THE EU’S SECURITY IDENTITY - Climate Change and European Security - page 20

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THE EU S SECURITY IDENTITY

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This chapter outlines on-going debates about the European Union s) general

security identity. Clearly, understanding the evolution of this identity is essential to
unpacking the EU

' s (EU '

' s responses to the climate security agenda. The chapter describes

the EU s sui generis foreign and security policy structures, and reports on how its

external identity has been a

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ected in recent years by the economic crisis. The EU ' s

complex institutional structures still seem to militate against e ective and coherent

decision-making, despite several rounds of treaty change. The EU and its member
states remain committed in philosophical terms to a basic internationalism in their
security thinking; recent policy trends, however, suggest a possible dilution of such
proactive and cooperative e s climate

strategy will matter much at all when its relative power in the world is in severe
decline. The chapter suggests a framework for how to match the EU

orts. Sceptics might ask whether Europe '

s security
identity to the strategic challenges posed by climate change. The EU rhetorically
stands ready to lead a cooperative-based approach to climate security, but its
resources and political will appear increasingly stretched in the realms of both soft
and hard power. This impacts on how well positioned the EU is to meet the
challenge of climate security, in a context of debates over whether this agenda
requires a tilt towards more realist or liberal

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- cooperative approaches.

A unique security identity?

Academics most commonly argue that the EU has developed a sui generis identity
in foreign and security policy. This is a product of the Union ' s unique and