The EU has experienced several terrorist attacks by Islamic fundamentalists since 2004 on its territory. Terrorism is threatening the fundamental rights that EU is based upon and has become not only a question of security but also a question of internal and external border security. This study seeks to examine the measures taken to fight terrorism by the EU and to see how terrorism has affected the security-, foreign-, and defence policies. The study is a theory consuming qualitative case study with both a descriptive and explanatory approach. The theoretical framework that the study is based on are theories about normative power, soft power and hard power but also the discussion about the external and internal security problem. The EU have taken several measures and policies in the fight against terrorism. The measures and policies are all influenced by the three theories in some way. The result of the study shows that EU has went from using only soft instruments and normative ways in the fight against terrorism towards harder instruments even if they still are using soft instruments in a harder way.

A growing number of researchers within the field of security studies address the blurring line between internal and external security. Some focus on the national level while others focus on the international level and the European Union (EU). Due to the changing nature of threat perceptions since the Cold War, many scholars hold that the distinction between internal and external security is dissolving. The aim of this study is to empirically examine how internal and external security discourses are merging within the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and how this merge is connected to the EU identity construction. This study uses a poststructuralist approach on discourse analysis of EU policies, EU council documents and speeches of the high representatives. Furthermore, an analytical framework for analyzing the merging of internal and external security discourses from an identity perspective is constructed. This study concludes that discursively constructed ”links” between internal and external security is merging the two discourses. Finally, in a co-constitutive relationship, the internal-external security nexus and the EU security identity are (re)constructing each other.