This article was written by Gabriela Iriondo, a student participant in the Rethinking Security in Europe webinar series, organised by ICIP and CIDOB between May and June 2026. Bringing together researchers and practitioners from leading peacebuilding organisations, the five-session series explored the implications of Europe’s growing militarisation. It also examined alternative approaches centred on human security, democracy and peacebuilding. The reflections presented here build on the contributions made throughout the series and connect them to wider evidence on current EU security policies.
The securitisation of almost every competence within the European Union’s sphere of action has led to the assumption that alternative paths to peace and the protection of human rights are inefficient or idealistic. Nevertheless, the costs of the ongoing militarisation of Europe, such as rising prices for citizens, big tech influence and polarising narratives, have illustrated the clear deficiencies of these policies and revealed the power game behind them.
It is worth starting with what Tutku Ayhan (IBEI, Webinar 1: “The Militarisation of Security in Europe”) argued about the present conception of security in Europe: that it has expanded far beyond its traditional remit, reaching into governance, migration and everyday life.
The material consequences of this process are multifaceted and numerous. On one hand, the securitisation of migration has increased the levels of violence towards migrants and refugees, and it has also refocused part of technological innovation and research towards border control. EuroMed Rights and AlgoRace document how the technological deployment implemented at the southern Spanish border has led to an intensification of human rights violations (Bellio et al., 2024: 59), while the Transnational Institute and Stop Wapenhandel report that, between 2002 and May 2025, more than 200 universities and higher-education institutions received over €100 million in EU funding for projects on border security, border control and migration management (Akkerman, 2026: 14). Security is thus being framed as a narrow concept that upholds the safety of some groups to the detriment of the lives of others. Human security, by contrast, shifts the referent object of protection from the state to the individual. Formalised in the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report, it treats freedom from want and freedom from fear – access to housing, health, food and employment, as well as physical safety – as security concerns in their own right, rather than as secondary to territorial defence.
On the other hand, Ayhan highlighted the shrinking of humanitarian and development budgets – two sectors once considered key assets for peacebuilding – as well as the weakening of projects focused on gender. This supports Clement Meynier’s (Mines Advisory Group, Webinar 4: “How is Security Provided? Budget Allocation and Instruments”) argument that militarisation strengthens one pillar while weakening others. In response, Meynier recommends that security policies set out all the costs they will involve, in the short and the long term, noting that certain decisions are made in the heat of the moment and do not take into account their deep-rooted effects. The allocation of resources towards defence has implications for economic development, social cohesion and long-term peacebuilding, shifting priorities at a time when many countries are also facing economic pressures, climate risks and social inequalities (Vision of Humanity, 2026). Meynier’s proposal calls for transparency and accountability, two pillars of the European project whose absence has been criticised by numerous civil society actors in recent years. If the positive effects of increasing defence budgets have not been accurately demonstrated, what has brought militarisation back to the forefront of political agendas?
One of the answers is the corporate capture of the EU agenda. As Richard Reeve (Rethinking Security UK, Webinar 3: “Who Rules? Security Decisionmakers”) put it, money talks and it informs policy. He added that military industries are currently extremely lucrative, but, most importantly, he emphasised their comparative advantage over other sectors. The Corporate Europe Observatory noted that in 2025 corporate lobby groups dominated the implementation dialogues on the European Commission’s regulatory decisions (Haar, 2026: 17, 21). More importantly, in conversations about the defence industry, business participation accounted for 90% of all entities, leaving civil society organisations at 10%, which in that case amounted to only two representatives (ibid.). Such disproportionality partly explains the rise in the EU’s calls for higher defence budgets.
Another recurring theme throughout the webinar series was the role of discourse and narratives in shaping European security policy. It could be argued that the current militarisation of EU countries has to do with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the threat this poses to Europe’s peace. Nevertheless, even this reasoning is subject to debate, given the various, sometimes opposing, approaches to conflict analysis and, ultimately, peacebuilding. Wilbert van der Zeijden (PAX, Webinar 2: “Whose Insecurity? Objects of European Security”) pointed out that, in the same way we acknowledge that Russia intends to undermine Europe’s security and economy, we can also stress Europe’s dependency on US and Israeli military infrastructure, its vulnerability to climate change, its housing crisis and its ageing population, among other structural issues. He added that the insistent focus on militarisation, which ignores human security, will backfire strategically against the EU. As Meynier suggested, discussions are currently being narrowed to military gaps. Ní Bhriain (2025) puts it plainly: the EU’s “White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030” casts Europe as a passive actor that has to deal with the possible spill-over of conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East, and the rising migration this entails, as well as with the threats from Russia and China. This leaves the organisation with only one option, as the White Paper itself states: “the only way we can ensure peace is to have the readiness to deter those who would do us harm” (cited in Ní Bhriain, 2025).
Andrew de Sousa (Quaker Council for European Affairs, Webinar 5: “Creating Security Beyond the Military: What Else?”) asked how deterrence will protect our societies from misinformation and economic crises. It is a valid question, given that the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) has recorded alarming and historic levels of hate speech online (ECRI, 2026), and that between 2010 and the second quarter of 2025 house prices in the EU increased by 60.5% and rents by 28.8% (Eurostat, 2025). Aren’t living peacefully alongside your neighbours – and having a roof over your head – also matters of security? Deterrence is based on building the idea of threat, and Pol Bargués (CIDOB, Webinar 2: “Whose Insecurity? Objects of European Security”) warned that if we conceptualise security as relational, there will always be distrust. This suggests that the consequences of militarisation spill over into many other sectors, not only by depriving them of substantial budget, but also by encouraging suspicion instead of partnership, at a time when racist and fascist discourses are on the rise. Specifically, de Sousa contested the notion that security equals militarisation, and presented initiatives that have worked on the ground, such as early-warning systems built by communities. These tools are a viable path towards peace, especially because they are designed by the people affected by conflict and for the people affected by conflict. Yet they are systematically overlooked in favour of enormous budgets devoted solely to arms manufacturing.
Therefore, if bringing security to society is a goal for the EU, the current disproportionate defence expenditure is unjustified. A strategic redirection towards housing market regulation, strengthened civil society participation, increased cooperation budgets and corporate power regulation will have a more direct and stronger effect on people’s lives, which, ultimately, is what security is intended to defend.
Gabriela Iriondo Sumalla
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICIP or CIDOB.
REFERENCES
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Bellio, N., Lancho Bances, C., Sánchez Monedero, J., and Valdivia, A. (2024) “Digital technologies for migration control at the Spanish southern border: A journey to the cross-cutting edge of digital automation in Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands”. EuroMed Rights and AlgoRace. Retrieved from https://euromedrights.org/publication/new-report-an-analysis-of-digital-surveillance-technologies-for-migration-control-at-the-spanish-southern-border/
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