Regional cooperation, externalization, and prevention: trends and practices of EU counter-terrorism in EU enlargement

Counter-terrorism policy has never been such a prominent policy area in EU enlargement as it currently is. In recent years, the EU has put security policy, and in particular counter-terrorism policy, high on the agenda of the accession processes of the South East European EU membership candidates Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, and the potential candidates Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. In this contribution, I sketch out three trends and practices that define the EU’s approach to counter-terrorism, an increasingly important policy area of enlargement: regional cooperation, externalisation of internal policies, and prioritisation of preventive counter-terrorism strategies over hard measures.