A tool for security governance: how is the EU fostering and shaping ECOWAS security and defence regionalization process?

The European Union (EU) is the regional organization with the most developed and active external relations in the world. In spite of the ongoing debate on whether it is a global actor or not and on the EU’s capacities to act (Hill 1999; Cremona 2004; Petiteville 2006), it tries to contribute to global governance in a variety of fields (trade, humanitarian aid, development, environment, peace and security, etc.). Moreover, since the 1990’s and the breakup of Yugoslavia, and since the beginning of the 2000’s with the terrorist attacks in the USA, Madrid and London, the war in Iraq, the increasing phenomenon of state failure, the development of organized crime and the risk of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) spreading, the EU has increasingly been focusing on global security challenges as well as on how to deal with these ‘new’ threats that, according to it, are stemming from other parts of the world and endangering Europe (European Security Strategy, 2003).