The creation of the European Union brought a new period of peace and stability that was unprecedented in European history. By building close ties and inter-dependence, the European Union made another major European war impossible. The European Union has a history and cultural ties that give it links with every part of the world. Now, with its states and millions of people, it has no choice but to be a global player. Todays world offers greater prospects than ever before, but also greater threats. The traditional concept of self-defense based on the threat of invasion is outdated. Large-scale aggression against any one European Union Member State is improbable. The current security threats are more diverse, less visible and less predictable. In the era of globalization, the first line of defense may be in another country and not on Europes borders. We can identify the following key security threats for Europe today. Terrorism, which now operates worldwide, is increasingly well founded and willing to use unlimited violence to cause huge casualties. Often linked to religious extremism, it sees Europe as a target and a base for its activities. Logistical bases for terroristic cells have been uncovered in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Spain and Belgium. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is potentially the greatest threat to Europes security, despite the international treaties and export controls that are in place to contain the spread of such weapons. A terrorist group acquiring these weapons may be able to inflict damage on a scale previously possible only for States and armies. Regional conflict in neighboring countries or on the other side of the world impacts on Europes stability. It can lead to extremism, terrorism, and state failure. It provides opportunities for organized crime and creates regional insecurity, which in itself can fuel the demand for weapons of mass destruction. State failure because of civil conflict but also bad governance, due to corruption, abuse of power, weak institutions, and lack of accountability, which corrode the State from within, allowing organized crime and terrorism to flourish. State failure undermines global governance and endangers regional security. Organized crime considers Europe as one of its prime targets. It involves cross-border trafficking in drugs, women, illegal migrants, and weapons. These criminal gangs can have links with terrorism. They thrive in weak or failing states. Income from their illegal activities, such as drugs, contributes to the weakening of state structures and feeds conflict. Conflict prevention and threat prevention cannot start too early. During the cold war, the threat to the European Unions security was visible. In contrast, none of todays threats are purely military and none can be tackled by purely military means. A cocktail of solutions is required. To meet this challenge, Europe has to become more active, more coherent, and more capable. More active means developing a culture that fosters early, rapid, and when necessary, robust intervention, using the full spectrum of the European Unions crisis management and conflict prevention measures. It means the European Union acts before there is a crisis with the right mixture of political, diplomatic, military, civilian, trade, and developmental activities. More capable means transforming militaries into flexible, mobile forces, enabling them to address the new threats. Increased defense resources are necessary as well as more effective use of resources through pooling and sharing of assets. In addition, there must be a greater capacity to bring on board civilian resources in crisis and post-crisis situations and stronger diplomatic capability and improved sharing of intelligence among Member States and with partners to assess common threats. More coherent means bringing together the European Unions different resources and capabilities that impact on Europes security and on that of countries outside of the European Union. These measures include its European assistance programs, military, and civilian capabilities from Member States and other instruments. The current security threats are worldwide and interdependent. The European Union cannot deal with them on its own. International cooperation is crucial. It works in partnership with international organizations such as the United Nations, which has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, and regional groupings such as the African Union. It also emphasizes the transatlantic relationship. Acting together, the European Union and the United States of America can be a formidable force for good in the world. Finally, it underlines the importance of closer relations with Russia and developing strategic partnerships with Japan, China, Canada, and India. The ongoing risk of devastating terrorist attacks, the continuing crisis in Iraq, the elusiveness of a lasting settlement between Arabs and Israelis, western Africas seemingly endless struggle to escape from chronic turmoil, and the challenges of Afghanistan, amongst others, leave unhappy marks on todays world. The international environment, after the end of the Cold War, offered new opportunities to promote peaceful change. The combination of increasingly free and open markets, private enterprise, and technology has brought wealth and new opportunities to a vast majority of countries and individuals. It has helped spread democratic governments and put new pressure on governments to treat their citizens fairly, to accept public scrutiny, and to engage in dialogue and cooperation with their international partners. But globalization has its dark side too. International trade is failing to bridge the gap between those who benefit and the billions marooned in squalor and misery. Drug-trafficking is today a bigger industry than iron and steel or cars. The illicit diamond trade not only finances conflict, but actively fuels it. The list of horrors is long. We speak about trafficking in people, and especially in women, environmental degradation, transnational crime, proliferation of arms, big and small, and the spread of diseases. These problems threaten prosperity. They also lie at the root of much of the violent conflict that plagues the world. Countries cannot deal with these problems on their own or through bilateral diplomacy. Tackling the dark side of globalization demands international cooperation and multilateral action of a new kind. Conflicts can be fueled by scarcity or abuse of natural resources. The European Union helps to promote global security and stability by working to prevent such abuse and to break the link between illicit exploitation of natural resources and armed conflict. The European Union plays a significant role in the international certification scheme that seeks to stem the flow of conflict diamonds. The scheme brings together producing and trading countries to ensure trade in diamonds does not finance rebel movements as previously seen in the devastating conflicts. The European Union is now pursuing its plan to clamp down on illegal logging and illicit timber trade. These activities cause vast environmental damage in developing countries, impoverishing rural communities that depend on forest products for a living. The initiative promotes good governance in partner countries and licensing schemes to ensure that only legal timber enters the European Union. The European Union is particularly well placed to make a difference in such areas because of its prominent role in world trade. Since its creation, the European Union has engaged in conflict prevention. It is in itself a project designed to secure peace and prosperity, and a very successful one. The European Unions international role, its interests and ambitions, and the important resources it has committed to aid and cooperation make it a natural promoter of stability beyond its own borders. It uses all aspects of its external policy to prevent conflicts in the world, strongly advocating an early tackling of the potential structural causes of violent conflict. It does this through its developmental cooperation and external assistance, economic cooperation and trade policy, humanitarian aid, social and environmental policies, diplomacy, such as political dialogue and mediation as well as economic or other sanctions. The importance of preventing conflict and fragile or failing states is explicitly recognized in the European Unions developmental policy. Reducing poverty is seen as an objective in its own right as well as an important factor in ensuring long-term peace and security in poorer countries. Moreover, security is the first condition for development. European Union foreign- and security-policy objectives are also supported by fast-growing military and civilian crisis management capabilities, focusing on crisis response, peace-keeping, and peace-making, as well strengthening or substitution missions in fields like police, strengthening the rule of law, or civil administration. Security-sector reform can be both a conflict preventative measure and a response to a situation of crisis. The European Union is taking a keen interest in this area, recognizing that weak security institutions and rule of law lead to greater risk of crime and violent conflict. The European Union has taken a leading role in promoting supported security-sector reform in several countries, for example, on justice and police reform and helping to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate former combatants. This endeavor is a prime example of an area where the European Unions developmental policy instruments and its security-policy instruments can complement each other. The European Unions financial assistance to third-world countries is planned on the basis of strategy papers agreed to with the partner country. These strategies increasingly integrate conflict prevention objectives, such as improving governance, fighting corruption, or reducing the prevalence of small arms and light weapons. The reasons for conflict vary, and predicting how it may evolve is complex. There is a clear need for better analysis of the root causes of conflict and of the early signs of an emerging conflict. There are many factors that aggravate conflict. For example, poverty, economic stagnation, uneven distribution of resources, weak social structures, undemocratic governance, systematic discrimination, oppression of the rights of minorities, refugee flows, ethnic antagonisms, religious and cultural intolerance, social injustice, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and small arms. To act fast and effectively, the European Union has developed an early warning and rapid reaction system to spot regions in the world where tensions are rising and identify the root causes that are feeding them. With an early identification of risk factors, the European Union has a better chance of taking timely and effective action to address the underlying causes of conflict. The European Commissions network of delegations across the world and a number of European-Union monitoring centers, drawing on intelligence from military and nonmilitary sources from the Member States, feed into this analysis. Using this data, the European Union and its member governments closely monitor the most critical countries or regions in the world and give them targeted support and aid in an effort to tackle the root causes of the conflict. Even with the best will in the world, crisis situations cannot always be prevented. European-Union Member States agreed years ago to contribute to a military force for crisis management operations. This plan is a voluntary scheme. Each government decides whether it wants to contribute soldiers to this force and in what numbers. The idea is to pool resources, giving the European Union the possibility of undertaking humanitarian, peace-keeping, and peace-making operations. European-Union governments set as their objective the ability of deploying joint forces of soldiers, supported by appropriate air and naval capacity, and sustaining them for at least a year. They also agreed to set up rapid reaction-force packages, known as battle groups, with soldiers drawn from one or more Member States for deployment in international crisis regions. This force allows European-Union governments to react quickly, for example, after receiving an urgent request from the United Nations. A key priority for the European Union is bringing all necessary civilian resources to bear in crisis and post-crisis situations. This plan is because of a growing understanding that in the case of failing states, or states emerging from violent conflict, military intervention on its own is unlikely to succeed. To prevent such countries from falling back into conflict, a quick return to civilian life is necessary. This priority means a rapid restoration of economic activity and the build-up of civil administration, the police, and judiciary. Europe has experienced different types of terrorism in its history. But in the last decade the nature of the threat has changed. The most recent wave of terrorism has been global in scope and ruthless in the level of violence used against civilians. No country is immune from terrorism or can take the risk of being complacent. This violence was tragically brought home to Europe with one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in an European-Union country. It was followed by other deadly terrorist attacks. The European Unions commitment is to combat terrorism while respecting human rights. The European Union is, indeed, trying hard to find the right balance between human rights and security. We want to be safe, but we do not want to jeopardize our values and principles. We are, after all, engaged in a struggle over values. Although political grievance can be a more immediate motivator for terrorists, poverty can contribute to radicalization as young men, and increasingly women, lose hope in their future and trust in their governments for solutions. Terrorist organizations aim to exploit these grievances and give religious justification for their actions. Terrorism flourishes in regional conflict and in states that do not have the capacity or the means to maintain law and order. There, terrorists can hide from arrest and train their recruits. The European Union is working in Europe and internationally to prevent people from turning to terrorism by tackling the factors which can lead to radicalization and recruitment. The European Union priority results in swift action. The fight against terrorism is a priority in all European Union Member States. It is a difficult fight as there is no single, tightly controlled terrorist network. The European Union has developed a range of policies to strengthen the European Unions ability to counter it. The measures look to build both internal and international protection, recognizing the two are inextricably linked. The European Unions starting point in the fight against terror is its security strategy. This plan has identified terrorism as a growing strategic threat to the whole of Europe. It stated that Europe was both a target and a basis for terrorism, and that concerted European action was indispensable. The European Union has adopted a specific strategy on counterterrorism with the objective to prevent, protect, pursue, respond, and combat radicalization and recruitment to terrorism. The counterterrorism strategy is the European Unions strategic commitment to combat terrorism globally and make Europe safer while respecting human rights. The European Union pursues international cooperation in the fight against terrorism in political dialogue with third-world countries and in supporting the work of regional or international bodies, especially the United Nations.