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European SecurityStructures and

Institutions after theLisbon Treaty

Josip Buljevic*

Professional PaperUDC 327.5:061.1 EUReceived in December 2010

After the Treaty of Lisbon, certain changes have been made to the European Security andDefence Policy (ESDP) as an integral part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy(CFSP). Based on the results achieved so far, member states of the European Union haveexpressed their wish to take more responsibility in protecting the security of Europe andthe whole world, through civilian, police-led or combined action. Europe is also startingto demonstrate its readiness for military action, either independently or in cooperation

with NATO. At this point, however, there is no fully organized and complete security andintelligence system at the level of the European Union and it could be stated that the EU isstill searching for a common European security and intelligence policy. Each of the threeEU umbrella institutions (European Parliament, European Commission and EuropeanCouncil) is comprised with bodies in charge of security-related issues, whose work is

purely analytical. Reports related to general threats to the Union and its member statesare sent individually by each state and are then put together at the European Council s

SITCEN. Unlike bodies within NATO, the EU security and intelligence elements do not actmultilaterally. Operational cooperation among member states and accession countries are

mostly bilateral.

Key words: European Union, Treaty of Lisbon, security institutions, security and defence policy

1. Introduction

In scientific circles and among the professionalpublic, assessments are often heard suggestingthat in the period after the Treaty of Lisbonsecurity and intelligence mechanisms of the EUhave not been fully constructed and defined. Theseassessments indicate the existence of numerousoddities in terms of conception, methodologyand organization. In the search for the commonEuropean security and intelligence policy, variousmodels of action are being tested within the

EU structures, which rather often include theintroduction of certain elements to reorganizenewly established institutions and bodies. Withinthis security and intelligence architecture of theEuropean Union, which has not been completelybuilt yet, there are certain institutions that playa significant role, namely the European DefenceAgency (EDA), Joint Situation Centre (SITCEN),Political and Security Committee (PSC), European

* Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Universityof Zagreb

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Body for the Enhancement of Judicial Cooperation(EUROJUST) and the European Police Office(EUROPOL). The objective of this report is topresent the above institutions, their field of activityand the situation in the period following the Treatyof Lisbon.

2. European External Action Service -EEASorEAS

The person predominantly in charge of the securityand intelligence issues within the EU after theTreaty of Lisbon is Baroness Catherine Ashton,High Representative for Foreign Affairs andSecurity Policy of the EU and First Vice-Presidentof the European Commission. Baroness Ashtonheads the European External Action Service(EEAS or EAS)IO. In accordance with her powers,she appoints the Director of the SITCEN, Chairof the PSC and the Chief Executive of the EDA.This makes her the dominant figure in charge ofcreating Europe's security policy. The Head ofCrisis Management Agostino Miozzo, and SpecialAdvisor on Intelligence and Security Matters,Patrice Bergamini also play important roles in thisEU intelligence and security structure. BaronessAshton appointed both.

As a direct consequence of the Treaty ofLisbon, the EEAS has become Europe's centralsecurity and intelligence body. Its work isconnected with a number of security institutionsand some function as part of it. The EEAS startedits activity on January 1, 2011. After the foreseentwo-year transition period, it will become a fullyindependent organizational unit within the EUstructure. At present, the EEAS staff consistsof members of the EU Delegations and nationalexperts' contributions. It currently has some fourthousand members (the foreseen full personnelstructure of the EEAS is five to six thousand).

The European Defence Agency (EDA) is theEU service, situated in Brussels, organizationallylocated within the European External ActionService (EAS). The EDA was established onJune 12, 2004, and it reports to the Council ofthe European Union. Although the EDA wasestablished back in 2004 and has been functioningsince, it was only with the Treaty of Lisbon that itassumed a firmer legal basis and legal personality.In other words, the Treaty of Lisbon marked the

beginning of the EDA's official existence. Theposition of the EDA Head is held by the HighRepresentative and its Steering Board is composedof defence ministers from all active member states.

All EU member states participate in theAgency's work through their representatives, withthe exception of Denmark, which does not wishto be represented by the EU in the matters relatedto the security and foreign policy. The position ofNorway is also specific - although not a memberof the EU, it participates in some of the EDAprogrammes, but has no right to vote. In addition,Great Britain has announced that it will revise itsmembership within the next two years and makea final decision about whether it will withdraw orremain in the EDA.

The Council of the European Union estab-lished the EDA as "professional support to EUmember states and the Council in their efforts toimprove Europe's defence capability, especiallyin the field of crisis management and in the areaof the European security and defence policy andits future development". This main task definesits following functions: development of defencecapability in the field of crisis management, pro-motion and improvement of European coopera-tion in armament, improvement of defence tech-nology and industrial basis for the production ofEuropean defence equipment competitive on theinternational market and perfecting research andtechnology in the field of defence in Europe.

According to available information, the EDAhas a staff of 109 and its budget for the year 2010was 31 million €. The EDA Chief Executive is MsClaude-France Arnould, appointed to this duty inJanuary 2011 by Baroness Catherine Ashton. It isinteresting to note that the position of EDA ChiefExecutive had been vacant since October 2010,and the word among the "EU circles" was that theappointment of Ms Arnould was blocked by theItalian Government, which wanted to appoint theirown representative.

The Joint Situation Centre (JSC) or theSITCEN is the intelligence body of the EuropeanUnion. In terms of formation, since the adoptionof the Treaty of Lisbon, the SITCEN is alsosituated within the European External ActionService - EEAS or EAS, and is based in Brussels.The SITCEN's primary role is producing notes

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and short reports on the current events relevantfrom the perspective of security and intelligence(the so-called Flash Reports), security analysesfor the needs of Baroness Ashton's Cabinet andthe Political and Security Committee - PSC.These reports and analyses are made based onclassified information forwarded to the SITCENby the appropriate member states services andopen source information. For this reason, theSITCEN is sometimes also referred to as theIntelligence-sharing Bureau. The reports andanalyses mentioned above are made by a team ofintelligence analysts delegated to the SITCEN bytheir own national services. Estimations are thatthe team consists of about twenty analysts and anincrease in number is planned. Within the SITCEN,there is also a sort of a monitoring service incharge of following the media twenty-four hoursa day and informing the EU officials on the mostimportant events, two to three times a day via textmessages. There is also a team of twelve police andmilitary officers collecting and processing reportsfrom the EU Missions worldwide. According toinformation, the SITCEN has been joined withthe Commission s Crisis Room, which followsconflicts around the world based on open sourceinformation and reports from the EU Missionsthroughout the world. Available informationindicates that the SITCEN should soon have about160 members and a yearly budget of about ten totwenty million Euros. Future SITCEN staff shouldbe composed of analysts and operatives from EUmember state services, IT experts, scientists invarious fields, etc. There is also a possibility forthe SITCEN in the future to send its operativesto hotspots (reportedly at present there are nonein the SITCEN ) from which they would be ableto provide independent assessments, describe thesituation and present operational findings directlyto the High Representative for Foreign Affairs andSecurity Policy and her team in Brussels.

The SITCEN originates from a working groupof analysts formed in 1999 by High RepresentativeJavier Solana to support the implementation butalso shape the so-called 'European Security andDefence Policy'. After the terrorist attacks inthe United States on September 11, 2001, theso-called Counter- Terrorism Group (CTG) wasestablished within the SITCEN. During 2002, theSITCEN became a kind of forum for the exchangeof classified information among the secret servicesof France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Spain, Sweden

and Great Britain. The SITCEN and the CTG werelater joined by members of services from the newmember states.

The SITCEN Director is Ilkka Salmi, appoint-ed on December 17, 2010. Prior to his appoint-ment Salmi was the Director of Finland's secretpolice - Suojelupoliisin (SUPO). Finnish secu-rity secret police specializes in counterterrorism,counterintelligence protection and security-relatedwork. Prior to his appointment as SUPO Director,Salmi held different positions in the service, spenta certain period of time as member of the FinnishParliament, where he was particularly active in theCommittee for Foreign Policy and Defence. Dur-ing 1998, he was a member of the Finnish Missionto the EU and special advisor to Finland's PrimeMinister Paavo Lipponen.

Explaining her decision, Baroness Ashtonstated that "as a respectable figure in the memberstates' intelligence circles, Ilkka Salmi wouldhave an important role in building the credibilityof EAS in the key fields of its activity, leading thefight against terrorism, proliferation of weapons ofmass destruction and other global threats".

Professional circles estimate that the appoint-ment of Mr Salmi from Finland to the position ofthe head of the SITCEN - the EU's most sensitivebody in terms of security - was in fact the result ofa comprormse,

Future changes in the work of the SITCENannounced by the High Representative, whichhave been made possible by the Treaty of Lisbon,will include additions to the institution's tasks.Along with its task of making strategic, long-term assessments and analyses (which took weeksto complete), ad-hoc analyses of ongoing eventsmade in real time or with a several hours delayshould also be made.

European Body for the Enhancement of Judi-cial Cooperation (EUROJUST) was establishedpursuant to Council Decision (20021187/JHA)from February 28, 2002, with the aim of achiev-ing better efficiency in detecting and prosecutingperpetrators of organized criminal activities tran-scending state boundaries in all member states.EUROJUST is based in The Hague, Holland andits basic objectives include supporting and im-proving cooperation between member states au-thorities in the field of investigation and criminal

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prosecution, in the field of mutual legal assistanceand carrying out extradition requests, efficient in-vestigations and procedure handling. In order toachieve these goals, EUROJUST cooperates withall the relevant agencies thus bringing criminalsmore quickly to justice. EUROJUST fills thisunique role as a new permanent body in the Eu-ropean legal area. It consists of fifteen members -experienced prosecutors and judges appointed bymember states.

Apart from the fact that it foresees a concreteinclusion of national parliaments in the politicaloversight of EUROJUST's work', the Treaty ofLisbon has introduced crucial changes stipulatedin Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty on theFunctioning of the European Union (TFEU)3,which are related to the future of EUROJUST.Article 85 now opens a possibility for new actsto determine EUROJUST's structure, operationand field of action. Other important novelties forEUROJUST introduced by the Treaty of Lisboninclude a qualified majority vote, widening ofthe authority of the European Court of Justiceand strengthening the roles of the EuropeanCommission and the European Parliament.

Although the new acts to determine its struc-ture, operation and field of action, are still underconsideration, the Treaty of Lisbon clearly outlinesthe future changes (determination of minimum au-thority for EUROJUST prosecutors, establishmentof the Emergency Cell for Co-ordination for cri-sis management, appointment of judges for liaisonwith third countries, improvement of informationflow between member states and EUROJUST,etc.). The Treaty of Lisbon also widens the scope ofEUROJUST's tasks in concrete terms. As opposedto the Council's Decision from 2002, tasking EU-ROJUST with providing support only to bodies ofcriminal prosecution, the Treaty of Lisbon expandsthis to coordinative support to judicial but also in-vestigative bodies (prosecution and investigation)",

The Treaty of Lisbon has also made an additionto Article 86 of the Treaty on the Functioning of theEuropean Union, thus enabling the establishmentof the European Public Prosecutor Office (EPPO).The Article envisages as follows:• The Council ofthe EU may apply a special leg-

islative procedure to establish the EPPO withinEUROJUST;

• This has to be achieved unanimously in the

Council with the consent of the European Par-liament;

• If the Council is unable to reach a unanimousdecision, a group of at least nine member statesmay request that from the Council of the EU;

• Those member states may also continue to en-hance mutual cooperation after informing theParliament, the Council and the Commission;

• The EPPO shall, in cooperation with EU-ROPOL, be responsible for investigation, crim-inal prosecution and bringing to judgementthe individuals suspected/accused of offencesagainst the financial interests of the EuropeanUnion;

• The Office shall carry out its activities in coop-eration with the appropriate national courts;

• The regulations determining the establishmentof the Office shall also determine the rules re-lated to the performance of its functions;

• The Council of the European Union may, af-ter consulting the Commission and receivingconsent from the European Parliament, alter!amend the Decision to extend the powers of theEPPO.

European Police Office (EUROPOL) wasestablished with the establishment of the EU, uponthe signing of the Treaty on European Union inMaastricht in February 1992 and came into force inNovember 1993. The establishment of the EuropolDrugs Unit (EDU) on 3 January 1994 is consideredthe beginning ofEUROPOL's limited operations andit commenced its full activity in 1999. EUROPOLcoordinates police cooperation between memberstates in the field of prevention and combatinginternational organized crime and terrorism, as wellas all other forms of serious offences committed onthe territory of two or more member states.

EUROPOL is based in The Hague, the Neth-erlands, and its main objective is to establish closecooperation between member states in order toefficiently combat organized crime. That espe-cially includes drugs trade, illegal immigrationnetworks, trade in stolen vehicles, human traf-ficking, child pornography, forging of money andother means of payment, trade in radioactive andnuclear substances, and terrorism.

One of the duties of EUROPOL is to establishand maintain a computer system that enables datastoring, utilization and analysis. A special Super-visory Body composed of two experts in the area

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of data protection from each member state, moni-tors the contents and utilization of all personal dataheld by EUROPOL in order to prevent misuse.

The Treaty of Lisbon has introduced a numberof new facts, which have affected EUROPOL'severyday functioning. It introduced a closer par-liamentary oversight and judicial control of EU-ROPOL's works. EUROPOL formally became anagency ofthe EU. It widened EUROPOL's powersin the field of information collection and its com-petence in investigating serious offences. It alsoconstrained member states from blocking furtherwidening of EUROPOL's powers. It encouragedfurther improvement of protection of the informa-tion held by EUROPOL6 and a more active par-ticipation of national parliaments in the politicaloversight of EUROPOL's work. It also encour-aged participation of EUROPOL representativesin the work of the Standing Committee on Opera-tional Cooperation on Internal Security (COSIr.

EUROPOL has a Managing Board composedof one representative of each member state. Eachmember has one vote. The European Commissionmay attend Managing Board sessions but has noright to vote. Board sessions take place at least twotimes a year to revise the conducted activities andtheir future development. EUROPOLreports to theCouncil. The Council is composed of justice andinterior ministers and is responsible for the controland management ofEUROPOL's functions. It alsoappoints its Director and two deputies and adoptsthe budget. Furthermore, it makes executivedecisions necessary for EUROPOL's undisturbedfunctioning. Each year the Council submits aspecial report to the Parliament on the work thathas been done and on future activities. EUROPOLstaff is composed of representatives of nationallaw enforcement agencies, such as the police,customs, immigration services, etc.

Political and Security Committee (PSG)is a permanent body of the European Union incharge of the Common Foreign and SecurityPolicy (CFSP), including Common Security andDefence Policy (CSDP). The main objective ofthe PSC is to monitor the international politicaland security situation and provide support to otherEU bodies in creating the policy in the area of theCFSP and CSDP. The PSC also makes positionand opinion drafts for the Foreign Affairs Council,which is a part of the Council of the European

Union. In that sense, the PSC is one of the mainusers of the information and analyses deliveredby the SITCEN. SITCEN's official reports areavailable to all EU member states through theirrepresentatives at the PSC, who meet on a regularbasis to analyze security-related issues. The Headof the PSC (one of the most important positionswithin the EAS) is Ambassador Olof Skoog,appointed to this position by Baroness Ashtonon November 18,2010. Prior to his appointment,Olof Skoog was the Director-General for PoliticalAffairs at the Swedish Foreign Ministry and aclose associate of Carl Bildt, the Swedish ForeignMinister.

Apart from the classical security bodiesmentioned so far, the Treaty of Lisbon hasenabled the existence of a number of other bodiesthat collect information from open sources andare in a way under the sponsorship of the bodiesof the European Union. At the initiative of theEuropean Commission and in cooperation withthe Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Hungary,the Budapest Club was established in 2007. TheBudapest Club gathers intelligence officers fromEU member states and experts from the privatesector. The purpose of the Club is to encouragean exchange of ideas and OSINT (Open SourcesIntelligence) between EU institutions and memberstates in order to support crisis prevention or crisismanagement. The activities of the Budapest Clubinclude studying and exchanging experiences inbrowsing the media, blogs and chat programmesused by terrorist and radical groups, pay-per-viewdatabases, video recordings from commercialsatellites and methods of searching the so-calleddeep web (internet sites that may not be foundor opened with popular browsers or tools suchas the Internet Explorer, Opera, Google, Yahoo,etc.). Eight big working meetings of the BudapestClub have taken place in the past few years - inBudapest, Bucharest, Rome and Brussels. Over150 experts from fourteen EU member statesparticipated in the last meeting held in mid 2010in Brussels.

The other EU-sponsored project in the areaof OSINT usage is the so-called Eurosint Forum.The proclaimed objective of the Forum is to con-sider EU's policy on the usage of OSINT in thefield of security. The Eurosint Forum was foundedin 2005 by private companies specializing in ser-vices related to intelligence and analysis and secu-

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3. Conclusionrity-related business. Among the founders of theEurosint Forum are the European School of Gov-ernance, Compagnie Europeenne d'IntelliganceStrategique - CElS, Oxford Analytica, Sail LabsTechnology and Jane's Information Group. TheEurosint Forum is managed by a board headed byGari Owen and the position of its Director Generalis held by Axel Dyevre. The institution has officesin Brussels, close to the Berlaymont building usedby the European Commission. One of EurosintForum's significant projects is the developmentof the Virtuoso software, which should enablesearching, processing and exchanging OSINTamong eleven EU member states participating inthe project. The Eurosint Forum organizes sev-eral workshops each year for the representativesof EU member states' secret services, EU institu-tions and private sector experts. In June 2010, forexample, the Eurosint Forum organized a workinggroup meeting on technological OSINT solutionsfor the needs of the European Union.

After the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon, theinstitution important for the common foreign andsecurity policy of the EU is the European UnionInstitute for Security Studies (EUISS), based inParis. The Institute is the successor of the Insti-tute for Security Studies of the Western EuropeanUnion (WEU) and its main task is to contribute tothe development of the CFSP including the ESDP,by means of research and analysis in relevantfields.

European Security and Defence College(ESDC) is the second important educational insti-tution founded in July 2005 to provide training inthe area ofthe European Security and Defence Pol-icy for member states and third countries. Throughorientation-related, specialist and high-level cours-es, the College contributes to the development ofa common ESDP culture and security challengesamong member states, putting together the meansthe Europeans already possess in this field.

After the Treaty of Lisbon, certain progress hasbeen made in the European Security and DefencePolicy (ESDP) as an integral part of the CommonForeign and Security Policy (CFSP). Based on theresults achieved so far, European Union memberstates have expressed a wish and demonstratedreadiness to take more responsibility in protectingthe security of Europe and the world, throughcivilian, police-led or combined action. In addition,Europe has shown readiness for military action,either independently or in cooperation with NATO.However, although progress in terms of qualityhas been made in several segments, analyses of theEU's efforts to counter concrete security problemshave clearly shown that different countries havedifferent views on security-related problems andcrises; depending on how near or far they are fromtheir national territories and depending on possiblerepercussions in their own back yard.

At this point, after the Treaty of Lisbon, thereis no fully organized and complete intelligenceand security system at the level of the EuropeanUnion and it could be stated that the EU is stillsearching for a common European security andintelligence policy. The European security sys-tem is functioning through a number of listed andpoorly coordinated institutions and the most im-portant step ahead was made with the appointmentof Catherine Ashton to the position of the HighRepresentative for Foreign Affairs and SecurityPolicy. Her appointment enabled the integrationof functions in one person that would facilitate ef-ficient management of the security policy. How-ever, looking at the organizations and institutionspresented, it is clear that they are not coordinatedand they overlap in certain cases. It is also obviousthat, even after the Treaty of Lisbon, the processof creating a unified European security policy andits institutions is still at the beginning.

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NOTES

1 Link to the page containing information on the EEAS structure,scope of activity, management, etc: http://eeas.europa.eu/background/index_en. htm

2 As well as that of the EUROPOL.

3 Pursuant to the Treaty of Lisbon, the former Treaty Establishingthe European Community (TEC; Rome, 1957) was renamed tothe Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

4 However, the initiative for investigations to be launchedby EUROJUST remains limited, as it still depends oninformation received from national investigative bodies and/or EUROPOL

5 Closer oversight of the activities but also closer oversight ofthe budget of EUROPOL by the European Parliament, as wellas protection of citizens' rights, which belongs to the scope ofwork of the European Court of Justice.

6 EUROPOL has signed an agreement with the SITCEN onmutual exchange of information.

7 The Treaty of Lisbon has provided a possibility to the Councilof the EU to establish the Standing Committee on OperationalCooperation on Internal Security (COSI). COSI's task is topromote and strengthen member states cooperation in thefield of internal security. Therefore, the COSI may requestassistance from the representatives of EUROJUST andFRONTEX, but also of EUROPOL.

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