Human Security: Does Normative Europe Need a New Strategic Narrative?

Alongside a sustained debate about the role of the EU in the international system and the nature of its power as an external actor, foreign and security policy making continues to reflect an awkward mixture of civilian, military and normative instruments, and ambiguous goals. The European Security Strategy of 2003 and the drive, via ESDP, to make the EU respond more effectively to crises, are the most systematic attempts yet to resolve this incoherence and to project the EU as a different kind of international actor by deploying an integrated range of civilian and military capabilities and resources. This paper examines whether the EU also needs a new conceptual framework for its international presence which can organise and improve the integration of its civilian and military characteristics , and at the same time express to both its own citizens and the outside world, the values and goals which underpin its external action. The paper takes the concept of Human Security and explores whether a Human Security doctrine could provide a shared strategic narrative for the EU which would serve to clarify and consolidate the nature of EU actorness. The paper takes the example of the EU mission to DR Congo in 2006 to show how a Human Security doctrine could provide conceptual coherence to the exercise of EU external power