Europe's Coherence Gap in External Crisis and Conflict Management

Political Rhetoric and Institutional Practices in the EU and Its Member States

• Publisher: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783867939133
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política comparada

External interventions to mitigate crises or end conflicts have rarely succeeded. The EU and its member states, in particular, have repeatedly run up against their limits in the civil wars in Afghanistan, the Congo, Libya, Syria, the Sahel region and Yemen. However, the EU – if not the entire international community – have learned one lesson from their faltering peacebuilding efforts: If they are to have any chance of making a meaningful and lasting difference, they must develop and use comprehensive strategies that combine and coordinate the various tools available to diplomacy, development cooperation and security.The 29 reports presented in this book – one for each EU member state as well as one on the EU as a whole – examine how steep the learning curve has been and, accordingly, how successful these bodies have been at forming new linkages among the various actors involved in external crisis and conflict management as well as within and between their institutions and organisations.While the EU clearly still has a long way to go before it can live up to its rhetoric and become a distinct and effective actor on the foreign policy stage, small and incremental steps in reorganising institutional practise may help in narrowing the gap between words and deeds.This volume provides examples of how the EU and its member states have found new organisational structures and procedures – specifically at the headquarters level – to better organise the necessary combination and coordination of the many tools available for crisis and conflict management. These ways are then juxtaposed in a 'big picture' chapter, which also identifies best practices for successful WGA implementation.

Reports

EU

Loes Debuysere and Steven Blockmans

1 | Introduction

To respond to security challenges posed by fragile states in its neighbourhood and beyond, the EU and its institutions have sought to develop ‘whole-of-governance’ approaches – as opposed to the ‘whole-of-government’ approaches of its member states (both referred to as WGAs) – to external conflicts and crises since the mid-1990s. The EU’s WGA policies have gradually evolved in parallel to those pioneered by Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK. Similarly, other multilateral actors (e.g. the UN, NATO and the OSCE) have been developing WGAs in parallel to the EU (Debuysere and Blockmans 2019a). This has inevitably led to conceptual exchanges and interactions among these organisations.

Concretely, the EU’s WGA policies have evolved from a minimal definition based on the security-development nexus to a full-fledged and ambitious ‘integrated approach to conflict and crisis’ (IA) that incorporates non-traditional security concepts. The rationale behind the IA is outlined in the EU’s Global Strategy (EUGS) issued in 2016 (EEAS 2016: 28):

“We increasingly observe fragile states breaking down in violent conflict. These crises, and the unspeakable violence and human suffering to which they give rise, threaten our shared vital interests. The EU will engage in a practical and principled way in peacebuilding, concentrating our efforts in surrounding regions to the east and south, while considering engagement further afield on a case-by-case basis. The EU will foster human security through an integrated approach.”

While policy documents of the past two decades have highlighted the EU’s commitment to an integrated approach, a few crucial questions remain unanswered: Has this commitment (words) truly become a working methodology (deeds)? And, if so, how has it been institutionalised and ‘operationalised’ at the headquarters level to increase the coherence of responses to external conflicts and crises? This chapter, which is based on a longer report (Debuysere and Blockmans 2019b), intends to investigate these questions.

2 | What policies have been developed to further policy coherence?

For the past two decades, the EU has aspired to contribute to conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict peacebuilding through civilian and/or military means. In 2001, an ‘integrated approach’ was introduced in a Commission communication that identifies ‘conflict prevention’ as the most effective effort to counter human suffering caused by violent conflicts (EC 2001). The 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) (Council of the European Union 2003), while not mentioning the concepts of ‘comprehensiveness’ or ‘integration’, stressed the need for using EU policies and instruments in a more coherent and coordinated manner to respond to interconnected security and development challenges (Faria 2014: 3).

An important step in the efforts to consolidate more coherent and coordinated conflict responses came with the joint communication of the Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy (HRVP) in 2013 (EC and HRVP 2013). Building on the spirit of structural integration espoused by the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Commission and the HRVP further developed coordination by introducing the EU’s ‘comprehensive approach to conflict and crisis’ (CA) in 2013. The joint character of the communication serves to illustrate the common understanding of the CA and the desire to jointly apply the CA.

The communication identifies two core elements of a CA: the coordination of EU instruments and resources, on the one hand, and the role of both EU-level actors and member states, on the other. What’s more, it notes that “[c]omprehensiveness refers not only to the joined- up deployment of EU instruments and resources, but also to the shared responsibility of EU-level actors and Member States” (ibid.: 3). Four principles underpin a CA: the connection between security and development; the importance of context-specificity over blueprints and one-size-fits-all solutions; the need for collective political will and engagement; and the respect for competence allocation between the respective institutions and services of the EU and its member states.

While seen as a welcome step to further develop the EU’s comprehensive approach – especially because it offers conceptual clarifications and a common understanding of the CA (Tercovich and Koops 2013) – the joint communication also sparked criticism. Overall, while it listed commitments and recommended a number of tangible actions, critics argued that the document did not, in fact, provide EU actors with the systems, mechanisms or means to put it into practice (Faria 2014: 9; Wilton Park 2014). Indeed, it does not set out very concrete and tangible structures and processes regarding who the Union should work with as well as when, where and how (Hauck and Sherriff 2013).

Moreover, a number of gaps were detected in the joint communication. While previous EU documents put a major stress on conflict prevention, the principal focus in 2013 – given the fallout of the Arab uprisings of 2011 – was on conflict situations and crisis management, raising the question of how the CA dealt with prevention (Faria 2014: 8). What’s more, the issue of trade preferences, which can play an important role in overcoming instability and crisis, is excluded from the text, as are the roles of local structures, processes and government actors in conflict-affected countries (Hauck and Sherriff 2013). Another element missing from the joint communication were the relations with key international partners in the field (e.g. the UN, NATO, the African Union and the OSCE) despite the fact that a specific invitation to build on these partnerships was included in the Council conclusions on conflict prevention from 2011 (Council of the European Union 2011).

Eventually, the Council (i.e. the member states) endorsed the joint communication in its conclusions on the EU’s comprehensive approach of May 2014 (Council of the European Union 2014) and through the adoption of subsequent action plans in 2015 and 2016/2017 (Council of the European Union 2015, 2016). Rather than presenting something new, the goal of the action plans was to focus on practical examples for CA implementation and feasible actions that the EU could implement rather than forging a shared understanding of CA in the EU (Faleg 2018: 38).

Nonetheless, the CA was quickly superseded by the EU’s ‘integrated approach to external conflict and crisis’ (IA) in 2016. Stemming from the shortcomings of the CA, the European Global Strategy (EUGS) (EEAS 2016) sought to move forward the comprehensive approach by (re)introducing the concept of an ‘integrated approach’. In fact, an IA numbers among the five priorities that the EU sets forward for its external action, together with the security of the Union, state and societal resilience, cooperative regional orders and global governance.

According to the EUGS, the integrated approach has the following four characteristics. It is:

–multi-phased, in that it enables the EU to act “at all stages of the conflict cycle” and to “invest in prevention, resolution and stabilisation, and avoid premature disengagement when a new crisis erupts elsewhere” (ibid.: 9–10).

–multi-dimensional, as it says that it is essential to use “all available policies and instruments aimed at conflict prevention, management and resolution”, bringing together diplomatic engagement, CSDP missions and operations, development cooperation and humanitarian assistance (ibid.: 28).

–multi-level, as it acts to address the complexity of conflicts “at the local, national, regional and global levels” (ibid.: 29).

–multi-lateral, as it engages “all those players present in a conflict and necessary for its resolution”, and it enables the EU to “partner more systematically on the ground with regional and international organisations, bilateral donors and civil society” and to build sustainable peace “through comprehensive agreements rooted in broad, deep and durable regional and international partnerships” (ibid.: 29).

The scope and actions of the IA have been defined in a Political and Security Committee (PSC) working document on external conflicts and crises of the EEAS and the European Commission released in 2017 (EEAS and EC 2017a). Since the action plans for implementing the CA were viewed as being too rigid, the 2017 working document outlined that the CA “established a process based on action plans and progress reports […that…] has been valuable in establishing lessons learned on how the EU could most usefully work in a coherent way” (ibid.: 4). However, it adds that “this process made the system somewhat rigid by the nature of the process and by focusing in advance on a limited number of priorities.” As a consequence, under the IA, it has been decided to focus on substance rather than process. The 2017 PSC working document also provides an overview of the results the EU envisions to achieve by implementing the IA, as outlined according to the particular phase of the conflict cycle (ranging from prevention to crisis response to stabilisation). In addition, the Council’s 2018 conclusions regarding an IA to external conflicts and crises (Council of the European Union 2018) called for more concrete and significant progress in this realm. The conclusions welcomed that a report on the implementation of the IA is included as part of the yearly report on the implementation of the EUGS.

In general, compared to the CA, the IA does not add anything that was not already on the EU’s security agenda, and it is mostly compatible with what was laid out in the European Consensus on Development agreed in 2005 (EC 2006) in terms of responding to conflict. However, it does reaffirm the relevance of the CA and states that its scope needs to be “expanded further” by adopting a new cross-sectoral focus on multi-phase and multi-level aspects (Tardy 2017: 2). The extended scope of the IA can be understood in two ways: First, it can be seen as more ambitious, more political and longer-term than the CA. And, second, it can be seen as more operational, i.e. as a means to operationalise the CA. Indeed, the IA has brought about some institutional changes to help operationalise the concept, such as the creation of the PRISM (Prevention of Conflict, Rule of Law/Security Sector Reform, Integrated Approach, Stabilisation and Mediation) division within the EEAS.

3 | Who are the main actors involved in cooperating in a WGA?

Implementing Europe’s ambitious integrated approach (IA) to conflicts and crises poses challenges, which include securing sufficient buy-in from all EU actors and the problem of competition among institutions and mandates (Tardy 2017). This section investigates the key actors that drive the IA concept and assesses the ways in which intra- and inter-service as well as international coordination have been institutionalised.

When it comes to implementing the IA at an intra-service EU level, there is one key body that coordinates the EU’s integrated approach within the EEAS: the Directorate Integrated Approach for Security and Peace (Dir. ISP). Established in March 2019, this new directorate has become the main coordination hub for EU conflict-cycle responses (Debuysere and Blockmans 2019a). Nestled under the Managing Directorate for CSDP and Crisis Response, Dir. ISP encompasses the old unit for Prevention of Conflicts, Rule of Law/SSR, Integrated Approach, Stabilisation and Mediation (PRISM), which was regrouped with other CSDP parts of the house. Thus, the new directorate is responsible for, inter alia, concepts, knowledge management and training; conflict prevention and mediation; and international strategic planning for CSDP and stabilisation.

A wave of institutional reform that started on 1 March 2019 led to the creation of Dir. ISP. The reforms were partly driven by the recent increase in human resources devoted to defence policies and instruments (in particular, the Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO), which created a need to revise and extend the existing Crisis Management and Planning Directorate (CMPD). Other motivations underpinning the reform process have been to better embed the EU’s integrated approach in the institutional structure of the EEAS as well as to facilitate and improve the EU’s ability to address global instability and fragility in an integrated way by deploying all its relevant policies, players and tools in a holistic and well-coordinated manner.

It is not the first time, however, that institutional change has sought to smooth the way for the implementation of an IA. Already in January 2017, the EEAS’s Peacebuilding, Conflict Prevention and Mediation unit was upgraded to the status of a division reporting directly to the deputy secretary-general (DSG) for the CSDP and crisis response. This division, called PRISM, became the focal point for EU responses to the conflict cycle, including prevention and resolution. Among other things, PRISM coordinated a working group of like-minded souls within the EEAS and the Commission – the so-called ‘guardians of the integrated approach’ – whose ultimate aim was to enhance operational capacity by adopting an IA to external conflicts and crises.

However, due to its slightly odd position in the EEAS organisational chart, the need was felt to place PRISM in a full-blown directorate with its own managing and deputy managing directors. The result was the Dir. ISP. Itself a pillar responsible for crisis response and planning, Dir. ISP simultaneously operates with a ‘policy pillar’ and a ‘conduct pillar’. While the policy pillar (Security and Defence Policy, or SECDEFPOL) brings together all policies relating to security and defence (e.g. PESCO, the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), and cybersecurity), the conduct pillar combines the operational headquarters of both civilian (Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability, or CPCC) and military (Military Planning and Conduct Capability, or MPCC) CSDP missions.

Incorporating a revamped PRISM unit into a full-fledged directorate should clarify and strengthen the chain of command in implementing the EU’s integrated approach. In principle, its director and managing director will now be in a position to engage directly with counterparts at their level in the hierarchy. Indeed, the introduction of the new post of managing director means that it will no longer be necessary to turn to an over-solicited DSG to engage in intra-service deconfliction. For example, Dir. ISP hosts crisis meetings that bring together all relevant EEAS divisions and Commission DGs (ECHO, DEVCO, NEAR) involved in crisis management. More than before, the geographical desks play a prominent role in these meetings, which are chaired by the DSG for CSDP or his (or her) representative.

In addition to improving its managerial strength, formalising and upgrading the former PRISM division will also foster better integration and coordination within the EEAS. By absorbing the former Crisis Management and Planning Directorate (CMPD), which is tasked with the political-strategic planning of CSDP missions, Dir. ISP now looks at the crisis cycle in its entirety. In principle, merging PRISM with CSDP planning into a single directorate should facilitate the operational implementation of an integrated approach.

However, the fact that the directorate has been called ‘Integrated Approach for Security and Peace’ – with ‘security’ preceding ‘peace’ rather than the other way around, as is common in the international context – raises questions about where the unit’s focus lies. The staff balance also tilts towards security, with over a third of all the directorate’s personnel operating in strategic planning for CSDP and stabilisation. While, on paper, the (staff) capacity for prevention and mediation has improved compared to PRISM, it is clear that political will on the part of the member states will be needed to prioritise this aspect of the EU’s crisis response.

However, this is exactly where the shoe pinches for Dir. ISP. Rather than merging the operational level with the political level, the new directorate only merges the operational side. The reforms did not further integrate the work of the geographical divisions and of the EEAS’ DSG for political affairs. While Dir. ISP m...