The Maritime Turn in EU Foreign and Security Policies : Aims, Actors and Mechanisms of Integration

244 Pages·2018·2.23 MB·English

by  Marianne Riddervold (auth.)

THE MARITIME
TURN IN EU
FOREIGN AND
SECURITY
POLICIES
Aims, Actors and
Mechanisms of Integration
Marianne Riddervold
The Maritime Turn in EU Foreign and Security
Policies
Marianne Riddervold
The Maritime Turn in
EU Foreign and
Security Policies
Aims, Actors and Mechanisms of Integration
Marianne Riddervold
Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
Rena, Norway
Institute of European Studies, University of California
Berkeley, CA, USA
ARENA – Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway
ISBN 978-3-319-66597-9 ISBN 978-3-319-66598-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66598-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950831
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P
reface
This book is about EU maritime security policies, EU foreign and security
policy, and EU crises. It sets out to characterize and explain EU maritime
foreign and security policies, thereby addressing and adding knowledge to
all the main empirical and analytical debates in the EU foreign policy lit-
erature: Whether or not EU foreign and security policy has a particular
normative dimension that makes it different from foreign policy as it is
conventionally understood; the extent to which EU foreign and security
policy has developed beyond intergovernmental cooperation; and lastly,
how we can explain its emergence and characteristics. In doing this, the
book also addresses a fourth contemporary debate, namely on if and how
crisis influences EU policies. Five main cases of EU maritime foreign and
security policies are explored, all falling under the intergovernmental EU
foreign and security policy procedures: The EU’s two naval missions, the
EU’s Arctic policies, the EU policies towards the Maritime Labour
Convention in the International Labour Organization, and the EU’s
Maritime Security Strategy.
This book sums up the findings of several years of research on EU mari-
time foreign and security policies, most importantly, from my post-d octoral
research project ‘A global maritime power in the making: EU maritime
security and defence policies’, financed by the Norwegian Ministry of
Defence. I am very grateful to the Ministry for financing this research.
Some of the book’s empirical findings have been published previously. I
want to thank the Journal of European Integration and European Security
for letting me reprint parts of previously published articles in this book, in
Chaps. 6 and 10, respectively. Many people deserve thanks for providing
v
vi PREFACE
valuable inputs, constructive critiques, and comments on various findings
presented in this book. First of all, thank you to my interviewees for taking
the time to discuss EU maritime security policies with me and for sharing
insights and policy documents. In particular, I want to thank Isto Mattila
and Marcus Houben for always taking the time to help me understand EU
maritime security policy processes through a number of years. My col-
leagues at Arena, not least in the ‘Common Foreign and Security Policy
group’—Helene Sjursen, Guri Rosén, Mai’a K. Davis Cross, Johanne
Døhlie Saltnes, Johanna Strikwerda, and Tine Elisabeth Brøgger Johnsen—
have been invaluable discussants and commentators for much of the book’s
content. I am also grateful for comments and advice from Silje
H. Tørnblad, Morten Egeberg, Jarle Trondal, Espen D. H. Olsen, John
Erik Fossum, Erik Oddvar Eriksen, and Johan P. Olsen. ARENA has pro-
vided me with good working conditions in a scholarly stimulating environ-
ment while conducting this research. So has the UC Berkeley Institute of
European Studies, where I was a visiting scholar from 2015–2016 and have
visited regularly since. Thanks to Jeroen Dewulf, Akasemi Newsome, and
Gia White for making this stay so enjoyable in every way and for our con-
tinued cooperation on ‘Global Europe in Times of Uncertainty’ and other
projects. I also want to thank Inland University of Applied Sciences where
I have spent the last months and look forward to spending many more.
Ruxandra-Laura Bosilca also deserves a special thank you for sharing my
interests in EU maritime security policy, for our good discussions on the
topic, and for her assistance on the book. Thank you also to an anonymous
reviewer for comments and suggestions and to Sarah and Samantha at
Palgrave Macmillan for providing me with support and advice. Last but not
least, thanks to my amazing and beautiful boys, Aleksander, Philip, Daniel,
Gustav, Fredrik, and Espen. This book is dedicated to you.
Oslo, Norway Marianne Riddervold
c
ontents
1 Introduction: A Maritime Foreign and Security Power
in the Making? 1
Part I Aims 29
2 EU Maritime Foreign Policies Between Norms
and Economic Interests: Piracy and Maritime
Labour Standards 37
3 The EU’s Naval Mission Sophia: A Humanitarian
Operation to Help Refugees in Distress at Sea? 57
4 A Maritime Global Commons Power in the Making?
On the Characteristics of EU Policies Towards the 
High Seas: The Arctic and the Maritime Security Strategy 77
Part II Actors 97
5 A n Actor with Agency: The Influence of the 
Commission on EU Maritime Foreign and 
Security Policies 103
vii
viii CONTENTS
6 B eyond the Pillar Divide: The Administrative
Functioning of EU Maritime Foreign and Security Policies 125
Part III Mechanisms of Integration 137
7 E U Maritime Foreign and Security Policy Integration:
Explaining the EU Maritime Security Strategy 143
8 D riven by Geopolitical Events: The Impact of the 
Ukraine Crisis on EU Maritime Foreign and 
Security Policies 165
9 E xpertise and Circumvention: How the 
Commission Influences the EU’s Maritime Foreign
and Security Policies 177
10 W hy Not Fight Piracy Through NATO? Explaining
the EU’s First Naval Mission: EU NAVFOR Atalanta 195
11 C onclusion. EU Maritime Foreign and Security
Policies: Aims, Actors, and Mechanisms of Integration 219
Index 233
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: A Maritime Foreign
and Security Power in the Making?
1.1 IntroductIon
International relations are increasingly moving out to sea. It is here, in the
disputed territorial maritime borders, harbours, and sea lines around the
globe, that many of today’s threats and tensions materialize. Rising pow-
ers with expressed territorial interests and a different view on international
cooperation and regulation than those typically held by Western states are
building up their naval capacities, making claims to territorialize or con-
trol strategically important areas at sea: China in the South China seas;
Brazil in the South Atlantic; and Russia in the Arctic sea routes and in
other areas of naval importance such as Crimea, Ukraine. China and
Russia have changed their grand strategies from landward to seaward
security, and the US has adapted its strategic focus accordingly. Other
security threats, such as international crime and piracy, weapon smug-
gling, terrorism, environmental changes, and the transport of migrants,
are also inextricably linked to the sea in today’s international political and
security landscape.
In this changing international environment, an actor that might at first
seem like an unlikely maritime power is establishing itself on the global scene:
The European Union (EU). Since the launch of the EU’s first naval mission
(Atalanta) in 2008 and the adoption of an Integrated Maritime Policy the
same year, maritime security has been amongst the fastest growing areas of
EU security integration but still remains underresearched amongst scholars
(see, however, Behr et al. 2013; Bosilca 2017; Bueger 2015; de Nevers 2015;
© The Author(s) 2018 1
M. Riddervold, The Maritime Turn in EU Foreign and Security Policies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66598-6_1
2 M. RIDDERVOLD
Germond 2011, 2015; Helly 2009; Kluth and Pilegaard 2011; Riddervold
2011, 2014). Militarily, the EU is, for example, a main force in the waters
off the Horn of Africa. In 2015, it launched a second large naval mission in
the Mediterranean in response to the migration crisis (Bosilca 2017; Tardy
2015). A new EU naval border control system was recently agreed upon
(Commission 2015). The EU is also planning for future missions, and its
renewed discussions on battle groups and permanent capabilities have a
clear naval focus. Shared maritime surveillance capacities and systems are
under way (Germond 2015). In parallel, intensified NATO and EU discus-
sions are increasingly tuned on maritime issues (NATO 2014; Germond
2015; Riddervold 2014). Politically, the EU is taking a lead role in discus-
sions on pirates and maritime terrorism and is increasingly active in discus-
sions on the future international regulation of the maritime Global
Commons (Behr et al. 2013; Germond 2015; Gulbrandsen 2013). A com-
mon Arctic policy is in the making. Within the field, the EU member states
have bound themselves to common policies, actions, and regulations that
have effectively removed their ability to veto. They have allowed a wide
number of EU actors such as the European Commission (Commission),
the European Defence Agency (EDA), the EU Military Staff (EUMS), and
the High Representative of the Union for Security and Defence (HR/VP)
and her foreign policy service, the European External Action Service
(EEAS), to initiate, influence, and even decide upon what policies to con-
duct collectively.
The development of EU maritime foreign and security policies is puzzling
as it challenges both the conventional assumption that EU foreign and secu-
rity cooperation will be limited and that it in any case will remain intergov-
ernmental (Hoffmann 1966, 2012; Pollack 1997; Tallberg 2003, 2008).
That developments come within the maritime sector is even more surprising
in light of the member states’ traditional reluctance towards integration in
this domain. Several member states have strong maritime interests and have
been keen to act upon them as they see best, without the interference of
supranational institutions or other member states (Germond 2015;
Gulbrandsen 2013; Landmann 2015; Offerdal 2011; Riddervold 2016;
Weber and Romanyshyn 2011). Adding to this, the level of EU maritime
security integration, which includes a considerable military component, chal-
lenges the commonly held assumption that—to the extent that the EU is at
all able to produce a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)—it will
act as a ‘soft’ power. In other words, that the EU will use non-military means
when pursuing the member states’ interests on the international scene.