The European Union's Increasing Role in Foreign Policy Counterterrorism

Since 9/11, the role of the European Union (EU) in counter-terrorism has expanded rapidly. Most of the developments were internally derived and would affect only EU Member States and countries on the EU’s periphery. However, over the past few years, the EU has become increasingly involved in counter-terrorism outside its borders. Although it still has a long way to progress before being recognised as a counter-terrorism actor of note, the EU has demonstrated a commitment to include counter-terrorism related initiatives into its foreign policies. Analyses of the EU’s foreign policy counter-terrorism have focused on narrow definitions of foreign policy. It is necessary to distinguish between the external dimension of counter-terrorism and foreign policy counter-terrorism, and there is a need to combine these in order to better understand the EU as a counter-terrorism actor. Foreign policy and counter-terrorism therefore need to be broadly defined in order to take account of the full array of EU counter-terrorism initiatives. Through the EU’s efforts to counter terrorist financing, the EU’s role in Afghanistan, the EU-US relationship, and the Commission-based Instrument for Stability (IfS) it will be shown that the EU has made considerable progress towards creating a multi-faceted counter-terrorism policy in the nine years since 9/11.