The European Union in the Contemporary Security Environment: Perspectives over Middle East

The main aim of this research is to analyse the external actions of the European Union in an attempt to create an overview over the ways in which these actions contribute to ensuring security/peace and stability. In developing such an analysis two layers need special emphasis – on one hand the strategic interests of the EU member states do not always converge resulting in difficulties of reaching a common position and on the other hand the domestic politics of the countries directly concerned by the EU actions create an interplay that in the end defines the results of the activities undertaken. In the first instance, the paper will create a framework for understanding the concept of security through the lens of the existing literature emphasing the way its meaning has changed over the last 30 years. The EU has been for the past decades very active in the sphere of international security, its main directions being maintaining peace, conflict prevention, crises management and humanitarian assistence. Secondly, the paper aims at pointing out the evolution of the EU CFSP starting with the Treaty of Maastricht until nowadays. In the process of ensuring security, the EU has employed a comprehensive approach involving capacity building, humanitarian assistance, development support etc. The paper will follow the EU actions over the Middle East, a region constantly troubled by issues that require constant international involvment and where peace and stability seem very far to achieve. After reviewing the EU actions, the last section will try to give some recommendations of improving the approach towards the region puting emphasis on a more prominent role for the EU in a way that the EU could bring a more solid contribution to solving the global issues that spillover from the Middle East affecting the international system.