One of the central ideas of the EU and its predecessors has been to bind European countries together through economic ties and cooperation to prevent horrors like the world wars. In 2012, the EU received the Nobel Peace Prize for promoting peace, reconciliation, democracy, and human rights in Europe. Today, the idea of war between European Union member states seems almost impossible. After the end of the Cold War, and especially in recent years, various other security threats have come to the forefront in Europe and around the world. Such threats include climate change, information influence, economic crises, organized crime, and developments in regions near the EU, such as Syria and Yemen.
The aim of SaferGlobe’s project “The European Union as a Security Actor Now and in the Future” is, on one hand, to produce high-quality and unbiased information about the threats faced by the EU, and on the other hand, to examine the European Union’s responses to these threats. Additionally, our goal with this project is to bring the perspective of a comprehensive security concept into the discussion about EU security.
In the project, five experts on the EU and security ask and answer questions concerning EU security. The experts are journalist and non-fiction writer Anna-Kaisa Hiltunen; Associate Professor Tommi Koivula from the National Defence University; SaferGlobe researcher and University of Tampere doctoral candidate Johannes Lehtinen; Docent Hanna Ojanen from the University of Helsinki and the National Defence University; and analyst Sinikukka Saari from the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS).