How the Migrant Crisis Is Testing Europe's Security Strategy bb

As EU leaders convene 25-26 June for a summit dedicated to security and defense policy, the linkage of internal and external security policies is arguably the most consequential item on the agenda. Issues such as illegal migration and terrorism are inextricably linked to instability in Europe's immediate neighborhood.

However, the most revolutionary idea of modern Europe has been to purse the safety of its citizens by opening borders, not erecting barriers, Fabrizio Tassinari and Christine Nissen write in an article published in the Huffington Post.

The last review of the European security strategy took place 12 years ago. "Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free," opens the 2003 strategy. That premise hardly applies today: In the East, the Ukraine conflict and Russia's annexation of Crimea have vividly brought back the spectre of warfare and land grabs, and in the southern Mediterranean, the Islamic State has made such dangerous inroads, as to justify, last week, a U.S. air strike in Libya.

Europeans, however, feel more threatened by tens of thousands of destitute migrants, reaching the continent by the boatload. As is often the case, the issue has become primarily an internal European one, with capitals bickering over quotas of migrants that they should receive. Yet, the security implications are never too far behind, as testified by the EU proposal to launch a military mission to intercept and destroy migrant boats. Meanwhile, the political case for a common defense policy has gotten even weaker in the years following the debt crisis.

A new European security strategy must make the case that the nexus of security and integration still amounts to the formula of European peace. That is a battle that Europe cannot afford to lose, Fabrizio Tassinari and Christine Nissen write.