Information-sharing and the EU Counter-terrorism Policy: A ‘Securitisation Tool’ Approach

Abstract

In recent years, securitisation theory (Buzan et al., 1998; Balzacq, 2011) has occupied an increasingly prominent place in the study of international security. It emphasises how a specific type of discourse transforms certain entities — subjects or objects — into a threat, thereby enabling the use of extraordinary measures to deal with them. Thus, securitisation theory postulates that threat images can be modelled as the result of discursive processes that take place between the so-called ‘secu-ritising actor’ and the relevant audience(s). This might be called the ‘standard’ view of securitisation. However, such an approach does not seem entirely appropriate to study policy developments in the European Union (EU), notably because of its sui generis political and institutional characteristics. As observed by Léonard, ‘[t]he EU is evidently not a state; it has no government or president to make the kind of dramatic securitising speech acts that can be identified in national contexts’ (Léonard, 2010, p. 236). Nevertheless, there is prima facie evidence that there may have been securitisation processes at play in the development of the EU counter-terrorism policy. This is suggested by the adoption of some extraordinary measures, such as the EU financial sanctions against suspected terrorists. Those are arguably extraordinary on the ground that they have breached the fundamental rights of the persons concerned (van Thiel, 2008; Vlcek, 2009).