviews with experts using clearly defined research questionnaires and research queries carried out in specialized research centers such as:

The research plan included conducting research queries in specialized research centers in Europe and interviews with experts based on a structured questionnaire. Efforts were made to analyze international securitization initiatives using the observation method. Therefore, the specific research objectives of the project in this regard include:

Other techniques include analyzing available literature and online sources. The following research methods were also used in the work: