Political Narrative, EU Security and the State of the Union

The Treaty of Maastricht not only established the European Union, but consolidated its Common Foreign and Security Policy under the second pillar. The new Treaty provided the European Union with new tools for it to play a stronger role in the international system. It sometimes failed to pursue this role with march vigour; particularly after the collapse of Yugoslavia and the subsequent conflicts in the Balkan region. However, on matters of security, consensus was always hard to achieve security. Whilst the Treaty of Amsterdam created the office for the High Representative for the CFSP and the Lisbon Treaty updated the Treaty on European Union by putting an end to the pillar system thus creating the office for the High Representative of the Union for Foreign and Security Policy, there are doubts on the role which the security role which the EU could play in the region and whether this role could complement the role of NATO. The European Commission President often used the State of the Union address to build a narrative on the need for the European Union to become a security player. The State of the Union address was established with the Lisbon Treaty and serves to highlight the priorities of the Commission. This makes it one of the most important addresses in political terms. It offers the President of the European Commission the opportunity to influence the other EU institutions, member states as well as the EU citizens. Such a speech draws attention to the function of narratives and their role in shaping human communication which can be used by politicians to transfer ideologies, beliefs and information to a wider audience (Shenhav, 2005; Della Sala, 2017). This paper will evaluate issues of security as tackled in the State of the Union addresses from the first delivered by Jose Manuel Barroso in 2010 to the last speech delivered by Ursula von der Leyen in 2020. This will serve to evaluate the evolving narrative concerning European Security as the Commission attempted to build a stronger case for transforming the EU into a security player.