‘Drawing on a unique range of instruments, the EU already contributes to a more secure world. We have worked to build human security, by reducing poverty and inequality, promoting good governance and human rights, assisting development, and addressing the root causes of conflict and insecurity’ (Council of the European Union, 2008a). What constitutes security in the 21st century? The former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan states the obvious when he contrasts the perception of security threats of a New York investor passing Ground Zero on a daily basis with that of a Malawian orphan who has lost his parents to AIDS. Further, the fears of an Indonesian fisherman who has lost his family to a tsunami are also likely to differ from the security concerns of a villager in Darfur threatened by bombing raids (Annan, 2005). Over the last two decades, perennial problems such as poverty, pandemic diseases and environmental disasters, together with more recent ones, such as climate change, have become increasingly integrated into the international security agenda. This reflects the growing understanding of their role not only as the main causes of death in many regions of the world but also as multipliers of more traditional, military threats. In this context, an increasing body of scholarship has recognised the European Union (EU) as a security actor that is well equipped to tackle these complex security challenges, due to the multidimensional (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006) or structural (Keukeleire and MacNaughtan, 2008) character of its policies.