ABSTRACT
The origin of this Handbook can be found in the Jean Monnet Project entitled “European Union and Security: Defense of Common Interests and Spaces” (reference number: 565277-EPP-1-2015-1-ES-EPPJMO-PROJECT) of which I was the coordinator and whose main aims were to establish a social and academic dialogue in relation to contemporary challenges to European security. Security threats such as terrorism in its contemporary forms, the use of and competition for common goods, cyberattacks and core European values nowadays at risk were amongst the many topics addressed by experts, public servants and citizens. As a matter of fact, these subjects were discussed with the audience during several workshops and a final conference was organized under the framework of this Jean Monnet Project, with the idea of identifying and proposing possible contributions of the European Union (EU) to tackling them. As both the threats themselves and the measures that can be adopted to cope with them may challenge some of the EU’s core principles and values, the academic team involved in this project – among them the co-editors of this work – thought that it could be important to point out the limits of EU actions, especially with regard to the protection of human rights at stake; thus, these constraints were also considered by the experts, public servants and citizens invited to give their insights to the workshops.
