EU Foreign and Security Policy and Their Implications for Norway

EU Foreign and Security Policy and Their Implications for Norway The European Union's (EU) collective response to Russia's war on Ukraine illustrates the breadth of the EU's foreign policy tools and Member States' increased willingness to address common challenges within the EU-system. How the EU and NATO increasingly complement each other has also become clearer. The war and a changed geopolitical situation also illustrate how security increasingly spills over into other policy areas in the EU, such as trade, energy, technology, communication and critical raw materials. We therefore find ourselves in a European security policy context that has radically changed since 1994. A key challenge for Norway is that its agreements with the EU do not reflect these developments. To compensate for this, there is a continuous need to pursue new agreements in order to ensure Norwegian security interests, which is demanding and unpredictable. So far, there have been challenges related to potential Norwegian participation in the EU's satellite-based communications collaboration (IRIS2) and the health union, for example. This article discusses the EU's foreign and security policies, and implications for Norway. We outline important developments and drivers behind the EU's foreign policy, before delving deeper into the kind of foreign policy actor the EU is today. Finally, we discuss the significance of this development for Norway.