21 May, 2025 | Pol Bargués

The tragic farewell to human security in European policy thinking

The European Union (EU) continuously recognises the deteriorating security landscape yet appears to be distancing itself from its historical emancipatory narrative of human security. In 2025, the narrative of top EU officials is particularly fearmongering, aggressive and bleak, sidelining the usual commitments to human rights, protection, and development. ‘Our values do not change – they are universal. But because the world is changing, we have to adapt the way we act. We need a Europe that is more pragmatic, more focused, more determined’ said the President of the Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen at the 2025 Munich Security Conference. The Joint White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030 endorses a shift towards a whole-of-society approach to deterrence, rather than interdependence, dialogue, and solidarity. Europe’s brave determination to rearm to face the threat posed by Russia contrasts with the silence, vacillation and inaction in the face of war crimes in the Israel war on Gaza, or gross human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Turkey, Nagorno-Karabakh or the protests in Serbia. 

What has happened to the principles glorified in past documents such as human security, resilience, humanitarianism, development or peace, as concerns for deterrence and preparation for total war have taken center stage? This is the question explored in the recent REGROUP focus paper A farewell to human security in EU policy thinking?, which reflects on the gradual disappearance of the human security narrative in EU policy thinking in the context of Europe’s ‘geopolitical awakening’, to borrow the words of former High Representative, Josep Borrell. Given that security has become one of the most urgent concerns – some would say even existential – the question arises: security of what kind?

The rise and fall of human security

From the early 2000s to the end of the 2010s, the EU approached human security distinctively. European member states were among the key advocates of the concept, delving into it to integrate their foreign policies and projecting it abroad to sustain the liberal international order (Kaldor, Martin, and Selchow 2007). The EU’s original contribution was deemed to be the operationalisation of human security in practice, developing ‘an ongoing experiment in adapting human security to the realities of twenty-first century conflicts and institutions’ (Rangelov 2022, 373). The commitment was high, as boasted by former High Representative, Federica Mogherini: ‘we invest, as the EU, more in development cooperation and humanitarian aid than the rest of the world combined’; and the narrative was a transformative one to reduce poverty and inequality, promote good governance and human rights, assisting emergencies and long-term development, addressing the root causes of conflict and insecurity. 

Today, however, there is a deliberate amnesia and the values-driven foreign policy that once emphasised multilateralism, multi-level, multi-sectoral or long-term approaches for the collective efforts of development and peace appears to have been replaced by a more pragmatic, defensive, militarised and inward-looking foreign policy.

Whereas the EU was a staunch advocate of multilateralism to pursue security, a more selective and calculated form of multilateralism has emerged. As Borrell wrote: ‘Europeans will continue to favour dialogue over confrontation; diplomacy over force; multilateralism over unilateralism. But it is clear that if you want dialogue, diplomacy and multilateralism to succeed, you need to put power behind it’. Similarly, whereas the EU promoted inclusive partnerships and dialogue across all levels of society of countries and regions abroad, the emphasis is increasingly on ‘strategic’ dialogues and partnerships to defend Europe’s competitiveness and increase its geopolitical impact. The EU now collaborates with civil society more selectively, wary of supporting groups that do not align with European interests. At home, civil society is far from the place of bottom-up transformative solutions, it is ordered ‘from the top’ to be prepared for the worst.  

Also, the EU’s distinctive approach to security once consisted of a multi-sector approach, building on multiple instruments and sectors for addressing multiple dimensions of complex crises. Instead, today every policy domain is securitized; every instrument is recalibrated so that it serves the Union’s security interests. Geopolitics now drives trade, civilian missions, enlargement and neighbourhood policies, for example, shifting the focus away from traditional concerns of democratic support and civil society engagement. For a time, the EU aimed to address both immediate humanitarian emergencies and longer-term goals like development and peacebuilding, recognising that crises often involve both. Today, however, the EU yearns to take immediate action, and policies are revised to exhibit hurry and boldness. Every report is haunted by anxiety and exigency and long-term commitments – which require sustained compromise and funds as well as trust, and do not yield immediate results – have faded away. In sum, approaches to human security are largely ignored these days, or have been reframed through the lens of geopolitics. This trend began during von der Leyen’s first Commission and has accelerated to unprecedented levels in her second term.

The need for foreign policy imagination

As a result, Europeans are losing their moral backbone in foreign and security policy. Should human security be rescued? Or at least could security be rethought and deepened? It might be too simplistic and likely naive to try to reclaim human security. Returning to a concept that was distinct and powerful twenty years ago would neglect Europe’s current needs and concerns in a far more transactional, realist and geopolitical world, where military security and defence dominate over cooperation and peace. But surrendering to conventional security narratives might limit European thinking, imagination and capacity to foster peace precisely when human insecurities are ubiquitous. Narratives of hard security or of rearming Europe are narrow and have harmful consequences for peace. Zero-sum militarist security cannot be the sole available option, the beginning and end of European policy thinking. The challenge may be to consider human security and geopolitics without compromising either, for example, by exploring ‘non-escalatory’ conceptions of security and defence (Kaldor and Rangelov 2023), or by sustaining pragmatic relations with multiple others to regain confidence and foster collaboration over common concerns. The tragic narrative and farewell of the ‘old’ human security concept, eclipsed by geopolitical frenzy, suggest that today’s global challenges require new visions and a new vocabulary for security and emancipation.

References

Kaldor, Mary, Mary Martin, and Sabine Selchow. 2007. ‘Human Security: A New Strategic Narrative for Europe’. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 83 (2): 273–88.

Kaldor, Mary, and Iavor Rangelov. 2023. ‘Human Security in Future Military Operations’. In Routledge Handbook of the Future of Warfare, edited by Artur Gruszczak and Sebastian Kaempf. London: Routledge.

Rangelov, Iavor. 2022. ‘Human Security in Europe: The European Union and Beyond’. In Research Handbook on International Law and Human Security, edited by Gerd Oberleitner, 356–71. Edward Elgar Publishing.