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The EU's Emergent Security-First Agenda: Securing Albania and Montenegro

Barry J. Ryan
Security Dialogue 2009 40: 311
DOI: 10.1177/0967010609336195

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 The EU’s Emergent Security-First Agenda:
Securing Albania and Montenegro

BARRY J. RYAN*
Department of Politics and International Relations,
Lancaster University, UK

This article forms a critique of security sector reforms implemented in

Albania and Montenegro between 2000 and 2007 by and on behalf of
the European Union. It argues that within these reforms it is possible to
discern a tension between a more holistic development approach and
a security-based approach that is top-down and largely founded on
the self-referential security concerns of the European Union. Drawing
on research conducted by the author in Albania and Montenegro,
the article utilizes public surveys to point out the distance between
internal security reforms funded by the EU and the everyday security
concerns of residents living in ineffectively policed states. The article
concludes that a security-first agenda has slipped into the EU’s aim to
create an area of ‘freedom, security and justice’. Thus, while the rims
of the Western Balkans are being secured, lack of reform in the inte-
rior hampers the socio-economic development and democratization
of states engaged in the EU enlargement process.

Keywords   critical theory • European Union • civil society • security

• peacebuilding

Introduction

O
VER THE LAST FEW YEARS, security reform has gained a prominent
role in the European Union’s external security and defence policies.
At issue in this article are policies that would seem to have created
a tension between the EU’s normative framework for global security and its
ambitions to create an area of ‘freedom, security and justice’ in the Western
Balkans. The European aim of building an ‘area of freedom, security and
­justice’ implies a degree of symmetry between freedom and security. Indeed,
the claim to a balance between security and freedom is a central tenet of liberal
political philosophy (Neocleous, 2007). Hence, the provision of security and
the delivery of development are regularly articulated as mutually enhanc-

© The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and permissions:

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Vol. 40(3): 311–331, DOI: 10.1177/0967010609336195
312 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

ing policy objectives and core tenets of European foreign policy. Advocates
of human security support this agenda and argue that further binding good
governance and development with security sector reforms will more faith-
fully reflect this holistic framework (Kaldor, Martin & Selchow, 2007).
Certainly, evidence exists that the fusion of these agendas is being taken
seriously by European policymakers (Youngs, 2008: 419). However, as this
article argues, this is not occurring in the manner envisaged by advocates of
human security. Contrary to Amartya Sen’s (1999) aspiration, security and
development are not merging to become two sides of the same coin. Rather
than coins, it would seem we should instead be thinking about a currency
called security, which is divided into denominations of infrastructural devel-
opment, liberal democratic institution-building and the spread of an open
market economy. Security appears to be emerging as the common denomina-
tor for EU activities beyond its borders. Such an approach closely resembles
the pragmatism of scholars such as Amitai Etzioni (2007), who has recently
argued that ­ ‘security first’ should be the principle that guides US foreign
policy In state-building, he claims that it makes perfect sense for security to
take precedence over development and democratization. His point is that the
transformative ­aspirations of liberalism to democratize illiberal states have
been largely unfulfilled.
One would assume that such a perspective would be anathema to policy-
makers in the European Union as they experiment with defining the template
for a liberal strategy of maintaining international security. Prioritizing secu-
rity contradicts the liberal premise that freedom and security do not share
a dichotomous relationship. Moreover, in bypassing local concerns, it sug-
gests that security is something imposed by the EU on its neighbours. This
article argues that strong traces of such an approach are evident in European
security and defence practices in the Western Balkans. By contrasting inter-
nal security conditions in the article’s two exemplar states with the EU-led
response to police reform, it aims to locate the rationale for a deficit between
the needs of these post-conflict societies and the objectives of international
actors. In short, it aims to define the nature of the emerging EU security-first
approach to socio-economic insecurity.

Critical Theory and Security Reform

In its tendency to understand it as a technical activity, most literature in the

field of state-building presents the provision of security in absolute terms.
Invariably, the object of reform is the disorder and ineffectiveness of past
policies that are associated with dysfunctional economies and/or violent
conflict. The state is expected to provide an effective and efficient response
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 313

to organized crime, terrorism and corruption, while instituting good govern-

ance principles that protect the normative rights of its citizens – one part
security for one part liberal norms. Edmunds (2007) has observed that, in
practice, public security reform inherently involves choices between com-
peting values and interests. Edmunds here is referring to the hierarchy of
threats and responses inherent in any project that aims to transform a post-
conflict state into a liberal democratic polity. Similarly, Brzoska (2006) points
to the difficulty of matching the resources and capacities of external actors
with rival demands in state-building projects. These studies are indicative
of an approach to security reform that does not take into account the role
of the international community in shaping and reproducing this hierarchy
of ­insecurities. Threats such as terrorism and organized crime are presented
as being more real – and therefore more pressing – than, for instance, the
­creation of an accountable police force. Hence, when Brzoska (2006: 2) points
out that binding the objectives of security, democratization and development
has not proved an easy task, we are expected to understand that this is owing
to the problematic nature of post-conflict states generally.
By understanding the provision of security in less positivist terms, one
gains greater insight into the nature of security reform in post-conflict and
transitional settings. In the Frankfurt-based framework, security is norma-
tively understood in terms of social self-determination. Being context-based,
security is defined as a ‘derivative concept’ and thus possesses emancipatory
potential (Williams & Krause, 1997: ix). The instrumental rationality of ­basing
security reform around the perpetuation of liberal democracy contradicts
accounts that portray the role of international donors as being engaged in a
neutral, technical activity. Traditional conceptualizations of security tend to
reduce humans to their role as a means to secure a particular socio-­economic
model of statehood. Thus, choices made between competing values and
interests regarding security reflect political decisions that are insulated from
popular contestation. Günther (2005: 380) has observed that these ­decisions
are based on the maintenance of a ‘transnational security architecture’ ­erected
around the threat posed by the dysfunctional side-effects of the ­global ­market
system: organized crime, terrorism and illegal migration. Implicit in this
understanding is the existence of a categorical conceptualization of security
that needs to open itself to competing claims.
Aspects of this perspective found sympathy among human security advo-
cates aiming to co-opt traditional security discourse for developmental aims.
These argued that the adoption of a broad definition of security might render
security synonymous with a community-based approach to development
that incorporated political, social and economic rights in developing regions
(MacFarlane & Foong Khong, 2006). Moreover, it offered a coherency to prac-
titioners by neatly binding a multiplicity of post-Cold War development aims
(such as good governance, human rights and participation) around a common
314 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

security theme. However, work undertaken by the neorealist branch of critical

security studies warned that spreading out security discourse would initiate a
traditional security response to development issues. Research by members of
the ‘Copenhagen School’ subsequently explored the process whereby events
become ‘securitized’ (Buzan & Wæver, 2003). They argued that securitization
occurs when elite actors are able to convince their audience(s) that a certain
issue constitutes a sufficient level of threat to warrant extraordinary meas-
ures. Consequently, freedoms recede in the face of security concerns. Implicit
in this line of reasoning is the charge that liberal theories utilize ­ security
discourse in a way that promotes a powerful actor’s self-interest through a
benign facade. The present article adds empirical weight, therefore, to the
critical contention that when security is ascendant and defined in absolute
terms, development will serve it rather than facilitate emancipation.

Security, Freedom and Justice in the Western Balkans

Compounding the instability caused by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the

fall of communism in the Balkans was a growth in criminal activity largely
nourished by the region’s proximity to the territories of the European Union
(Glenny, 2008). The contagious effects of war, corruption and poverty in the
Balkans provided EU policymakers with evidence of the need for a common
policy towards the region. Consequently, to a large extent the ability of the
EU to bring stability to the region is predicated upon its capacity to shape and
implement a coherent external policy. As Tom Gallagher (2003) has pointed
out, the Western Balkans is considered to be both a test of and a field of experi­
mentation for EU foreign policy. Central to this experiment is the assumption
that the Union’s own security is determined by its capacity to regulate the
security of its neighbours.
While the EU is directly involved in running post-conflict operations in
Bosnia and Kosovo, its influence is to be found as a goal-setter throughout
the region for states that aspire to EU membership. Part of a tight network
that includes, inter alia, the World Bank, the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), the International Monetary Fund, the Council of Europe
and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), its
influence is pervasive both as a supportive and as a coercive actor – support-
ing policies and reforms that foment liberal democratic institution-building
and free market economies, and punishing any contrary moves.
The externalization of EU justice and home affairs policies has been instru-
mental to EU soft power (Bigo, 2006). The practice of addressing exogenous
security threats at their source can be traced back to the Amsterdam Treaty of
1999, when external border controls, asylum, immigration, and the preven-
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 315

tion and combating of crime were incorporated into EU foreign policy. At

Tampere, in October 1997, external security concerns were foremost in the
minds of policymakers when they created the EU area of ‘freedom, security
and justice’. This area extends beyond the boundaries of the European Union.
Its parameters are to be found by looking at justice and home affairs pri-
orities. These are currently outlined by The Hague programme, which aims
to strengthen common policies on issues of migration, asylum and illegal
employment within and beyond the EU. This entails the Union and its mem-
ber-states focusing on cross-border threats that might emanate from regions
such as the Balkans: ensuring cooperation from, while building the capacity
of, police forces in states along the external rims of the Union. Under the
banner ‘freedom, security and justice’, the European Council ‘considers the
development of a coherent external dimension of the Union . . . as a growing
priority’ (Council of the European Union, 2004: 33). The creation of an exter-
nal zone of freedom and security defines EU policies in the Western Balkans,
which are communicated through the EU’s Stabilisation and Association
process into justice and home affairs policies (Lavanex, 2004). Since 1999,
17% of all legislation passed by the Commission has been in the area of jus-
tice and home affairs. Between 2002 and 2006, the Community Assistance
Reconstruction, Development and Stabilization (CARDS) programme to the
Western Balkans allocated E4.65 billion to the external dimension of justice
and home affairs (European Commission, 2002: 3). From a base of zero, this
represents an exponential rise in funding to the security sector – one-sixth of
all CARDS funding for the period (Trauner, 2007: 5)
The Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) represents the EU
soft-power mechanism of political conditionality. Justice and home affairs is
­central to SAA and forms the main component of conditionality for ­candidate
status of states seeking membership of the EU. Under the priority funding
areas for CARDS, intense cooperation in the area of integrated border man-
agement was a top priority, while police reform or justice and home affairs
were integrated into a number of institutional and transborder priorities,
incorporating organized crime, anti-corruption, migration, asylum and the
operational capacity of the police (European Commission, 2002). In June
2006, ostensibly on the basis of reforms instituted to counter corruption and
organized crime, Albania signed its SAA. And, soon after its separation from
Serbia, Montenegro signed an SAA in October 2007. The process of Albania
attaining its SAA was premised almost entirely on security sector reform, on
the basis of Albania’s apparent progress in addressing some of the threats pri-
oritized by the EU through the freedom, security and justice agenda. Despite
little progress in economic or democratic institutionalization, both states were
accepted as candidates for EU membership on the basis of their willingness


  See European Commission (n.d. a).
316 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

to accept the EU’s claim over their territories as part of its zone of freedom,
security and justice.
Closely linked to the SAA tool was the Stability Pact for South Eastern
Europe, which was coordinated by the OSCE until 2006, when the programme
ceased. Its ‘Working Table III’ attended to security issues. Again, justice and
home affairs is central to the raison d’être of the Stability Pact, which splits
its reform into areas that correspond to the SAA priorities: organized crime,
anti-corruption, migration, asylum and refugees, and the police. Border
­management intersects all of these areas.
The priority given to justice and home affairs in both the Stabilisation and
Association process and the Stability Pact does not alone support the con-
tention that a security-first approach is evolving inside the EU. The claim
is given additional credence, however, when one understands that security-
first has been in existence since the end of the Cold War and the beginning
of the era of state-building. Long before Etzioni stumbled onto the concept,
Holm & Eide (2000) were pointing out how security-first lessons had been
learned by the United Nations during its peacebuilding efforts in West
Africa. Here it was seen that law and order should be a fundamental pre-
requisite to sustainable peace and development. It is not a coincidence that
this lesson was being learned at precisely the same time as police officers
were becoming more prevalent within UN peace operations. More numer-
ous and more available than professional soldiers, the quantity of police
­officers despatched to post-conflict regions increased exponentially during
the 1990s (Lutterbeck, 2004). Moreover, the formulation of a law-and-order-
led security-first approach occurred as police reform was being identified
as an axiomatic aspect of democratization. Police reform became a strategic
activity attracting high-ranking officers from the advanced capitalist states
from the northern hemisphere. Accordingly, the EU practice of state-building
has always been strongly influenced by a ‘security-building’ agenda. Holm
& Eide (2000: 3) defined the complex relationship between development and
security in almost dialectical terms, pointing out that
security should be seen as an issue of process and perceptions. . . . A climate of security
is necessary to promote a process of development . . . the mere impression of increased
security contributes to a pattern of sustainable peace and development.

The European Security Strategy (ESS) resolves this dialectic tension firmly in
favour of security. In this document, socio-economic development and democ-
ratization are defined as being by-products of a more secure environment:
Security is a precondition of development. Conflict not only destroys infrastructure,
including social infrastructure; it also encourages criminality, deters investment and
makes normal economic activity impossible. (Solana, 2003: 2)

That security is considered to be a precondition for development certainly

usurps any contractual equality of security and development. Moreover,
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 317

‘countries and regions’ are the stated referent objects in the ESS, as opposed
to individuals and communities. Defined thus within the ESS, the doctrine
of security-first should be understood as the blueprint upon which the
EU plans to base its relationship both with post-conflict regions and with
potential ­ candidate members. While the doctrine is still in its infancy, the
Commission has proposed that it should define the approach towards regions
such as the Balkans.
Faced with the complexity of multiple actors delivering security reform,
the Commission attempted in 2006 to utilize security sector reform as base
upon which to build an overarching EU concept for post-conflict interven-
tion. This policy goes beyond the barely stated security-first ESS perspective
by expressly requesting that support for security sector reform be prioritized
in each of the EU’s external assistance packages (European Commission,
2006b: 11). The eligibility of security sector reform to draw funds from the
EU’s Overseas Development Assistance prompts the Commission to envis-
age ­ further funding for security sector reform in the future (European
Commission, 2006b: 11). Throughout the Commission’s policy, security sector
reform is forwarded as the binding theme around which a coherent approach
to development is delivered.
Let us now turn to two countries experiencing the security-first approach to
socio-economic development.

Montenegro’s Security Sector

From 1997, Miloš Djukanović, as president, began to pursue a ‘Montenegro

first’ policy that served to distance the republic from the influence of Serbia
within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is well known that ‘Montenegro
first’ was mostly funded from the proceeds of a massive smuggling opera-
tion. This smuggling operation alone reputedly earned E20m per annum
and enabled the Montenegrin government to maintain its independence by
funding essential services (Glenny, 2008: 37). One such service was the main-
tenance of a police force formed to counter the threat posed by the presence
of 14,000 Yugoslav soldiers based in the Montenegrin republic during the
Balkan wars. ‘Police’, however, is used loosely to describe the body of men
hired to defend the ‘Montenegro first’ policy. Recruits, hired on the basis
of their loyalty to the president, were provided with a gun and a contract
– few were trained and most possessed no basic law enforcement skills. After
the fall of Slobodan Milosević, these men were tasked to maintain order in
a ­ territory divided between those who wished to remain with Serbia and

  Including its Financial Instruments for Pre-Accession, European Neighbourhood and Partnership,
Development Cooperation and Economic Cooperation, and Stability.
318 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

those who wished to see the aims of Montenegro-first bear fruit. The extent
of the Montenegrin–Serb ethnic divide was exhibited when, by only a small
margin of a few thousand votes, the republic passed a referendum to declare
its independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Friis, 2007: 86).
Therefore, the existence a police force that is politically and ethnically closer
to the 43.2% of the population who in the 2003 census categorized themselves
as Montenegrin has profound consequences for the security of the state.
The USA, EU member-states and the EU itself (through the EU CARDS
financial instrument) channel assistance to justice and home affairs through
the OSCE Mission in Montenegro. The OSCE – considered by Solana (2002:
8) to be a ‘natural born partner of the EU’ – works closely with the EU in the
field of justice and home affairs. Tellingly, the EU’s most pressing areas of
reform are directed through Montenegro’s ministry of the interior – which
has been given responsibility for reform in public administration, the rule of
law and local government.
Preoccupied by the police reform process in Serbia, the OSCE Mission con-
tributed little to Montenegrin security reform until late 2005 (Ryan, 2007).
All security sector reform up until this point was concentrated solely on bor-
der policing. This was the primary concern for both the US government and
the European Union. E2 million was provided by the European Agency for
Reconstruction (EARD), the UK government and the Italian government for
the provision of IT equipment and for awareness-training in illegal migra-
tion, smuggling and trafficking (OSCE, 2003). Training was provided spe-
cifically in EU border management, control and surveillance, communication
and intelligence, and managing the ‘blue border’. In 2004, USAID donated
$4 million to border security in the Montenegrin republic. Rather conten-
tiously, over one million of this was spent on the construction of controls on
the border with the Serbian republic. A further $3 million was donated by the
US Department for Homeland Security for the purchase of boats, cars, radio
equipment and radar for the security of Montenegro’s Adriatic coast (OSCE,
2005). The US government’s primary focus was on the smuggling of weapons
and was linked to its fears that Montenegro’s coastline was susceptible to
terrorist activities. For Western Europeans, Montenegro is known as a transit
route for drugs coming from Turkey, Kosovo and Albania. The EARD supple-
mented USAID grants by providing E4 million to upgrade the international
border-crossing facilities between Croatia, Bosnia and Albania. The Agency
provided the OSCE with E600,000 in order to facilitate the training of 300
­border police officers, the main focus of this training being on anti-terrorism
and organized crime. A further E500,000 was provided in 2005 to support fur-
ther work on an integrated IT system at border-crossing points (OSCE, 2005).
In 2006, the CARDS programme, which is directly linked to the Stabilisation
and Association process, set aside a further E1.5 million to fund an inte­grated

  See US Department of State (n.d).
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 319

border-management strategy.  In an interview with a Montenegrin daily

newspaper, the programme manager of the EARD explained that smuggling
and transborder crime had motivated EU involvement in security sector
reform (de Dominicis, 2003).
The focus on reform manifestly continues to reflect the concerns of the EU
member-states, the European Union and the US government. At a donor’s
conference attended by the author in November 2005, the director of the
Montenegrin police listed the key areas for reform as being the fight against
organized crime, corruption, the control of small arms, police training, and
the creation of a national action plan on migration, asylum, visas and border
management.
During 2006, the OSCE continued to provide training to Montenegrin
police at the Police Academy outside Podgorica. Specific training courses
are also delivered at this site: Training was recently provided to police offic-
ers on ­ crisis management, which involved the training of dedicated nego-
tiation teams within Montenegro’s special anti-terrorism unit. There is little
deviation from the obsession with border security and organized crime. In
2007, E3.6m was set aside by the European Commission to combat organized
crime, while for 2008 another E3.3m was allocated for border management.
This compares poorly to the E1m set aside in the same period to support
civil society. This diminution of societal actors was reflected in the content
of a week-long course provided to 90 middle-level police managers on com-
munity policing techniques in 2006. OSCE trainers with whom I spoke found
the content overly simplistic. During interview, police officers from all ranks
invariably referred negatively to the concept of the police engaging with civil
society, referring to NGOs as blinkered organizations with agendas contrary
to the objectives of the Montenegrin police.
One of the few measures of internal security from within Montenegro comes
from a survey undertaken in October 2004 by the present author with the
Podgorica-based NGO Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM)
on behalf of Montenegro’s ministry of the interior and the OSCE (OSCE,
2004). This survey made important points regarding the provision of secu-
rity in Montenegro. First, Montenegrins generally regard their police force as
being large and politicized. (I found Miloš Djukanović’s image prominently
displayed in many of the nine police stations I visited in 2004.) More damn-
ing, however, was the perception that the police were considered corrupt and
criminalized – that the overlap between politics, organized crime and the law
that funded ‘Montenegro first’ had yet to be severed. Linked to this was the
finding that citizens in Montenegro believe their police to be discriminatory in

  See European Commission (n.d. b).

  See European Commission (2008).

  This was a parallel survey undertaken in October 2004. It contrasted results from interviews with 100
police officers of all ranks at nine police stations with a stratified sample of 1,066 residents from the same
municipalities.
320 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

their conduct – tending towards leniency in their dealings with some sectors
of society while being repressive towards others. Inhabiting a small country
with a large police presence, every second Montenegrin is either related to or
has a close personal relationship with a police officer. Policing is a personal
service in Montenegro: crime is generally reported to an individual police
officer known to the complainant rather than to the police itself. One’s access
to public security services is therefore premised on one’s personal connec-
tions. Outsiders – or, as the survey concludes, ‘those at the very margins of
social life’ (OSCE, 2004: 6) – do not have access to the police. The survey
found that ethnic Albanians in particular suffer from this ‘social network’, as
they tend to have no personal connections with the police and are therefore
underprotected.
However, even those with access to the police expressed dissatisfaction dur-
ing our survey. Generally, respondents alluded to an apathetic, rude and badly
trained police force in Montenegro. As one respondent put it, ‘all kinds of per-
sons were hired in the police force, even those with criminal records’ (OSCE,
2004: 8). Corruption is widespread among Montenegro’s badly paid police.
My own experiences living in the country certainly lend support to this find-
ing. Without exception, every journey I undertook in my foreign-­registered
vehicle became subject to a police ‘traffic fine’. Not once did I receive a receipt
for the varying amounts of ‘fines’ that were imposed. Evidence also exists
that senior management are not beyond reproach. The survey cited one anec-
dote taken from a customs official who related how a number of trucks were
waved through border controls following a phone call from a senior ranking
police officer. Profound distrust of a police force perceived to be manipulated
by criminals deters people from reporting crime or from cooperating in any
way with the police. It is hardly surprising that, in our survey, only 43% of the
population professed confidence in their police force.
In a state where drugs and weapons are readily available, where rates of
alcoholism are high, and where unemployed youths are forming criminal
gangs, the police are finding it difficult to function. Schoolyards are regularly
targeted by drug peddlers. The chief of the police station in Nikšić, a city suf-
fering acutely from depressed economic circumstances, explained that 90%
of criminals in the town are armed. His officers do not have two-way radios
and receive no assistance in their work from residents. He explained to me
that
people here don’t cooperate with us. Maybe there is a fear of the uniform as it is seen as
repressive. If someone gives us information or contacts they are immediately viewed as
police spies, informants, by everyone else. (OSCE, 2004: 22)

Despite spiralling suicide rates and reportedly critical levels of drug addic-
tion, he said, the police were not encouraged to form links with local civil
society or with NGOs. The overwhelming impression was of an isolated
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 321

police force. In Podgorica, police protect local authorities during the eviction
of refugees who reside in informal settlements on the outskirts of the city, a
practice that further distances them from the marginalized. At these sites,
which do not have electricity or running water, residents have reportedly
organized themselves to counter police interventions. During interviews,
officers claimed that these were basically no-go areas. Moreover, this isola-
tion is evident at the local government level. This researcher found that the
police are institutionally isolated: local governments run by parties in oppo-
sition to Djukanović’s have minimal dealings with the police.
The European Commission’s (2006a) Progress Report to some extent cata-
logues the areas where security-first does not seem to reach. For instance, it
states that no reforms have been taken to resource an economic police unit
capable of combating corruption. Little progress has been made on preven-
tion of torture or ill-treatment. No progress was made on tackling the issue
of violence against women. The legal status, integration or physical safety of
the 16,000 refugees and internally displaced persons living on the outskirts
of Podgorica have not improved. Discriminatory practices against these
groups and against Roma are documented in the report. Moreover, the focus
on borders has not been satisfactory for the Commission, which points out
that while the border police are now well equipped, not enough of them have
been trained. The report claims that ‘preparations for border control are still
at an early stage’ (European Commission, 2006a: 41). This, one presumes,
prefigures further funding into border control in Montenegro. So far, it must
be concluded, security sector reform in Montenegro has barely touched the
structural issues that give rise to the inequitable and ineffective provision of
security for the citizens of Montenegro.

Albania’s Security Sector

In the same year as Miloš Djukanović commenced his ‘Montenegro first’

policy, the fragility of his neighbour’s nascent democracy was exposed as
Albania edged close to civil war. Poverty has always been a consistent feature
of Albanian life, but the sudden closure in the early 1990s of state companies
and large redundancies in the public sector proved potentially disastrous to a
state without a social safety net. The uncertain economic environment hit hard-
est in the regions most peripheral to the centre, and large numbers of north-
erners, disillusioned by poverty in the rural areas, migrated south towards
Tirana. This placed a strain on the capital’s infrastructure and exacerbated
divisions between locals and poor northerners living in informal ­settlements
on the outskirts of the city. Districts in Tirana, such as Kamza, saw massive
rises in their population without any concomitant increase in public services.
322 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

The urban population increased from 36% of the population to 46% between
1989 and 1997 (Castaldo, Litchfield & Reilly, 2007). In the south of Albania,
societal tensions were also becoming more distinct. Relations between the
central government and the Albanian-Greek minority, based in the far south
of the country, deteriorated quite drastically during the early 1990s (Vickers,
2006: 218–219).
In view of these pressures on the unity of the state, the government adopted
a strong-arm approach to transition. Some measures, such as the ‘Genocide
Act’, were highly contentious and arguably served to further polarize politi-
cal opinion. Ostensibly designed to extract communist hardliners from state
bodies, the legislation was more effective in weakening opposition parties
and further consolidating the grip held by the ruling party over state insti-
tutions, such as the police. Other than this, security reform did not form a
government priority. By 1997, law enforcement agencies in Albania were very
similar to their communist predecessors.
Opposition to the power of central government was most vociferous in
southern Albania, and large protest meetings were organized there prior
to a tense general election that was held in 1996. According to the OSCE,
this election was procedurally flawed, and protest turned to riots in many
regions, particularly in the south. Nevertheless, despite the precarious politi-
cal environment, a construction boom and $500m worth of remittances
from the Albanian diaspora fuelled sufficient economic optimism for ordi-
nary Albanians to commence investing in ‘pyramid’ investment schemes
(Crampton, 2002: 304).
The wave of popular agitation that followed the collapse of these ‘pyramid’
schemes merged with public anger at central government in politically ­fragile
southern towns and cities, such as Vlora. Rebel militias quickly took over a
number of towns, commencing in the Greek-Albanian town of Saranda, mov-
ing upwards through Gjirokaster, Berat and Kucove until they reached the
outskirts of Tirana itself. Non-local officials and police officers appointed by
the government fled the south, leaving prisons, police stations and military
barracks open to looters. It has been estimated that 656,000 weapons of vari-
ous types were looted from army depots along the way. In addition, rebels
took 1.5 million rounds of ammunition and vast quantities of grenades and
landmines (Ryan, 2006). Police stations were specifically targeted, as they
were seen to be symbolic of central government authority and repression.
While civil war was avoided, the events of March 1997 created very difficult
conditions for the inhabitants of Albania. The preponderance of weaponry
and the difficulty of effectively policing the peripheral parts of the country
created ripe conditions for criminal networks to expand. Drugs, cigarettes


  Different estimates have been produced. The UNDP estimates that 550,000 weapons were taken (Ryan,
2006). Vickers (2006), however, cites an official estimate by the Montenegrin ministry of defence of 656,000
stolen weapons.
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 323

and stolen cars became the prime commodity goods for smuggling opera-
tions. A sinister trade in human trafficking developed. Ports such as Vlora
and Durres became havens for mafiosi, while smuggling blossomed in border
regions like Shkodra and Kukes, where petrol and arms were easily transfera-
ble to and from war-torn Kosovo. Albania’s porous borders with the Republic
of Montenegro enabled large amounts of contraband to move through to the
port of Bar for export to Italy, just across the water. Nonetheless, while the
flow of contraband through Albania to the European Union represented a
threat, it was the massive numbers of migrants that would seem to have
posed the greatest security concern for Albania’s closest neighbours, Greece
and Italy. Between 1989 and 2001, it has been estimated that 628,000 indi-
viduals left Albania to go to either Greece or Italy (INSTAT, 2002). Germany
has also seen increasing numbers of migrants from Albania. (It is no coinci-
dence that the three biggest bilateral donors to Albania are Italy, Greece and
Germany.) Poverty and unemployment are the strongest ‘push’ factors on
migration from Albania, where, since 1990, one child in every family that has
left home is now residing abroad (UNICEF, 2000).
The international community’s engagement with Albania predates its
engagement with Montenegro. As a result, security reform is marginally
more advanced in Albania. Importantly, Albania has its own European
Union Commission delegation, which concentrates on public administration
and judicial reform, policing, customs and, through the EARD, infrastruc-
ture development – particularly in the area of borders and transportation. In
2005–06, over 30% of Albania’s national allocation of external assistance from
the EU was devoted to justice and home affairs (Trauner, 2007: 5). Justice and
home affairs – which targets police reform and organized crime – was pri-
marily funded between 2003 and 2006 by the EU CARDS system, alongside
Greece (which focused on human trafficking), the Netherlands, the OSCE,
Sweden, USAID and the UNDP. The security of Albania is a particular pre­
occupation of its most immediate neighbours, Italy and Greece, and central
to this preoccupation is the memory of the 1997 crisis.
Poverty, organized crime and corruption have been identified as the key
social issues for Albanian society by the European Union, which authorized
a three-year assistance programme in 2002 valued at E144 million (Montes &
Migliorsi, 2004: 23). This money was directed to the reform of the Albanian
judiciary and public administration (UNHCR, 2004). Albania was reminded
that it should pay particular attention to the justice and home affairs sector
if it was to be offered a Stabilisation and Association Agreement. A report in
2003 pointed out that
improvements have been noted in controlling illegal migration towards the EU, but
­trafficking in human beings, drugs and other forms of organised crime, as well as
­corruption in key areas such as the judicial system, customs and police, remain matters
of deep concern. (European Commission, 2003: 1)
324 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

Priority areas listed in this report included: efforts to combat organized crime
– particularly money laundering, drug smuggling and trafficking; strength-
ening border management; continued efforts to control migratory flows
from and through Albania; improvement in customs management; and the
strengthening of public administration.
A number of international agencies and bilateral donors whose objectives
and projects overlap have funded security sector reform in Albania. Together,
they almost exclusively provide security sector reform under terms that have
been decided by the Stabilisation and Association process. For instance, the
International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Programme (ICITAP)
has been operating since 1998. Funded by the US Department of State (or
USAID) this project is outside the area of the present study. Nonetheless,
it is pertinent to mention that the programme is primarily concerned with
improving the ability of the Albanian police force to respond to illegal traf-
ficking in humans, drugs and weapons. Focusing upon transborder crime
issues, it concentrates on activities around Albania’s ports.
More pertinent to our study is the work undertaken by the OSCE and by
PAMECA I and II (Police Assistance Missions of the European Commission in
Albania). Over the last decade, PAMECA has defined police reform in terms
of border management; advice and training on EU legislation and organiza-
tional reform strategy; advice and training on organized crime, anti-terrorism
and public order at football matches; the policing of elections; and funding
for infrastructure projects.
By seconding a special adviser to Albania’s minister of the interior and
coordinating the work of ministry officials tasked with developing the strat-
egy, PAMECA was highly influential in defining the trajectory of police
reform in the country. Funded by the EU CARDS scheme, administered by
the Commission, PAMECA’s goal is to enhance the institutional and opera-
tional capacity of the Albanian state police. While its remit includes reform
of all aspects of police work, the programme reserves a particular interest in
the areas of organized crime, terrorism and border management. The pro-
gramme plays a mainly advisory role: 10% of PAMECA II’s E6.8 million
budget was spent directly on projects, while over E5.8 million went towards
human resources (PAMECA II, 2007). This includes the provision of experts
from the main donors to Albanian security reform: Germany, the UK and
Italy. The areas of expertise reflect the priorities of PAMECA’s reform agenda:
one-fifth of these were experts on organized crime.
PAMECA’s prime role is as a conduit for funds to Albania from European
Union assistance programmes. In the lifetime of PAMECA I and II, the EU
CARDS scheme has invested over E4.6 million on constructing, equipping
and integrating Albania’s borders (PAMECA II, 2007). In addition, training
has been provided in the areas of integrated border management, identifica-
tion documents, border-control risk analysis and maritime border control.
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 325

The programme also contributed to the drafting of new policing legislation.

The new State Police Law draft emphasizes financial and human resource
accountability within the Albanian police. PAMECA argue that making it
more difficult to fire, demote or relocate middle-ranking police management
would address the primary mode of maintaining a politically compliant
police force. In addition, the draft legislation attempts to create local safety
boards akin to the British model of community consultant structures. These
aspects of the bill are not very well integrated with either the ten-year police
reform strategy or the capabilities and goals of the Albanian state police. As
the commander of the Albanian police explained:
We will not pursue projects that are not covered by the stabilization and association
process – ideas such as community-oriented policing will be part of our ethos, but our
aims are to tackle organized crime, to enhance border management and to re-equip the
police force.

In 2007 and 2008, E3m was allocated to Albania by the European Council to
counter terrorism, while integrated border management was prioritized as
an aspect of good governance (European Commission, 2009: 22).
The third major international actor in Albania, the OSCE ‘presence’ in the
country, has defined itself as a provider of security sector reform. Projects
include border police equipment and training provision, police paramilitary
training, supporting cross-border police cooperation, and the pre-screening
of asylum-seekers and migrants. Similar to the situation with Montenegro,
the security-first approach to Albania seems remote from the everyday inse-
curities that occupy the minds of ordinary Albanians.
As with Montenegro, Albania has a large, hastily assembled and politically
subservient police force. After the mass desertion of police from southern
Albania in 1997, a force was quickly constituted, gathering together men with
little formal education and no training in law enforcement (PAMECA II, 2007:
18). The effects of deploying an untrained police force to parts of the country
wherein the authority of the state was contested are evident today in Albania.
A survey undertaken by a local NGO, the Centre for Rural Studies, revealed
that by the end of 2005 there had been little change in the conditions that gave
rise to the public’s dissatisfaction with its security situation. Throughout the
country there was a very low incidence of reporting crime to the police, as it
was generally believed that the police would not respond adequately. In fact,
50% of those surveyed who had reported crimes were dissatisfied with the
police response. In southern towns, such as Gjirokaster, Vlora and Fier, people
still tended to avoid the police entirely, with the survey finding that in Vlora


  Personal communication, Ibraj Bajram, Tirana, July 2006.
10
  This survey, undertaken in 2005, was carried out by the Centre for Rural Studies, Rruga, ‘Haxhi Sina’, no.
4, Tirana, Albania. It involved a cross-national sample of 2,951 residents and 983 police officers. In addi-
tion, 120 interviews were conducted with senior management in the five prefectures around Albania. The
results were made available to this researcher by the UNDP in Albania.
326 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

23% of residents who had had contact with the police claimed the police had
used unnecessary force in the encounter. Moreover, half the sample believed
that the police were not at all focused on the most pressing security threats
to the populace, which, according to the survey, relate to the high incidence
of home and business burglaries, road safety and issues about public order.
Over 80% of respondents saw burglary, drugs and prostitution as their most
pressing security concerns. Over one-quarter of those interviewed expressed
serious concerns about their ability to move safely around the country dur-
ing the daytime, while 37.5% felt that it was not safe to travel at night. This
is a revealing comment in a state which, at the time of the research, had been
subject to EU-led security sector reforms for over six years.
To this day, the police force in Albania retains its allegiance to the ruling
party. With the formation of each new government, whole swathes of man-
agement and staff are redeployed, made redundant, demoted or promoted.
During his research, the present author encountered at every police station
staff and management recently appointed by Sali Berisha’s government.
More disconcerting were the difficulties experienced by the author in relation
to contacting the police in Albania. When asked the procedure for reporting a
crime, not one of my Albanian colleagues at the UNDP was able to answer. They
were unable to decide to whom one would go: administrative police officers
on the ground who have little training and authority, traffic police, or armed
intervention units (anti-terrorist units). On one occasion, we were un­able to
contact the police to report a major traffic incident despite the presence of two
members of the ministry of interior in our car. At the central police station
in Tirana, the researcher was informed that there were only two telephones
and one antiquated computer. Moreover, there are no police desks where one
would report a crime to Albanian police in the militarized police stations.

The UNDP Approach

The UNDP Support to Security Sector Reform (SSSR) represented the fourth
actor in Albanian security reform. Its approach might be seen as an application
of the principles of human security. In this project, poverty and underdevelop-
ment were understood as the basis of Albania’s exposure to organized crime,
trafficking and emigration (Pandey, 2005). Based wholly at the local level, the
programme aimed to incorporate local police units, local government and civil
society into projects that aimed to create a more community-based approach
to local security concerns. Development grants were tied up with a commu-
nity’s ability to form a ‘Community Problem Solving Group’ (CPSG) capable
of working with the local police in development projects that would contrib-
ute to the locality’s security. Police support for the project was ­guaranteed by
the promise that participating police commissariats would receive a modern
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 327

police reception hall, and within each commissariat’s ­jurisdiction one residen-
tial area was provided with a ‘common premises’. The ‘common premises’ was
envisaged to be a sub-police station located within a residential area, manned
by an available officer familiar with the locality. Together with the CPSG, this
officer was to work with the local authority to advise and participate in a local
community-development project co-financed by the local municipality and
the UNDP SSSR. Security was therefore defined broadly and, as within the
spirit of human security, in developmental terms. Commonly, projects includ-
ed the provision of much-needed public goods, such as street lighting or the
addressing of safety issues in school playgrounds.
The work undertaken by the UNDP in the northern city of Shkodra is indic-
ative of the approach taken in ten other prefectures around the country. At
the police station in Shkodra, the UNDP contributed to the construction and
outfitting of a modern passport office and reception hall; the reconstruction
of administrative offices and a hallway inside the building; and the construc-
tion of an office for the payment of traffic fines. Like other police stations
throughout the country, Shkodra police station was in a pitiful state of disre-
pair. The building was basically an army barracks, and no attempt had been
made to transform it to enable it to function as a modern civilian police sta-
tion. High walls and gates hid a dilapidated building built by the Italians
in the early 20th century. Traffic fines were paid, and passports applications
received and processed, through small apertures in these high walls. On the
other side of the walls, police officers worked in a damp cold shed that had
been built against the wall.
In an environment where the centralized police are loyal to the ruling party
and where opposition-led local government and central government are in
constant tension, this project succeeded in coaxing both institutional and
non-institutional actors out of their respective corners in order to cooperate.
To what extent these projects affected the credentials of what remains a rul-
ing party-led, militant and relatively ineffective police force is another ques-
tion. Despite its best intentions, the project did not contribute to the creation
of a more accountable police (Ryan, 2006). There was little enthusiasm for
this approach to security sector reform from the international community.
In 2007, the European Commission withdrew funding it had provided to the
UNDP and requested that all unspent monies be returned.

Conclusion

Police reform is doubtlessly a means in both Montenegro and Albania towards

European integration. This article has argued that reforms are thus directed
more towards the EU than to the citizens of Albania and Montenegro. Security-
328 Security Dialogue  vol. 40, no. 3, June 2009

first reforms are creating externally directed police forces more aligned with
the political and economic goals of these states than with the security con-
cerns of their inhabitants. Consequently, what results are police forces that
are more concerned with securing their neighbours than with securing their
own citizens.
The priority areas as defined by the Stabilisation and Association Agreement
and the Stability Pact clearly exhibit a top-down approach to security reform.
The insistence on border controls, migration control, organized crime and
­trafficking illustrates a hierarchy whereby reform primarily addresses the
security of the EU, then the security of the state in question, and tangen-
tially the security of the individuals of that state. The self-referential nature
of reforms lends credence to contentions that the Western Balkans has been
securitized by the EU. There is little engagement with societal actors who
might point out the tremendous distance between the actual everyday secu-
rity concerns of citizens and the priorities of the EU and other international
actors. This approach effectively ensures that security remains beyond the
political realm. The UNDP approach in Albania might be interpreted as a
bottom-up alternative to the security-first approach. It needs to be said, how-
ever, that while the UNDP addressed some structural causes of insecurity
in Albania, it did little to improve the performance or accountability of the
Albanian police. In fact, it arguably served to legitimize an entirely unre-
formed organization.
Less ‘muscular’ and more subtle than Etzioni’s understanding, an argu-
ment might reasonably be made that security-first transposes the neoliberal
‘trickledown effect’ from economics to the realm of security. EU policymakers
would no doubt argue that what eventually trickles down will be benefi-
cial. By the end of this process, the borders of Albania and Montenegro will
be regulated and organized criminality will be forced to move elsewhere:
a business-friendly environment will result. Yet, in both cases one can find
an unequal provision of public security. Both states possess ineffective,
un­accountable, institutionally isolated police forces that are aligned to party-
political objectives. The working conditions, the equipment, the capabilities
and the resources available to these police organizations would not seem ade-
quate to address internal crime. The EU appears to be creating the impression
of internal security, while merely engaging in technocratic modifications that
affect control over the rims of these states. Internal disorder will be handled
by internationally trained paramilitary ‘anti-terrorist’ police teams. Reforms
are insulating neighbouring EU member-states from the possible effects of
instability that might very well be caused by policies that ignore the actual
security needs of inhabitants in Montenegro and Albania.

* Barry J. Ryan is Senior Teaching Associate in Peace and International Relations at the
Department of Politics and International Relations, Lancaster University.
Barry J. Ryan  The EU’s Security-First Agenda 329

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