The EU Crisis Management

POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] THE EU CRISIS MANAGEMENT Introduction Since it foundation, the European Union (EU) has been involved in a broad range of instruments and phases of the crisis cycle such as conflict prevention, crisis management and post-crisis reconstruction (European Union, 2012; Gourlay, 2004: 404). However, it was 1993 when the EU Treaty entered into force creating the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), which became one of the main objectives of all member states. Having agreed upon the CFSP, the EU has launched the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in order to strength the European defence pillar (Hauser and Kernic, 2006: 39). Starting from 1998, the ESDP has been involved in over twenty operations which allowed it to be engaged in crisis management in various ways. Although the EULEX Kosovo, EUPOL Afghanistan and EUFOR Chad that the ESDP launched were rather limited in terms of their success, the Lisbon Treaty brought in a few institutional changes to the previous policy in order to improve the decision-making and leadership in the ESDP (Blockmans and Wessel, 2009: 3435), which was later transformed into Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The CSDP sees itself as a major security mechanism in the international scene by asserting its own security strategies, and promoting peace and progress. However, it has not improved in presenting itself as a strong international security actor (Blockmans and Wessel, 2009: 31). The CSDP’s soft power and its approach to security issues is often perceived rather weak (Blockmans and Wessel, 2009: 31). The reason for this unstable image of EU is not only because of its structural deficiencies but also the reluctance of the EU member states’ participation in CSDP missions (Blockmans and Wessel, 2009: 31). The cause of the unwillingness of the EU member states are due to the fact that the union is divided and the dominant powers in the union concentrate on their own interests by bilateral deals while Page | 1 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] forcing smaller states to join their actions. As a result, this causes disapproval both in the EU and abroad ((Blockmans and Wessel, 2009: 31). However, these are not the only reasons for the weak CSDP image. The extension of unconvincing advantages, the adaptation of ineffective sanctions over certain states and the weak formulation of CSDP mandates are seen as other deficiencies (Blockmans and Wessel, 2009: 31) which ought to be prevented for successful crisis management. From these points, this presented paper will assess the EU’s crisis management in four parts. The first part will discuss the changing of politics the CSDP through new institutional structures. The second parts will explain the EU civilian/military capabilities and their cooperation. The third part, on the other hand, will be an overview of EU’s role as a crisis manager today. The last part will be the conclusion. The New Institutional Structure of the CSDP Since the Lisbon Treaty, there has been a significant policy change in the CSDP. The reason for this was partially because EU’s border crisis with Balkans, eastern Mediterranean and North African countries. Due to the reason that these borders are EU’s near-abroad, it required multiple settings for security and crisis management (Howorth, 2001: 768). Since some neighbour countries in the East and the South are seeking for assistance through EU membership, it forced the EU to reconsider their traditional security and defence policy and transform their policy into more computable one in order to provide better crisis management (Howorth, 2001: 768). For this reason, the new institutional framework was put in action between 1999 and 2001. This framework involved the creation of High Representatives for Common Security and Foreign Policy (CFSP), Policy Unit, Council of Defence Ministers (CDM) and the Political and Security Committee (Howorth, 2001: 770). With this new institutional framework, the EU’s decision-making process moved beyond the technical military arrangements. In addition to this, the EU was transformed into a security actor Page | 2 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] (Howorth, 2001: 770). However, the new institutional framework failed to answer different political expectations that each member state had. Smaller or lesser power states had no chance but to be content with the French and British dominance, and Germany had already welcomed the new institutional changes (Howorth, 2001: 772). Even though these changes seemed satisfying in the first place, the UK view was that any military intervention or implementation would remain the responsibility of Nato. However, the slow progress inside Nato on agreeing the mission in Kosovo and the pressure from the US showed the need for European military (Howorth, 2001: 772; Greco et al, 2010: 29). The changes after the Lisbon Treaty also caused some institutional problems in the CSDP. The most important institutional problem was the settling of the political relationship between four distinct institutions, all of which are within the EU family. Even though all institutions are within the EU family, General Affairs Council (GAC) and the Political Committee (PoCO) are dependent on national capital which affects the decision making process; and COPS and Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) are based in Brussels (Howorth, 2001: 774) which affects the decision making process. However, the most significant inconsistency among these four is in the COPS. Some of the functions of the COPS used to be carried out by PoC0 and some used to be carried out by Coreper (Howorth, 2001: 774). Once the PoCo shifted its agenda to broader external issues, this left COPS to the primary responsibility of CSDP, leading it to more multipart missions. This relationship between these four institutional structures are, therefore, rather complex (Howorth, 2001: 773). While all parts were eager to make progress, the cooperation between the policy makers and the military initiatives still remained relatively unorganised (Howorth, 2001: 773-74) as a result of hierarchy concept. Page | 3 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] Civil and Military Integration in the CSDP The complex relationship within the CSDP indicated that there was a need to make some changes not only at institutional level but also at operational level. Since the EU wanted to play a major role in the international security as for better crisis management, it was a must for the EU to integrate the civilian and military sectors of the CSDP. Since 2003, the EU has launched over twenty-five missions, seventeen of which have been civilian, six have been military, and two have been hybrid (Greco et al, 2010: 29). In order to implement better organised civilian missions, the EU has formed the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC). The CPCC acted as a facilitator to strengthen civil-military coordination and cooperation. To make sure both civilian and military legs of the operations work effectively, the EU has established the Crisis Management and Planning Directorate (CMPD) combining the civilian and military forces under new single directorate (Hynek, 2011: 91). The reason for putting these two concepts under one single directorate was to provide more effective crisis response, management and stabilisation (Greco et al, 2010: 30). With this cooperation, the CSDP not only expanded its operations far and wide, but also managed to broaden the operations by reinforcing the police missions, supporting the executive powers and monitoring the borders (Greco et al, 2010: 30). According to the EU discourse, one of the most crucial trends has been the gradual integration of the civilian and military sectors of crisis management such as hybrid (Hynek, 2011: 87). Therefore, the civil and military cooperation lies at the very centre of EU crisis management for the reason that civil missions are based on human security approach and important in demonstrating the understanding of EU’s democratic governance (Greco et al, 2010: 32). As specified by the Lisbon Treaty, the role of civilian and military crisis management is to support democracy, domestic and international law, and human rights; to preserve peace, prevent conflict and enhance international security (Greco et al, 2010: 31; Page | 4 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] Official Journal of EU, 2010: 29). However, even though the civilian and military crisis management plays an important role in EU crisis management, their actual notion of still remains ambiguous and rather limited. For example; the police and military sections of the crisis management failed to fight against organised crime, crime control and law enforcement during the EUFOR Althea in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This example explains that the cooperation and the coordination between civil and military sectors have not been fully integrated (Greco et al, 2010: 33). Thus, further guidance and reforms are needed. Although this integration aimed to provide more effective crisis response, management and stabilisation, this complex institutional arrangement, and misinterpretation of security and development issues has been source of friction. Therefore, the coordination of these two sectors is incomplete and comprehensive planning between these two sectors is hindered (Greco et al, 2010: 35). The EU as a Crisis Manager Today The EU has shown a growing interest and activism in regional and global security challenges over the last decade (Greco et al, 2010: 101). The Common Security and Defence Policy have led the EU to gain new operational and institutional mechanisms for crisis management (Greco et al, 2010: 101). The comprehensive security concept of the EU includes not only crisis management, but also conflict prevention and post-crisis reconstruction with civil and military integrated missions. These missions help the EU with peacekeeping, policing, aid development and institution building (Greco et al, 2010: 101). The European Security Strategy which was adopted in 2003 confirmed EU’s approach and the new provisions which were also reinforced by the Lisbon Treaty (Greco et al, 2010: 101). Since these changes, the EU has been trying to play a major role in the international security, thanks to capability development, operational experience, institutional reforms and the policy changes as well as the integration of civil and military channels (Greco et al, 2010: 101). Page | 5 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] However, European crisis management and its operational capabilities still have deficiencies and do not show any signs o ambitious goals declared by the EU in several official documents (Greco et al, 2010: 101). Furthermore, the EU’s CSDP lacks coherence in terms of its internal and external actions such as cooperation for development and trade, and the ‘deficit of the democratic accountability’ (Greco et al, 2010: 101). Recent missions show that there has been increase in the civilian based operations. Seventeen out of twenty-five EU crisis management missions have been civilian based. In terms of its capability and development, these missions showed considerable achievement in sustaining peace, fighting against crime and other human rights violations (Greco et al, 2010: 103). However, “the efforts of the civilian operations to ensure a presence on the ground have not always been coupled with sufficient attention to the qualitative aspects of that presence” (Greco et al, 2010: 103). Compared to the military operations that have been deployed, the civilian operations remain underdeveloped (Greco et al, 2010: 103). Moreover, rapid deployment capability, the sustainability of the missions and the quality of the civilian personnel still remains as one of the most criticised aspects that the EU should tackle (Greco et al, 2010: 103). Seeing that the civilian operations were rather limited, the EU addressed this problem by leading strong coordination and cooperation between the civilian and military sectors. Combining these two meant to integrate their capabilities in order to lead more complex and hybrid missions (Hynek, 2011: 92). With this, the CSDP aimed to provide logistical support, communication and information systems, strategic and tactical transportation, security and protection as well as joint training under the control of Crisis Management and Planning Directorate (CMPD) (Hynek, 2011: 92). Nevertheless, this has been highly criticised as it created a space in which strong military planning capabilities could dominate in the CMPD. Even though Blair stated that “in the absence of civilian strategic planners, the new CMPD would need to grow them, and this would take time, Page | 6 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] although not 20 years some with a military background would suggest” (Blair, 2009: 3), Hynek (2011: 92) believes that the military chiefs would be uneasy about the integration as it danger their position and priority in the security policy (Hynek, 2011: 92). Conclusion All in all, I assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the Common Security and Defence policy after the Lisbon Treaty. I examined EU crisis management in three parts. In the first part, I discussed the changing politics and new institutional structures after the Lisbon Treaty. With the Lisbon Treaty, the EU re-evaluated its traditional security and defence policy and transformed it into more computable one in order to provide better crisis management (Howorth, 2001: 768). With this new framework, the EU’s decision-making process moved beyond the military arrangements. In addition to this, the EU was transformed into a security actor (Howorth, 2001: 770). However, this institutional framework failed to answer different political expectations that each member state had. Smaller or less martial nations had no chance but to be content with the dominant powers (Howorth, 2001: 772), which caused slow decision making process as most EU member states were reluctant to participate in the CSDP. In the second part of my paper, I explained the EU civilian and military dual capabilities and their cooperation. In order to play a major role in the international security as a crisis manager, the EU integrated the civilian and military sectors of the CSDP which led to the establishment of CPCC. CPSS acted as a facilitator to strengthen civil-military coordination and cooperation and to make sure both civilian and military sections worked effectively. With this cooperation, the CSDP expanded its operations far and wide, and managed to diversify the operations by reinforcing the police missions, supporting the executive powers and monitoring the borders (Greco et al, 2010: 30). However, their actual Page | 7 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] notion is still ambiguous and rather limited due to the fact that the integration between civilian and military sectors has not been fully completed. In the third part, I have assessed the role of EU as a crisis manager today. I have found that the EU has shown activism in the regional and global security over the last decade (Greco et al, 2010: 101). The comprehensive security concept of the EU included crisis management, conflict prevention and post-crisis reconstruction with civil and military integrated missions. These missions helped the EU with peacekeeping, policing, aid development and institution building (Greco et al, 2010: 101).The EU managed to be active in the international security thanks to capability development, operational experience, institutional reforms and the policy changes as well as the integration of civil and military channels (Greco et al, 2010: 101). However, European crisis management and its operational capabilities still have deficiencies and do not show any signs of ambitious goals declared by the EU in several official documents (Greco et al, 2010: 101). Moreover, the CSDP lacks consistency in terms of its internal and external actions such as cooperation for development and trade, and the ‘deficit of the democratic accountability’ (Greco et al, 2010: 101). Page | 8 POLM016 [Student Number: 6204556] BIBLIOGRAPHY • Blair, S., (2009). Towards Integration? Unifying military and civilian ESDP operations. European Security Review, 44. • Blockmans, S., Wessels, A., R., (2009). The European Union and Crisis Management: Will the Lisbon Treaty Make the EU More Effective? Journal of Conflict and Security Law. Oxford University Press. • European Union External Actions, (2012). Crisis Management. [online] Available at: <http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/crisis_management/index_en.htm> [Accessed 17 April 2012]. • Gourlay, C., (2004). European Union Procedures and Resources for Crisis Management. International Peace Keeping. Taylor and Francis Ltd. Vol.11, Issue 3. • Greco, E., Pirozzi, N., & Silvestri, S., (2010). EU Crisis Management: Institutions and Capabilities in the Making. Istituto Affari Internazionali. • Hauser, G., & Kernic F., (2006). The European Security in Transition. Ashgate Publishing: Aldershot. • Howorth, J., (2001). European Defence and the Changing Politics of the European Union: Hanging Together or Hanging Separately? Journal of Common Market Studies. Vol. 39. No 4. Pg 765-89. • Hynek, N. (2011). EU crisis management after the Lisbon Treaty: civil– militarycoordination and the future of the EU OHQ. European Security, 20:1, 81-102. • Official Journal of European Union, (2010). Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. C 83. Vol. 10. Pg 29. [online] Available at: <http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:FULL:EN:PDF> [Accessed 17 April 2012]. Page | 9