the eu way · • overview of the chaillot paper 13 civilian crisis management within esdp 15...

Chaillot Paper

Civilian crisis management:the EU way

n°90June 2006

Catriona Gourlay, Damien Helly, Isabelle Ioannides,Radek Khol, Agnieszka Nowak and Pedro Serrano

Edited by Agnieszka Nowak

In January 2002 the Institute for Security Studies (ISS)became an autonomous Paris-based agency of theEuropean Union. Following an EU Council JointAction of 20 July 2001, it is now an integral part of thenew structures that will support the further develop-ment of the CFSP/ESDP. The Institute’s core mission isto provide analyses and recommendations that can beof use and relevance to the formulation of theEuropean security and defence policy. In carrying outthat mission, it also acts as an interface betweenEuropean experts and decision-makers at all levels.

Chaillot Papers are monographs on topical questionswritten either by a member of the ISS research team orby outside authors chosen and commissioned by theInstitute. Early drafts are normally discussed at a semi-nar or study group of experts convened by the Instituteand publication indicates that the paper is consideredby the ISS as a useful and authoritative contribution tothe debate on CFSP/ESDP. Responsibility for the viewsexpressed in them lies exclusively with authors. ChaillotPapers are also accessible via the Institute’s Website:www.iss-eu.org

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Chaillot Paper

Civilian crisis management:the EU way

Catriona Gourlay, Damien Helly, Isabelle Ioannides, Radek Khol,

Agnieszka Nowak and Pedro Serrano

Edited by Agnieszka Nowak

Institute for Security StudiesEuropean Union Paris

n°90June 2006

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Institute for Security StudiesEuropean Union43 avenue du Président Wilson75775 Paris cedex 16tel.: +33 (0)1 56 89 19 30fax: +33 (0)1 56 89 19 31e-mail: [email protected]

Director: Nicole Gnesotto

© EU Institute for Security Studies 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the EUInstitute for Security Studies.ISSN 1017-7566ISBN 92-9198-093-5Published by the EU Institute for Security Studies and printed in Condé-sur-Noireau(France) by Corlet Imprimeur. Graphic design by Claire Mabille (Paris).

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Contents

Préface Nicole Gnesotto 7

Introduction 9

Agnieszka Nowak

• The distinctive nature of EU involvement in crisis management 9• Consolidating EU civilian crisis management 11• Overview of the Chaillot Paper 13

Civilian crisis management within ESDP 15Agnieszka Nowak

• Introduction 15• The meaning(s) of EU civilian crisis management 16• CCM as a process of EU civilian capacity building 18• Towards a more integrated and coherent approach 29• A more active and more capable EU 33• Conclusion 36

A strategic approach to the European Security and Defence Policy 39Pedro Serrano

• The need for a strategic approach to ESDP 39• The main characteristics of an ESDP intervention 40• The main types of ESDP missions 41• The comparative advantages of an ESDP intervention 44• Long-term missions versus short-/medium-term missions 45• The scarce resources available for ESDP missions: the need for clear

and attainable objectives 46• Conclusion 46

Community instruments for civilian crisis management 49Catriona Gourlay

• Introduction 49• Emergency and transitional relief measures 50• Long-term geographic instruments: development aid 57• Towards more integrated planning for EC crisis response 60• Strengths and weaknesses of EC instruments 62• Conclusion 67

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EU Police Mission Proxima: testing the ‘European’ approachto building peace 69Isabelle Ioannides

• EU policy in FYROM: the ‘dual track’ approach 70• EUPOL Proxima 73• Evaluating ‘effective multilateralism’ 77• The way ahead 82• Conclusion 85

EUJUST Themis in Georgia: an ambitious bet on rule of law 87Damien Helly

• EU institutions, instruments and policies in Georgia 88• The Georgian criminal justice sector and its reform process 89• EUJUST Themis: a new push in the field of rule of law 91• Challenge of coherence between EU instruments deployed in Georgia 93• Co-operation between ESDP operation and other actors on the ground 96• Evaluation of Themis’s operational aspects 98• Conclusion 101

Civil-Civil Co-ordination in EU crisis management 103Catriona Gourlay

• The challenge of inter-pillar co-ordination 103• Characteristics of first and second pillar decision-making 104• Funding 108• Inter-pillar co-ordination in planning 112• Inter-pillar co-ordination in administration and implementation 117• Sustainability of current institutional arrangements 119

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7 Civil-Military Co-ordination in EU crisis management 123Radek Khol

• Distinction between Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) andCivil-Military Coordination (CMCO) 124

• The development of CMCO within the EU 126• Crisis Management Procedures (CMP) 129• Joint civil-military training 132• CMCO in practice: EU involvement in crisis management

in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aceh and The Congo 135• Prospects for further strengthening of CMCO in EU crisis management 136

Conclusion 139Agnieszka Nowak

• The challenge of coherence 139

Annexes 141• Annex to Chapter One: ESDP operations 141• About the authors 143• Abbreviations 144

Contents

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7

Nicole Gnesotto

D epuis 1999, l’invention et la mise en œuvre de la PESD ont per-mis à l’Union européenne de se positionner comme un acteurstratégique majeur sur la scène internationale : avec plus de7 000 hommes aujourd’hui déployés en Bosnie-Herzégovine, l’opérationAlthea représente l’effort le plus abouti des Etats membres en matière decoopération militaire et de gestion collective des crises au nom de l’Union.Simultanément, la dimension civile de la PESD n’a cessé de se développer,qu’il s’agisse d’opérations de police, d’aide à la restauration d’un Etat dedroit, de réforme du secteur de sécurité, de contrôle des frontières, dedémobilisation des combattants : pas moins de 9 opérations civiles ont étélancées depuis 2003 dans le cadre de la PESD, nourrissant dès lors de nou-velles interrogations sur la nature même de la PESD, sur la cohérence desaspects civils et militaires au sein d’une opération de gestion de crise, sur lavaleur ajoutée de la PESD par rapport aux instruments communau-taires, voire sur le partage des tâches entre l’OTAN et l’Union.

Clarifier ces débats nous a paru désormais nécessaire. Conçu et éditépar Agnieszka Nowak, chercheur associée à l’Institut depuis mai 2005, ceCahier de Chaillot se veut une première tentative d’explication etd’analyse des instruments, des enjeux et des problèmes rencontrés ou sou-levés par l’Union lorsqu’il s’agit d’assumer les différentes dimensions dela gestion civile des crises. La multitude d’acteurs, de mécanismes et deprocédures impliqués dans ces politiques, tant du côté de la Commissionque du Conseil, fait une fois de plus de la question de la cohérence l’une desdifficultés majeures rencontrées par l’Union pour accroître l’efficacité deses interventions internationales.

Ce défi est certes rendu plus abrupt par le gel ou la disparition des solu-tions prévues pourtant par le Traité constitutionnel. Mais il est surtoutinhérent à la nature même de la gestion des crises et à la fluidité croissantede l’environnement international. Plus de dix ans d’efforts pour stabiliserl’ex-Yougoslavie témoignent s’il en était besoin à quel point les interven-tions strictement militaires ne représentent qu’une toute petite fractiondes politiques de gestion des crises ; elles risquent même d’être condamnéesà l’échec sans l’intervention massive, et souvent simultanée, de tous les

Préface

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Préface

instruments civils d’aide à la reconstruction de structures étatiques légi-times et efficaces. L’Irak, l’Afghanistan sont à ce titre exemplaires. Auregard de la prévention des conflits, les instruments civils de gestion descrises jouent également un rôle majeur. Autrement dit, la séquence mili-taire d’une gestion de crise n’est jamais aussi décisive qu’on ne le croit. Laséquence de stabilisation et de reconstruction après un conflit n’est jamaisaussi civile qu’on ne le souhaite.

Y a-t-il, en matière de gestion civile des crises, une valeur ajoutéepropre à la PESD, par rapport à l’ampleur des moyens et des compétencesdes structures communautaires ? Existe-t-il des critères objectifs pour déli-miter les responsabilités propres du Conseil et de la Commission dans lagestion civile des crises ? Peut-on chiffrer le coût de l’incohérence actuelle ?Quelles sont, en l’état actuel de déroute institutionnelle, les chances d’unepolitique globale, cohérente, intégrée, de prévention et de gestion desconflits dans laquelle la synergie entre les moyens civils et militaires del’Union démultiplierait l’efficacité des interventions européennes ? Tellessont quelques-unes des questions, difficiles, souvent conflictuelles,abordées dans ce Cahier de Chaillot. A trop tarder à les résoudre, c’estla crédibilité même de l’Union comme acteur international qui serait enjeu.

Paris, mai 2006

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IntroductionAgnieszka Nowak

The distinctive nature of EU involvement in crisis manage-ment

European integration is a project born from the desire to secure alasting peace between European nations. From the beginning, theEuropean Community underpinned the reconciliation and har-monious development of Western Europe, helped to increase itsstability, raised standards of living and promoted closer relationsbetween its Member States. Subsequently, through developmentco-operation, external assistance programmes, through theprocess of enlargement and through the Common Foreign andSecurity Policy (CFSP), the European Union has been seeking toproject stability and lasting peace not only within but also beyondits borders.

Despite its own experience of a whole array of policies and pro-grammes oriented at stability projection, and the expertise it hasacquired in this domain, the EU assignment of peace buildingabroad remains one of the most challenging tasks of EU externalaction. The main reason for this is a change in the nature and scaleof conflicts characterising the post Cold-War period. The EU hasexperienced this change most directly while facing the conflicts inthe Western Balkans but also during the last 10 years of the post-conflict stabilisation process. This experience influenced the EUMember States’ decision to develop an EU crisis response capacityunder the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) as well asto undertake a political commitment to prevent violent conflicts.1It has also shown that the projection of ‘lasting peace’ and stabil-ity abroad requires that the EU uses a variety of instruments in acoherent manner, and deploys an appropriate mix of instrumentsin order to address pre-crisis, active crisis and post-crisis situa-tions. This Chaillot Paper focuses on the functioning of EU civiliancrisis management (CCM) as one of the elements of the EU’s‘external action’. In particular, it examines the consistency and

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Civilian crisismanagement: the EU way

1. For a detailed overview of thedevelopments related to EU crisisresponse capability, see: Interna-tional Crisis Group, Issues Reportno. 2, ‘EU Crisis Response Capa-bility: Institutions and Processesfor Conflict Prevention and Man-agement’, 26 June 2001; SimonDuke, ‘The EU and Crisis Manage-ment. Development andProspects’, European Institute ofPublic Administration, 2002; In-ternational Crisis Group, EuropeReport no. 160, ‘EU Crisis Re-sponse Capability Revised’,17 January 2005.

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coordination (at the institutional and operational level) betweenthe different EU civilian instruments. Since the study focuses oninternal coherence (within the EU), the issue of cooperation withother actors such as international organisations and NGOs isbeyond the scope of this paper and it is therefore discussed onlybriefly.

The European Union’s involvement in crisis management isdifferent from that of other international organisations active inthe field (the UN, the OSCE and other non-European regionalorganisations). On the one hand, the objectives of the Union’s for-eign and security policy as set out in the TEU such as the preserva-tion and strengthening of international security, in accordance with theprinciples of the United Nations Charter, promotion of international coop-eration, development and consolidation of democracy and the rule of law,and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, are the com-mon objectives underpinning the activities of all the actors men-tioned above; on the other hand, the EU’s involvement in crisismanagement takes place in the framework of the Union’s ‘externalaction’. Therefore the EU, unlike other international organisa-tions, conducts its own common foreign policy and maintains itsexternal relations, and this potentially influences its involvementin crisis management since the Union has to take into account notonly its political objectives but also the other interests and priori-ties of the EU and its component Member States.

Analysing the EU’s involvement in crisis management in theframework of the Union’s external action is not straightforwardsince there is no agreement at the theoretical level about how todescribe the role of the EU on the international scene.2 The EUcontribution to crisis management is primarily associated withthe European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) as enshrined inArticle 17.2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU): ‘Questionsreferred to in this Article shall include humanitarian and rescue tasks,peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, includ-ing peacemaking’. The so-called Petersberg tasks (the areas coveredby the EU contribution to crisis management) that the TEU inher-ited from the WEU Petersberg Declaration are not limited to themilitary dimension but also include civilian tasks. The militarydimension of EU crisis management has been developed since1999 within ESDP and has clearly an intergovernmental charac-ter. However, civilian aspects of EU crisis management are less welldefined since they potentially encompass a broader range of

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Introduction

2. Special Issues on ‘The EU, CrisisManagement and Peace SupportOperations’, Giovanna Bono andStale Ulriksen (eds.), InternationalPeacekeeping, vol. 11, no. 3, Au-tumn 2004 (see Introduction tothe volume by Giovanna Bono).

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policies and instruments implemented under the Intergovern-mental and Community pillars.

Consolidating EU civilian crisis management

The EU Member States have confirmed on many occasions that amore coherent and integrated approach to crisis management isneeded. For instance, the European Security Strategy (ESS)adopted by the European Council in December 2003, explicitlyindicates that more coherence is needed to improve EU effective-ness in crisis management. The main challenge in this respect is tobring together the different instruments and capacities that havebeen created in different periods of time, within different institu-tional structures and with different rationales. Greater coherencerequires complementarity in the use of EU instruments (civilianand military) and a better co-ordination between EU institutions.3

Another example is the Civilian Headline Goal 2008 which wasadopted a year after ESS and also recognises that: ‘A coherent use ofCommunity and ESDP instruments is of key importance for a qualitativeimprovement of the EU’s capacity to act.’ It clarifies the scope of EUactivities by stating that ‘Developing the civilian dimension is part of theEU’s overall approach in using civilian and military means to respondcoherently to the whole spectrum of crisis management tasks such as conflictprevention, peacekeeping and tasks of combat forces in crisis managementincluding peacemaking and post-conflict stabilization.’ 4

The existing pillar structure of the European Union is not theoptimal architecture for a coherent and integrated approach toconflict prevention and crisis management simply because whenit comes to tackling a crisis, many policy areas – entailing trade,aid, assistance, financial, political and military measures – may beinvolved that fall under the separate pillars. The ConstitutionalTreaty intended to provide an institutional remedy for such ‘struc-tural incoherence’ by bringing all policies related to crisis manage-ment (such as CFSP, Common Commercial Policy, Cooperationwith Third Countries and Humanitarian Aid, InternationalAgreements, Relations with International Organisations) underthe common umbrella of the Union’s External Action.5 In this newframework, the Union’s Minister of Foreign Affairs would ensurethe co-ordination of different aspects of crisis management andthe unity of command.

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3. European Security Strategy,adopted by the European Coun-cil, 12 December 2003.

4. EU Doc. 15863/04, 7 Decem-ber 2004, ‘Civilian Headline Goal2008, Part I – Ambitions andTasks’.

5. Title V (‘The Union’s ExternalAction’), Part III (‘The Policies andFunctioning of the Union’), Con-stitutional Treaty.

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However, the ratification process is on hold and the prospectsof formal consolidation of the tools divorced under the first andsecond pillars have been stalled for an indeterminate period oftime. After the rejection of the Constitution by France and theNetherlands, there has been some speculation that if the ratifica-tion and entry into force of the Constitutional Treaty fails, somerearrangements concerning external relations could perhaps beintroduced by the decisions of the European Council within theframework of existing treaties.6 The confirmation in September2005 that one of the most advanced projects – the Union’s Exter-nal Action Service – will not come into force as long as there is noEuropean constitution, however, indicated that it is ratherunlikely that any institutional changes in the functioning of theEU external action will take place without a new Treaty.7

Since the future of the Constitutional Treaty is uncertain, ourstudy on Consolidating EU civilian crisis management has to be placedin the framework of existing treaties while examining if and how amore coherent and integrated approach to EU CCM could beachieved. The legal/institutional, financial and administrativeimpediments cannot be overcome without the amendments of theTEU, or in the case of some matters which are not directly regu-lated in the treaty, without inter-institutional agreements.

However, under the current treaty the Council and the Com-mission share responsibility for ensuring the consistency of theUnion’s external activities as a whole in the context of its externalrelations, security, economic and development policies and theyhave to cooperate to this end.8 This gives a legal basis for improv-ing the coherence between the various instruments in the interestof more effective EU action and realisation of the EU’s strategicobjectives. Secondly, EU political commitments such as the EUProgramme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts and the Civil-ian Headline Goal 2008 is a solid underpinning for improving co-operation between the two institutions at the working level andfor achieving a more integrated approach to lasting peace build-ing.

Although both institutional actors consider a better coordina-tion between ESDP and Community tools as an important factorthat increases the effectiveness of EU’s interventions in crisis situ-ations, the definition of the relationship between the differentinstruments remains problematic. Certain issues thus need to beclarified, e.g. which instrument or set of instruments is to be used

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Introduction

6. Rory Keane, ‘Does internal EUparalysis threaten external ac-tion?’, European Security Review,no. 26, June 2005.

7. Honor Mahoney, ‘EU diplo-matic service on hold’, EUOb-server, 13 September 2005.

8. Article 3(2) of Treaty on Euro-pean Union.

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in a given crisis situation and on what basis such a decision shouldbe taken? How can the potential added value of using one instru-ment in a specific crisis scenario be measured against the potentialadvantages of using another? How can the need for a more com-prehensive approach to civilian crisis management be balancedwith the need of attaining the EU’s strategic objectives? This Chail-lot Paper attempts to respond to some of the above- mentionedissues and explores ways of improving the synergy between the different EU instruments.

Overview of the Chaillot Paper

The first part of this Chaillot Paper consists of a comprehensiveoverview of the spectrum of EU instruments related to civilianaspects of crisis management. For the sake of clarity, we make a dis-tinction between Intergovernmental and Community Instru-ments and present them separately.

The first two chapters are devoted to the civilian crisis manage-ment instruments within ESDP. Chapter One explains the rea-sons behind the introduction of the civilian aspects of crisis man-agement into ESDP activities and the impact that the initialperception of CCM had on the process of the EU’s civilian capacitybuilding. The chapter focuses mainly on the conceptual andmethodological developments under ESDP and on the progressmade since the deployment of the first ESDP operation towards amore coherent and integrated approach to CCM.

Chapter Two reflects on the nature (characteristics) of ESDPoperations and on the comparative advantages of an interventionin the framework of the second pillar. Taking into account theadded value of the ESDP interventions in some crisis situations,the author emphasises the need for a strategic approach in the waythe EU’s operations are deployed. The chapter provides some keyelements that could guide the ESDP decision process.

Chapter Three explores the current state of play of the Com-munity instruments (in particular geographic and specialised sec-toral assistance) and provides illustrative examples of the activi-ties financed through these instruments. This overview allows theauthor to assess the principal strengths and weaknesses of theCommunity instruments.

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The second part focuses on the implementation of EU civilianinstruments on the ground. Two civilian operations terminated in2005 provide ample material for examining the implementation ofEU civilian missions at the operational level and allow the authorsto assess their role in the broader framework of Community instru-ments deployed in the respective countries. Chapter Four analysesthe EU Police Mission EUPOL Proxima in the FYROM in the con-text of EU pre-accession policy towards the Western Balkans.Chapter Five assesses the role of the first EU Rule of Law Mission –EUJUST Themis– to Georgia in relation to the Community Instru-ments deployed in the framework of European NeighbourhoodPolicy (ENP).

The third part of the study is devoted to the challenge of inter-nal coherence at the institutional level, with focus on both civil-civil co-ordination as well as civil-military co-ordination of EUinstruments. Chapter Six examines the issues of intra-pillar co-ordination between the Community and ESDP civilian instru-ments. It provides a comparative analysis of the decision-makingprocess, funding, planning, administration and implementationof the instruments within the first and second pillars. Through anexamination of these issues, the author questions the sustainabil-ity of the current institutional arrangements. Chapter Sevenaddresses the challenge of civil-military coordination in crisismanagement. Although the EU has not as yet deployed any trulymixed operation, the importance of civil-military cooperation isunderlined in the ESS and subsequent documents related to Euro-pean capacity building. Chapter Seven also presents the founda-tions for improvement of civil-military interaction in crisis man-agement that have been built at the strategic and planning leveland discusses the prospects for further strengthening of Civil-Mil-itary Coordination.

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Civilian crisis managementwithin ESDPAgnieszka Nowak

Introduction

Since January 2003 when the first ever ESDP operation – the PoliceMission in Bosnia and Herzegovina – was launched, the EU hasdeployed another fifteen civilian and military operations.1 Ten ofthese are of a civilian nature and they have been deployed not onlyin the Western Balkans but also in the Southern Caucasus, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia. The growingnumber of civilian operations, their larger geographical scope andthe various types of engagement they require, shows that the EUhas made faster operational progress in the ‘soft’ dimension of cri-sis management, than in the military one which initially was seen asa priority in the development of an EU crisis response. Furtherrequests for EU civilian involvement validate the importance ofthis dimension of crisis management now and in the future, butalso represent a new challenge for the EU.

While this operational progress confirms the EU’s ability to actand its potential as a security actor, the first ESDP mission inBosnia and Herzegovina was heavily criticised, just a few monthsbefore its termination,2 for an inappropriate and weak mandate, alack of inspiration and experience, and on the grounds that thepersonnel has not been up to the task as well as being ineffective inthe fight against organised crime.3 However, since EUPM as a firstESDP operation was conceived as a ‘learning-by-doing’ exercise,some of this criticism might have been expected, and even if themission has not yet attained its objectives, it has provided impor-tant lessons for future operations.

In this context, this chapter examines the EU approach to civil-ian crisis management (EU CCM) as it has been agreed and devel-oped within ESDP. The chapter starts by clarifying the variousmeanings of CCM at the EU level, but then focuses on EU civilianoperational capabilities within ESDP and analyses them as one ofthe EU instruments for crisis management.

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1. See Annex 1, pp.141-2.

2. On 31 December 2005 in ac-cordance with the provisions ofCouncil Joint Action2002/210/CFSP of 11 March2002, the EU Police Mission inBosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM)came to the end of its first threeyear mandate. EUPM’s mandatewas adjusted and extended for an-other 2 years as from 1 January2006 by Council Joint Action2005/824/CFSP of 24 November2005.

3. ‘Bosnia’s Stalled Police Reform:No progress, No EU’, Interna-tional Crisis Group, Report no.164, 6 September 2005, pp. 12-14; see also James Lyon, ‘EU’sBosnia police mission is “laughingstock”’, European Voice, 15-21 Sep-tember 2005.

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The chapter discusses the effectiveness of this tool not only inthe operational sense, but in the broader context of EU commit-ment to projecting stability and to building lasting peace outsideits borders while taking into account the fact that Europeancapacity building is not yet fully accomplished. EU civilian crisismanagement within ESDP is a process that started in 1999 andcontinues to be developed today in line with the Civilian HeadlineGoal (CHG) 2008 and therefore the evaluation of its developmentat this stage would hopefully help to better integrate this instru-ment into the overall EU crisis management machinery.

The meaning(s) of EU civilian crisis management

Although the expression ‘civilian crisis management’ (CCM) hasbeen commonly used since 1999 in many EU official documents,its meaning has not been clearly defined at the EU level and it seemsthat CCM still means different things to different people. The lackof a clear definition of EU CCM is to some extent a product of theunclear scope of civilian peacekeeping and peace-building activi-ties at the international level. More directly, the ambiguity of thisexpression is also related to the institutional split between the civil-ian instruments created under the first and second pillars and themore complicated issue of competence- sharing in the civilian areaof crisis management between the Council and the Commission.

‘Civilian crisis management’ was defined in one of the firstreports devoted to the issue as ‘the intervention by non-military per-sonnel in a crisis that may be violent or non-violent, with the intention ofpreventing a further escalation of the crisis and facilitating its resolu-tion’.4The same report underlined the fact that experts in this fieldusually draw a distinction between ‘conflict prevention’ and ‘crisismanagement,’ with the former generally being used to refer only to‘activities that take place before any hostilities have occurred’, whereas thelatter usually refers to ‘intervention only after violence has erupted’. Inaddition, the report recognised that ‘post-conflict peace building isseen as another means of preventing subsequent crises, and therefore fre-quently becomes part of CCM discussions as well’.5 The fact that CCMpotentially comprises multiple stages and multiple actors andthat there is no agreement on its definition has resulted in someconfusion over the definition of CCM at the EU level.6

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4. Chris Lindborg (reported by),‘European Approaches to CivilianCrisis Management’, BASIC SpecialReport, March 2002, p. 4.

5. Ibid.

6. ‘EU Crisis response Capability:Institutions and Processes forConflict prevention and Manage-ment’, International Crisis Group,Issues Report no. 226, June 2001(see Part I).

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Apart from the undefined scope of CCM, the vagueness of theexpression is a problem of language, as pointed out by otherexperts: ‘“Civilian crisis management”, as a term, is broad and dif-ficult to define. Potentially, it denotes any policy or instrumentdirected at the management of crisis that is not military policy ora military instrument (…) As a subject, civilian crisis managementis particular to the EU and has no equivalent parallel in the lexi-cons of UN, OSCE or non-European regional organisations.’7

For the purposes of clarity, the narrow meaning of EU CCMwill in this Chaillot Paper correspond to the civilian-operationalcapacities of the EU Member States that have been developed since1999 in parallel with the military aspects of crisis managementunder ESDP. These developments have been institutionally sepa-rated from the developments that have taken place under Com-munity external policies and which are discussed in Chapter Threeof this volume. EU civilian-operational capabilities and their coor-dination mechanism established under ESDP is indeed particularto the EU and has no equivalent in the other organisations.

EU CCM in the broad sense usually refers to all non-militaryinstruments or policies of the EU dedicated to crisis management.In fact, before CCM was formulated under ESDP in 1999, EU pol-icy-makers used the expression ‘non-military crisis management’to describe any EU civilian involvement in crisis management. Forexample, following the introduction of the ‘Petersberg tasks’ intothe Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Council of Cologne (June1999) invited the Council to carry out an in-depth discussion onall aspects of security, with the aim of enhancing and improvingthe coordination of the Union’s and Member States’ non-militarycrisis response tools. A Security Working Group (SWG) was taskedat the time to deal with this question and to draw up the list of allalready existing instruments at the Union level in cooperationwith the Council Secretariat and the Commission.8 The SWG presented a list of non-military crisis management tools whichhad been divided into three sections containing items that falleither under Community competence (under TEC) or under theCFSP (under TEU) and often under both.9 The first section listed‘The general frameworks and processes through which the Union may influ-ence third countries for the purpose of crisis prevention/management’,10the second ‘The activities and measures which the Union had carried in thefield of crisis prevention/management’11 and the third section

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7. Renata Dwan, ‘Civilian tasksand capabilities in EU opera-tions’, paper presented in Berlin,May 2004, p.1.

8. EU Doc., 11044/1/99 REV1,3 December 1999.

9. EU Doc., 11044/1/99 REV1,3 December 1999, Annex – Non-military instruments of crisis man-agement.

10. For example, EU membershipprospects, EU contractual rela-tionships, Regional cooperationand stability, EU market access,Financial assistance.

11. For example, EU diplomacyand EU/Member States participa-tion and coordination in interna-tional organisations, Early Warn-ing Mechanisms, fact-findingmissions, contribution to or par-ticipation in organisations, deal-ing with non-proliferation andarms destructions, Humanitarianassistance, support (financial andother) to electoral process, restor-ing government, peace process,multiracial process etc., promo-tion of human rights, Security in-stitutions building, the fightagainst terrorism, monitoring,sanctions, participation in struc-tures implementing peace agree-ments, anti-mine action, actionagainst proliferation of smallarms and light weapons, policetraining and monitoring, bordercontrol.

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enclosed ‘The Instruments and Institutions which the Union can use forcrisis management’.12 All the instruments enumerated in the docu-ment as non-military crisis management tools fit in the broadermeaning of civilian crisis management. They comprise the wholespectrum of instruments, policies and programmes at the EU’sdisposal that allow it to act in the pre-conflict, active conflict, andpost-conflict situations.13

CCM as a process of EU civilian capacity building

Rationale

The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999 endorsed theEU to start a process aimed at building the means and capabilitiesthat would allow it to take decisions on and carry out a full range ofcrisis management and conflict prevention tasks defined in theTreaty (Article 17.2) and known as the ‘Petersberg tasks’.

The process was initiated at the Cologne Council when guide-lines for all aspects of security were set.14 The decisions taken bythe EU at that time were strongly influenced by the developmentsin Kosovo. The EU Member States realized that they were militar-ily unable to stop the violence there, which led them give a highpriority to military capacity building. Secondly, the difficulty inthe aftermath of NATO-led intervention in deploying a sufficientnumber of police personnel within UNMIK15 led the Europeanstates to also include the enhancement and better coordination ofthe Union’s and the Member States’ non-military crisis responsetools into the guidelines set at Cologne. At this initial stage, themain motivation of non-military crisis management within ESDPwas therefore to co-ordinate the resources of EU Member States inorder to be able to respond more rapidly and more effectively toemerging crisis situations.16 The work started with making inven-tories of the civilian tools available to the Union17 and to MemberStates.18 The inventories showed that both the EU and its MemberStates have accumulated considerable experience or have consid-erable resources in a number of areas such as civilian police,humanitarian assistance, administrative and legal rehabilitation,search and rescue and electoral and human rights monitoring.Building on the guidelines set out by the Cologne Council, the

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12. For example, the Presidency,Secretary General/High Repre-sentative, Commission, SpecialRepresentatives and Heads ofMissions.

13. A similar understanding of EUcivilian crisis management wasadopted and presented by theCommission in a document pre-pared in 2003 by the Conflict Pre-vention and Crisis ManagementUnit and entitled ‘EU instrumentsfor civilian aspects of crisis man-agement’ (http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/cpcm/cm.htm).

14. Cologne European Council,Annexes to the Presidency Conclu-sions, Annex III – European Coun-cil Declaration on Strengtheningthe Common European Policy onSecurity and Defence.

15. Initially 3,110 police officershave been approved for UNMIK.UN Secretary-General, Kofi An-nan, on 26 October 1999 recom-mended that the Security Councilincrease the strength of the UN-MIK police force by more than1,600 officers, after receiving arecommendation from BernardKouchner that the force should besignificantly increased. Kofi An-nan urged the Council to increasethe force strength to 4,718 (in-cluding 1,100 special police) toensure that UNMIK had a policeservice that could enforce andmaintain civil order. By early 2000less than 2,000 police officers hadbeen deployed and full strengthwas achieved only by the end ofthe year (See http://www.civpol.org/unmik/).

16. Helsinki European Council,10 and 11 December 1999, Presi-dency Conclusions, Annex 2 toAnnex 4 – Report on Non-MilitaryCrisis Management of the Euro-pean Union.

17. EU Doc., 11044/99 REV 1 of 3December 1999, Annex - Non-military instruments of crisis man-agement.

18. EU Doc.,12323/99 of 24 No-vember 1999, Non-military crisisresponse instruments available inEU Member States.

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Helsinki Council adopted an Action Plan for non-military crisis man-agement of the EU and established a mechanism at the Council Sec-retariat to coordinate a regular update of the inventories, to run adatabase project and identify the weaknesses and strong points ofthe various civilian means and resources. The Helsinki Action Planunderlined three aims of CCM:(1) strengthening of the synergy and responsiveness of national, col-

lective and NGO resources in order to avoid duplication andimprove performance, while maintaining the flexibility of eachcontributor to decide on the deployment of assets and capabili-ties in a particular crisis;

(2) enhancing and facilitating the EU’s contributions to, and activi-ties within other organisations such as the UN and the OSCEwhenever one of them is the lead organisation in a particular cri-sis, as well as EU autonomous actions;

(3) ensuring inter-pillar coherence.

Four priority areas

According to the Action Plan, a study on the previous experiencesof EU Member States was carried out during the Portuguese Presi-dency. This study identified for the first time the four priority areas(police, rule of law, Civilian Administration and Civil Protection)which were later approved by the Feira European Council in June2000.19 Since then the EU has focused on developing advisory,training and monitoring capacities within the four areas, as well asexecutive tasks, however without excluding the use of other toolsavailable to the Union and to its Member States.

The development of civilian and military capabilities withinESDP both followed a similar method with priority given to rapidreaction response. The capability-building started by setting quan-titative targets and holding pledging conferences where MemberStates committed a specific number of relevant national experts. Itwas only after this process was started that the EU defined the pur-pose of the capabilities. As mentioned above, the beginning of theprocess to build a ‘reactive’ approach was mainly influenced by theKosovo experience. In particular, the difficulties of the Europeanstates in providing a rapidly deployable civil police to serve underUN mandate impacted directly on the way in which the EUapproached the development of its civilian capabilities.

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19. Feira European Council, 19-20 June 2000, Presidency Conclu-sions.

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Civilian Police

The Civilian Police has assumed a leading role in improving EU cri-sis response capabilities. The European Council in Feira identifiedconcrete targets for the police: 5,000 police officers available forinternational police missions, with a 1,000 of them deployablewithin 30 days.20 One year later a Police Action Plan was adoptedat the Gothenburg Council with priority on developing and plan-ning of the conduct of police operations at the politico-strategiclevel, including development of the ability to rapidly set up opera-tional headquarters and possible assembly of Integrated PoliceUnits (IPUs). These specialised units were first defined at theEuropean Councils of Feira as ‘robust, rapidly deployable, flexible andinteroperable forces, capable of performing executive tasks in order to re-establish law and order in non-stabilised situations’. The use of IPUs isenvisaged in particular for targeted interventions in the countrieswhere public security problems and weak institutions could makea purely civilian (non-executive) intervention too risky. The firstPolice Capabilities Conference took place at the ministerial levelon 19 November 2001 at which national commitments to meetthe police capability goals were consolidated. A number of con-cept documents were elaborated within the Council Secretariat onpotential operations scenarios (strengthening or substitution oflocal police), command and control in police operations, interop-erability of IPUs and operational headquarters as well as on train-ing and equipment requirements.21

In addition to the developments of IPUs within ESDP, five EUMember States that at the national level already disposed of somespecialised police forces (police with military status) also knownas Gendarmerie-type corps,22 decided in 2004 to make their spe-cialised units available to the EU by creating a new European Gen-darmerie Force (EGF or Eurogendfor).23 Eurogendfor is conceivedas a complementary tool within the civilian crisis managementcapacities of the EU or more precisely as a multinational unit avail-able for ESDP operations. EGF has a permanent HQ situated inVincenza, Italy, and an initial rapid reaction force of 800 mendeployable within a maximum of 30 days. Eurogendfor is sup-posed to be deployed during or immediately after a military oper-ation proper, with the task of maintaining order in unstable situa-tions, liaising between military and police forces, and interveningpromptly in complex contingencies. The tasks of EGF could also

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20. Ibid., Appendix 4 to Annex I ofthe Presidency Conclusions.

21. EU Doc., 133307/01, 26 Oc-tober 2001 — Standardisationand Interoperability, 13308/01,26 October 2001, Guidelines forTraining and Selection Criteriafor Personnel in EU Police Mis-sions, 8655/1/02 REV1 (Re-straint), 8 May 2002, Compre-hensive Concept for PoliceSubstitution Missions,11839/1/02 REV1, 8 November2002, Discussion paper onArrangements for CommonEquipment for EU Police Opera-tions, 8009/03, 2 April 2003, In-teroperability of Integrated Po-lice Units and PoliceHeadquarters.

22. France — Gendarmerie Na-tionale, Italy — Arma dei Carabinieri,Spain — Guardia Civil, The Nether-lands— Marechausseeand PortugalGuarda Nacional Repubblicana.

23. Declaration of Intent, Noord-wijk, The Netherlands, September2004. This initiative was wel-comed by the EU Member Statesin the Declaration of EU Chiefs ofPolice following the meeting onpolice aspects in the ESDP frame-work, Warnsveld, the Nether-lands, 25 October 2004.

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include support to civilian police in the fight against organisedcrime and protection of civilian missions officials.24 EGF has beenoperational since 2005 but has until today not been deployedunder the EU flag.

Rule of law

In addition to adopting the Police Action Plan, the GothenburgEuropean Council also identified concrete targets in the areas ofrule of law, civilian administration and civilian protection. Thestrengthening of rule of law was the next priority area where a tar-get of 200 experts was set. A substitution and support role for rule-of-law missions were recognised as potentially being an area wherethe EU could provide added value to the international commu-nity’s contribution in crisis management. The experience of theBalkans and Kosovo showed that the substitution measures are ini-tially needed to replace failing or non-existing state structures,focusing primarily on law and order and the penal system. Substi-tution measures mean deploying international personnel such aslawyers, policemen and prison staff to ensure that fundamentalprinciples of the rule of law are implemented. In the longer term,training activities are required since a local legal system sooner orlater has to be restored.25 In this context, continuity between emer-gency intervention and longer-term actions should also beensured.

A Rule of Law Commitment Conference was held in Brussels inMay 2002 in order to put together the voluntary national commit-ments. The EU Member States committed up to 282 officials, 60of whom are committed to rapid deployment within 30 days.26 Ageneric concept for missions in the field of rule of law was elabo-rated within the Council Secretariat.27 The concept makes a dis-tinction between strengthening the rule of law, i.e. to educate,train, monitor and to give advice with the aim of bringing the locallegal system up to international standards, and substitution forthe local judiciary/legal system, i.e. carrying out executive func-tions, notably where local structures are failing or inexistent inorder to consolidate the rule of law in a crisis situation and therebyrestoring public order and security.

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24. www.eurogendfor.org

25. EU Doc., 13141/00, 9 No-vember 2000, Record of the semi-nar held on 25 October 2000 onstrengthening the rule of law in thecontext of crisis management.

26. EU Doc., 8978/02, 17 May2002, Rule of Law CommitmentConference Declaration.

27. EU Doc., 9792/03, 26 May2003, Comprehensive EU Con-cept for missions in the field of ruleof law in crisis management, in-cluding annexes.

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Civilian administration

The social, ethnic, cultural, economic and political complexity ofinterventions such as that in Kosovo requires coordinated actionnot only by supporting the police and the justice system but alsothe local administration. The targets set in Gothenburg in the areaof civilian administration were not as precise as those set for policeand the rule of law. The EU Member States committed to voluntar-ily provide a pool of experts for quick deployment in a crisis situa-tion, capable of covering a broad spectrum of tasks such as regis-tration of property, elections and taxation, social and medicalservices and infrastructure functions. Some guidelines for civilianadministration missions have been developed with the emphasison setting up or ensuring the existence of a functional administra-tive framework while promoting transition to local ownership asearly as possible.28 Transitory administration that could be pro-vided by the EU was defined in the guidelines as a set of bodies,back-up units, agents or functional authorities established withinthe framework of a crisis management operation in order toassume on a temporary basis the management and performanceof the usual administrative tasks. This kind of mission can be setup following a mandate from the UN Security Council or at therequest of the local authorities.

Civil protection

Some Member States have questioned whether civil protectionshould become a separate area of civilian crisis management, argu-ing that it could be included into civil administration capabilities.The Commission also opposed the development of this area underESDP, arguing that civil protection is in some cases closely link tohumanitarian assistance and therefore should not depend onpolitical decisions but be provided neutrally and on a needs basis.

Despite this resistance, the targets in this priority area were setin 200129 and met by 2002.30 The Member States declared two tothree assessment and/or coordination teams of ten experts capa-ble of dispatching within 3-7 hours, as well as intervention teamsof 2,000 personnel and some specialised services to be dispatchedwithin a week. Within this priority area it was also envisaged thatthe civil protection mechanisms developed for protection and rescue tasks at the national level could be adapted to provide assistance during and after a crisis to humanitarian aid actors, for

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28. EU Doc., 9282/02, 28 May2002, Basic Guidelines for CrisisManagement Missions in the fieldof Civil Administration.

29. EU Doc., 7173/01, 15 March2001, Concrete targets for CivilProtection in Crisis Management.

30. EU Doc., 10882/1/02, 16September 2002, Civil Protectionin the Framework of crisis man-agement – draft concept.

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instance by covering the immediate survival and protection needsof the affected populations.

In January 2002, a few months after the Council set ESDP tar-gets in this area, a Community Civilian Protection Mechanismwas established based on a Council decision.31 This mechanismcan be used as a civilian protection tool within the Union, as wellas for external missions of EC humanitarian aid and is financedfrom the EC humanitarian budget (for more details see ChapterThree). The solution that was adopted within the context of crisismanagement is that the Council can choose between two types ofcivilian protection assets. It can decide an intervention exclusivelyunder the second pillar using Member States’ assets indicated tothe Council’s Co-ordination Mechanism for Civilian Aspects ofCrisis Management or activate the Community mechanism tofacilitate the reinforced co-operation in Civil Protection assis-tance interventions.32

Creation of the civilian structures for CCM within the CouncilSecretariat

Apart from the Co-ordination Mechanism set up at the HelsinkiEuropean Council with the purpose of synchronising EU MemberStates’ resources and management of civilian capabilities database,the Council also decided to create a Committee for Civilian Aspectsof Crisis Management (CIVCOM).33 Since its establishment in May2000 CIVCOM has been responsible for developing strategies forcivilian priority areas as well as overseeing the management of civil-ian operations. The Committee is composed of national representa-tives plus officials from the Commission and Council Secretariatand helps to ensure a higher degree of inter-pillar coherence in thecivilian aspects of EU crisis management and promotes improve-ments in the crisis response capabilities of the EU. CIVCOM is part ofthe mechanism for the exchange of information and co-ordinationbetween the Union and the Member States to facilitate rapid reac-tion. CIVCOM helps the Political and Security Committee (PSC) andother appropriate Council bodies to acquire a comprehensive view ofthe means available to the EU and to Member States, but its role ismainly of an advisory character. CIVCOM formulates recommenda-tions to the PSC that according to Article 25 of TEU has a central roleto play in the definition of and follow-up of the EU’s response to a cri-sis (for the ESDP decision-making process see Chapter Six).34

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31. EU Doc., 10976/01, 26 Sep-tember 2001, Council Decisionestablishing a Community mech-anism to facilitate reinforced co-operation in Civil Protection assis-tance interventions.

32. EU Doc., 10160/2/02, AnnexIII of the Presidency ESDP Reportto the Seville European Council.

33. EU Doc., 2000/354/CFSP,Council Decision of 22 May 2000setting up CIVCOM and Doc.8598/00 guidelines for the workof the Committee.

34. EU Doc., 2001/78/CFSP,Council Decision of 22 January2001 setting up the Political andSecurity Council.

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From concepts to action

Simultaneously to the conceptual work on the four priority areas,the EU has been developing the operational aspects of crisis man-agement. At Nice and Gothenburg, the European Council under-took to make the Union quickly operational under ESDP and totake a decision to that end no later than at the European Council inLaeken (December 2001). In accordance with this commitment,the European Council agreed by the end of 2001 that: ‘through thecontinuing development of ESDP, the strengthening of its capabilities, bothcivil and military, and the creation of the appropriate structures, the EU isnow able to conduct some crisis-management operations. The Union will beable to take on progressively more demanding operations, as the assets andcapabilities at its disposal continue to develop’.35

A year later, a Civilian Crisis Management Capability Confer-ence at the Ministerial Level met (during the Danish Presidency) inBrussels in November 2002 and confirmed that the targets set atFeira and Gothenburg had been exceeded through MemberStates’ voluntary commitments. Following the Laeken declara-tion on the ESDP’s operational capability, during the SpanishPresidency the Union took the decision to establish the first ESDPcrisis management operation – the EU Police Mission in Bosniaand Herzegovina (EUPM).36 Planning for the EUPM started inearly 2002 and drew to some extent from the police concept docu-ments mentioned previously, although the generic EU crisis man-agement concept (a document drawn up principally by the EUMilitary Staff) provided the main guide.37

These developments and the launch of the first EU civilianoperation suggested that the progress made between 1999 and2003 was swift. Moreover, the deployment of EUPM was crucialfor gaining some EU know-how in mission planning, deploymentand organisation. EUPM seemed also to be the first operationwhich was not an ad hoc construction, but rather a planned learn-ing-by-doing experience.

The first lessons learned

The first review of the mission in B-H was put together by the Gen-eral Secretariat of the Council in 2003. The assessment of the plan-ning and launch of the EUPM showed several shortcomings in theway the EU was approaching civilian crisis management.38 These‘in-house’ assessments were primarily focused on the operational

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35. European Council in Laeken,14 and 15 December 2001, An-nexes to the Presidency Conclu-sions, Annex II, Declaration on theOperational Capability of theCommon European Security anddDefence Policy.

36. EU Doc., Council Joint Action2002/2107/CFSP, 11 March2002

37. EU Doc. 1562501/03, 2 De-cember 2003, Progress Report onCivilian Aspects of Crisis Manage-ment.

38. EU Doc. 11206/03, 29 April2003, Joint Paper: ‘Lessons fromthe planning of the EUPM Missionin Bosnia and Herzegovina(EUPM)’, Autumn 2001-Decem-ber 2002, EU Doc. 12269/03,5 September 2003, ‘A Review ofthe first 100 days of the EU PoliceMission in Bosnia and Herzegov-ina (EUPM)’.

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aspects of the mission’s planning and deployment and aimed inthe first place at improving the functioning of the missions. Con-sidering the particular character of EUPM – taking over from theInternational Police Task Force/UNMIBH – not all the lessons arerelevant to future civilian operations, though many of them maybe.

The reviews pointed out that the EUPM experience demon-strated the importance of flexibility with regard to crisis manage-ment procedures and concepts. EUPM planning did not follow allaspects of crisis management procedures elaborated in various EUconcept papers. One of the recommendations was that genericplanning and concept papers should aim to provide guidance,rather than impediments to planning.

Another lesson was that the fact-finding missions (FFM) arecrucial to planning. In the case that FFM have to be carried outunder restricted time frames, flexible mechanisms for reviewingplanning estimates and regular updates of planning figuresshould be explored. The possibility of two Joint Actions was alsosuggested, one to enable mission planning to start and it was sug-gested that a second to formally establish the mission on the basisof detailed figures be explored in the future.

The reports suggested that consideration could be given,within the civilian personnel databases established separately fordifferent priority areas, to creating pools of experts that could beused to form mission planning teams. Training for the EU missionplanning teams was also suggested. Since the mission force gener-ation is predicated on pre-selection by contributing States, thereview suggested that the sending States should ensure that theircandidates have the skills and experience required by the missionin question.

The experience from the first mission deployment also showedthat the administrative aspects of an operation were of equalimportance as the more visible operational aspects. The crucialneed to establish an administrative structure to perform procure-ment procedures within a strict time-line was considered a key ele-ment prior to any launch of an operation.39

The internal reviews represent a useful exercise in the process ofgradually improving operational aspects of ESDP civilian mis-sions. However, since they are mainly oriented towards opera-tional effectiveness, they need to be complemented by the externalevaluations which should help the EU to put its civilian opera-

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39. Ibid.

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tions in the context of long-term peace-building processes andanalyse the structural challenges faced by EU operations on theground.

The external assessments of the EUPM highlighted some seri-ous limitations in the running of the operation during the lastthree years.40 EUPM was tasked to oversee police reform in Bosniaand this reform represented one of the preconditions to be met byBosnia in order to begin negotiations with the EU on the Stabili-sation and Association Agreement (SAA). The International CrisisGroup (ICG) devoted a report to this issues in September 2005 inwhich it argued that the EU, being keen to score an early successfor its nascent ESDP, underestimated both the size and complex-ity of the task in Bosnia.41 The country needed substantive policereform since during the 1992-1995 war the police were a keyinstrument for ethnic cleansing, particularly in Republika Srpska(RS). After the Dayton Agreement the police were divided intothree highly politicised Bosniak, Croat and Serb forces with sepa-rate jurisdictions. The first two have since then been consolidated,but RS was refusing to reform its structures and to be integratedwith the other forces.42 Only recently, and after the progresstowards EU membership made by Serbia and Croatia, the parlia-ment of RS (the Bosnian Serb parliament) adopted the EU-pro-posed police law necessary for Bosnia to start official preliminarySAA talks with Brussels.43 Considering the previous situation, theEUPM mandate – monitoring, mentoring and inspecting themanagement and operational capacities of Bosnia’s Police –aimed at ensuring that the Bosnian police would by the end of2005 have become a professional, politically neutral and ethni-cally balanced law-enforcement system, was judged by the ICG asweak and premature. Some EUPM officials agreed with the ICGthat the first mandate was not working and would only have beensuitable in perhaps five years time.44 According to the ICG, arelated problem was the EUPM personnel. Reform of policethrough co-location at medium and senior level positions was ademanding task for which EUPM police officers lacked experi-ence, and the EU did not include a sufficient number of civilianexperts for public administration tasks.

In the same year, drawing on the experience derived from thesetting up and first months of EUPM, the second EU police oper-ation Proxima was deployed in the FYROM in mid-December.While the overall commitment of the EU towards the Western

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40. International Crisis Group ad-dressed EUPM shortcomings inReport no. 160, ‘EU Crisis Re-sponse Capability Revised’,17 January 2005, pp. 50-51.

41. ‘Bosnia’s Stalled Police Re-form: No progress, No EU’, Inter-national Crisis Group, Report no.164, 6 September 2005, pp. 12-14.

42. Ibid., Executive summary.

43. Mark Beunderman, ‘Bosniaset to follow Croats and Serbs onEU track’, EUobserver, 6 October2005.

44. James Lyon, ‘EU’s Bosnia po-lice mission is “laughing stock”’,European Voice, 15-21 September2005.

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Balkans countries remained the same – to contribute to the post-hostility stabilisation process of the region – the aim of the EUpresence in the FYROM was quite different from that of EUPM inB-H. The mission was expected to support the Government’spolice reform and therefore presented a new challenge for the EUcapacities within ESDP. (Chapter Four of this volume evaluatesEupol Proxima.)

In another article devoted to the structural challenges con-fronting EU policing in the field, Merlingen and Ostrauskaiteargue that, based on the analyses of EUPM in B-H and Eupol Prox-ima in the FYROM, EU policing suffers from a series of conceptualshortcomings.45 The authors query the ‘co-location’ techniquethrough which EU missions seek to effect the police reforms aswell as the formula of ‘best European practice’ used as the under-pinning of the missions’ mandates. For instance, the article raisesdoubts about the extent to which the EU’s focus on ‘improving’police managers improves the relationship between street-levelofficers and citizens. It also raise the questions about what stan-dards and norms should guide transitional policing and who hasthe power to define them. The authors believe that the formula of‘best European practice’ that was used in both the EUPM and Prox-ima is insufficient to deal with the challenge of ‘how to articulateEuropeanizing reforms to particularizing circumstances’.

The first experience has shown some shortcomings in themethodology of increasing civilian capabilities. The four priorityareas that have been conceived of and negotiated separately repre-sented limited thinking about what was actually required. The EUneeded to build civilian capabilities as part of a continuum ofinterdependent tasks. For example, it was difficult for a policemission to function without a functioning law and police reform.As is argued below, it was acknowledged gradually that what wasrequired was a much more integrated approach that establishesthe rule of law as the framework within which the police, judicialand penal experts could operate, alongside civil administratorsand human rights experts. 46

A new approach was soon adopted allowing the EU to bringtogether different components depending on the tasks as identi-fied on a case-by-case basis by a mixed assessment team. The scopeof the mandate depends considerably on fact-finding missionsand their evaluation reports, therefore more attention was givento the preliminary stage of the operations. The lack of appropriate

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45. Michael Merlingen and RasaOstrauskaite, ‘ESDP Police Mis-sions, Meaning, Context and Op-erational Challenges’, EuropeanForeign Affairs Review, 10: 215-235,2005.

46. Renata Dwan, ‘Capabilities inthe Civilian Field, The EuropeanUnion Security Strategy: Coher-ence and Capabilities’, Presenta-tion at the Seminar, Swedish Insti-tute of International Affairs,Stockholm, 20 October 2003.

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experienced civilian personnel was recognised as a serious prob-lem. Although the civilian capability targets were achieved or evenexceeded by the end of 2002, the quality of civilian personnelneeded to be improved by more demanding selection criteria andtraining.

A second problem was of a conceptual nature and linked to theway in which civilian capabilities were conceived: to back up mili-tary capabilities and help to ‘restore civil governments after crisis’.This was a limited perception of the civilian capabilities role. In thebroader meaning of CCM, civilian capabilities of the EU are farmore than post-crisis tools and they potentially need to be used inall phases of crisis management and in a more pro-active way.There was a clear need to link short-term civilian intervention withlong-term reform processes. The structural challenges on theground have shown the EU needs to better adapt its mission man-dates to particular circumstances which may vary considerablywhile going far beyond EU borders.

Four priority areas plus

The Council Secretariat continued to conceptually develop thefour priority areas47 (separately) during 2003, and at the request ofPSC worked on the concept and wider use of monitoring missions.The work was partly based on the lessons learned from the EC/EUMonitoring Mission while also taking into account that the mis-sion was time and location specific to the crisis in the WesternBalkans.48 The purpose was to develop a broader monitoringcapacity and include also experience from the setting-up ofEUPM. The EU concept for monitoring missions was endorsed bythe PSC on 27 May 2003.49 This document referred to ‘monitoringmissions’ as a generic tool which could be used in all differentphases of crisis management and ‘consists of a mission whose primaryactivity is to observe, monitor and report to the sending organisation on thegeneral and security situation in the host country or in relation to specificagreement’. Other potential activities include: contribution in con-fidence building, low-level conflict resolution and de-escalationassistance, border monitoring, monitoring of refugee returns,human rights monitoring and monitoring of disarmament anddemobilisation or rule-of-law issues. The document distinguishesbetween ‘monitoring missions’ and ‘monitoring’ which refers tothe working methodology and may be applied in a wide range of

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47. EU Doc. 9792/03, 26 May2003, Comprehensive EU con-cept for missions in the field of ruleof law in crisis management, EUdoc. 15311/03, 25 November2003, EU Concept for Crisis Man-agement Missions in the field ofCivilian Administration, EU Doc.,9218/03, 22 May 2003, DraftConcept for EU Monitoring mis-sions.

48. European Community Moni-toring Mission (ECMM) in theWestern Balkans was establishedin 1991, after the adoption by theCouncil of the Euroepean Unionon the 22 December 2000 ofJoint Action 2000/811/CFSPECMM was transformed into Eu-ropean Union Monitoring Mis-sion (EUMM).

49. EU Doc., 14536/03, 28 Oc-tober 2003, Concept for EUMonitoring Missions.

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different ESDP missions. For instance, monitoring of local policewas one of the tasks of the EUPM in Bosnia, but the EUPM itselfwas not a monitoring mission. While the monitoring missions canvary depending on their activities, they are distinct from otheroperations because they lack coercive capacity, do not have inspec-tion authority and are not involved in implementing pro-grammes. They are also characterised by their objective (impartial)stance and are reactive rather than pro-active.50

Towards a more integrated and coherent approach

The lessons learned from the planning and deployment of EUPMinfluenced considerably the future developments of civilian crisismanagement under ESDP. This has been demonstrated in thecommitments that the EU has undertaken during 2004.

Action Plan for Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management

A new Action Plan elaborated in line with the European SecurityStrategy was approved by the Council in June 2004.51 In the sec-tion: ‘Ambition for the future — Horizontal and IntegratedApproach’ the plan highlighted that: ‘the EU should become moreambitious in the goals which it sets in civilian crisis management and morecapable in delivering upon them. To do so it must draw on the full range of itspotential responses (Community, CFSP/ESDP, Member States), selectingamongst them so as to best achieve the objective of peace, stability and devel-opment in regions and countries in conflict.’

The Council underlined that future EU operations should bemore comprehensive, flexible and adaptable to the needs of spe-cific situations. It was decided that in addition to its existing capa-bilities the EU also needs to develop its capacity to deploy thepools of experts that are presented in the action plan as ‘multifunc-tional civilian crisis management resources in an integrated format’.Deployment of these so-called ‘packages’ means that the size,composition and precise functions of each of them will varyaccording to the specific needs. Beyond being categorised accord-ing to pre-existing areas, each civilian mission should be able torespond with the expertise required to meet the challenge of eachunique crisis situation.

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50. Ibid.

51. EU Doc., Action Plan for Civil-ian Aspects of ESDP, adopted byEuropean Council, 17-18 June2004.

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In order to better reflect the multifaceted challenges, the Coun-cil recognised that it is necessary to broaden the range of expertiseto fields such as human rights, political affairs, security sectorreform (SSR), mediation, border control; disarmament, demobili-sation and reintegration (DDR) and media policy. The action planindicated that the EU should identify experts in these fields to beincorporated into future civilian crisis management missions andin the meantime the EU further developed its capacity to conductmonitoring missions.

The Council also addressed coherence and complementarityissues between all EU instruments. The Action Plan emphasizedthat it is essential that the EU’s political objectives are clearly iden-tified in any given crisis management situation. This will help theEU to maximise the effectiveness of its combined capacities.Although the Action Plan was devoted to civilian aspects of crisismanagement the EU also committed to strengthen the synergiesbetween its civilian and military crisis management instrumentsboth with regard to the development of generic concepts and toolsas well as the planning and conduct of operations.

Civilian Personnel: quantity versus quality

Secondly, the Ministerial Declaration issued in November2004 on the occasion of the Civilian Capabilities CommitmentConference confirmed that a comprehensive review of the civiliancapabilities had taken place in line with what was proposed by theAction Plan. The Conference confirmed that Member States vol-untarily committed 5,761 personnel in the area of police, 631 forrule of law, 562 for civilian administration and 4,988 for civil pro-tection. Despite the fact that these commitments exceeded thepreviously set targets, the ministers stressed the importance of realavailability and deployability of the committed personnel and theright level of skills and experience. The monitoring and genericsupport capabilities were further identified, with 505 monitorsand 391 experts committed in such areas as human rights, politi-cal affairs, gender and SSR. The declaration reaffirmed that theEU should develop its capacity to deploy ‘multifunctional civiliancrisis management resources in an integrated format’ and speci-fied a range of modalities for setting up and deploying such capac-ities, including rapidly deployable Civilian Crisis Response teams.

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In order to improve the skills of civilian personnel, training oncivilian aspects of crisis management was included into EU Train-ing Policy in ESDP approved by the Council in November 2003.During 2004 the Concept and the Programme for EU Training inESDP were elaborated.52 However the implementation of the civil-ian training will probably start only in 2006. In 2005 the EU hasbeen seeking to prepare a list of civilian capability requirements inquantitative and qualitative terms. The actual training coursesshould be incorporated into the Training Programme for ESDP in2006.53

Civilian Headline Goal 2008

In addition to the adoption of the Action Plan, the EuropeanCouncil decided in June 2004 to set a Headline Goal for civilian cri-sis management. In December, the Civilian Headline Goal (CHG)was endorsed by the following Council with the objectives thatshould be met by 2008. The CHG reaffirms the important shifttowards a more integrated and coherent approach by underliningthat: a coherent use of Community and civilian ESDP instrumentsis of key importance for qualitative improvement of the EU’s capac-ity to act.54 However, the concrete objectives of CHG are mostly ori-ented at improving intra-pillar coherence and operational capabil-ities within ESDP: e.g. in addition to the four priority areas agreedat Feira the CHG includes the ability to conduct various types ofmonitoring missions, providing support to Special Representa-tives of the EU and contribution to activities such as SSR and sup-port DDR processes. The CHG also states that the EU should beable to act before a crisis occurs through preventive activities. Itreaffirms that the EU will seek to deploy integrated CCM packagesthat respond to the specific needs on the ground. Considering theincreasing demand for EU civilian operations another objectivefixed by the CHG is to achieve the ability to conduct concurrentcivilian missions at different levels of engagement. The core of EUMember States’ effort should thus be to improve the sustainabilityand quality of the personnel. Similarly, the improvement of rapidreaction response, coordination with the military capabilities andcoherence between the Council and the Commission were high-lighted.

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52. EU. Doc, 11970/04, 30 Au-gust 2004, Draft EU Training Con-cept and EU Doc. 15959/04, De-cember 2004, Draft EU TrainingProgramme in ESDP.

53. EU Doc., 7774/2/05 REV2,14 April 2005, ‘Implementationof the EU Training Concept inESDP – Draft Analysis of Training’,pp. 8-11.

54. EU Doc. 15863/04, 7 Decem-ber 2004, ‘Civilian Headline Goal2008’.

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During 2005, in the implementation process of the CHG, thepriority was given to the development of rapidly-deployable capa-bilities of so-called Civilian Response Teams (CRTs).55 The Gen-eral Secretariat of the Council was tasked to develop a range ofmodalities for setting up and deploying the ‘packages’ of experts.In June 2005 a document presenting the objectives of CRTs was setup and the tasks of CRTs were envisaged in three areas: (a) assessment and fact-finding missions in a crisis or impending

crisis situation; (b) rapid initial operational presence in the field after a Joint Action

is adopted by the Council and support to the entry into opera-tion of a CCM mission;

(c) reinforcement of existing EU mechanisms for crisis manage-ment at the country and regional level in response to urgent anddistinct needs, notably under the auspices of an EUSR func-tion.56

CRTs concept papers concerning the implementation of CRTs,generic terms of reference and training were further developed inthe second half of the year.57

In 2005 an important first step was taken on the way to developa comprehensive EU concept for Security Sector Reform (SSR).The European Security Strategy recognised that SSR plays animportant role in serving the EU’s strategic objectives as well ascontributing to the prevention of violent conflicts. Since the SSRrepresents one of the cross-pillar areas where both the Council andthe Commission have some competencies, the preparation of anoverall SSR concept requires the involvement and co-operation ofboth institutions. During 2005 both institutions were developingseparate SSR concepts covering their respective competencies thatonly at a later stage will be brought together in order to elaboratean overall EU strategy in support of SSR. While the concepts weredeveloped in close consultation between the two institutions, thisprocedure is a sign of persisting difficulties in inter-pillar co-oper-ation.58

On the side of the Council, in July 2005 the General Secretariatpresented a document to the Political and Security Committee(PSC) on ‘Initial Elements for an EU SSR concept’.59 Subse-quently, the Secretariat was tasked by the PSC to develop a draftconcept for ESDP support to SSR. At the same time, the Commis-sion was working on an SSR concept covering first pillar actives.

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55. EU Doc. 5462/05, 18 January2005, ‘Civilian Headline Goal2008 – Proposals by the CouncilSecretariat on the management ofthe process during 2005’.

56. EU Doc., 10462/05, 23 June2005, Multifunctional CivilianCrisis Management Resources inIntegrated Format – Civilian Re-sponse Teams.

57. EU Doc. 12825/05 of 3 Octo-ber 2005, Towards CRT imple-mentation, 15406/05 of 5 De-cember 2005 CRT Generic Termsof Reference, 15740/05 of 13 No-vember 2005, CRT Training Con-cept.

58. Saferworld, ‘Developing acommon security sector reformstrategy for the EU’, 28 November2005, seminar organised by theUK Presidency of the EU in con-junction with the European Com-mission, Saferworld and Interna-tional Alert. Post-Seminar paper,January 2006.

59. EU Doc. 11241/05 of 15 July2005, Initial elements for an EUSecurity Sector Reform (SSR) con-cept.

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The ESDP concept paper presented in December intends to com-plement existing concepts in the areas of rule of law and CivilianAdministration and provide a definition of Security Sector and anoverview of potential ESDP contribution in support of SSR.60

The Action Plan 2004, the elaboration of new objectives inCHG 2008 and the process of their implementation initiated in2005 clearly indicate that the EU has learned a lesson from itsoperational experience. The extension of EU civilian expertisebeyond the four priority areas, new assessments of the quantita-tive and qualitative requirements for civilian personnel, the cre-ation of modular and multifunctional packages of experts thatcould be adapted to specific operational needs, the enhancementof the quality of assessment and fact-finding missions and therapid deployment through CRTs demonstrates that the EU hasundertaken an important methodological step in the way itapproaches its missions’ preparation and deployment. However,the implementation process of CHG 2008 only started in 2005and the new integrated and more flexible EU response conceptsneed to be institutionalised and tested on the ground.61

A more active and more capable EU

In 2004, in parallel to the elaboration of the new methods in civil-ian capacity building, the EU launched a number of civilian opera-tions, implementing the new concepts on the ground. When theEU Police Missions in B-H and in the FYROM were still on theground, a further extension of EU expertise in the new areas such asrule of law and some aspects of SSR and DDR were already beingpractised.

Between July 2004 and July 2005 the first rule-of-law mission –EUJUST THEMIS – was deployed in Georgia.62 The mission’sobjective was to reform the criminal justice system and improvelegislative procedures. In October 2004, the EU decided to launcha Police Mission in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) with the main objective of setting up an Integrated PoliceUnit (IPU) as part of a country-wide policing force. The police-training project was agreed in December 200463 and it provided acontinuation of the mission previously conducted under theEuropean Development Fund (EDF). The main EU commitmentin the DRC is to support the process of consolidation of internal

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60. EU Doc. 13565/05 of 7 No-vember 2005, EU Concept forESDP Support to Security Sectorreform (SSR).

61. Catriona Gourlay, ‘EU CivilianCrisis Management: Preparing forFlexible and Rapid Response’, Eu-ropean Security Review, no. 25,March 2005.

62. Joint Action 2004/523/CFSP,16 July 2004.

63. Joint Action 2004/857/CFSP,9 December 2004.

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security by contributing funds and by providing the governmentwith the necessary law enforcement equipment and arms to imple-ment the IPU.64 Apart from testing whether the EU is capable ofproviding a larger scope of expertise, both of these cases shouldhelp to assess the coherence between ESDP instruments and Com-mission long-term assistance programmes.

The first EU ‘packages’ of experts were deployed in Iraq andIndonesia for assessment missions preceding the decisions tolaunch the EU Integrated rule-of-law mission for Iraq – EUJUSTLEX and the EU Monitoring Mission in Aceh. Based on the assess-ments, EUJUST LEX was given the go ahead in March 2005 andbecame operational in July. The mission is designed to ‘promotecloser collaboration between the different actors across the crimi-nal justice system’ and consists of integrated training in manage-ment and criminal investigation provided to a representativegroup of Iraqi senior officials and executive staff (770 persons).These are mainly drawn from the Iraqi judiciary, the police andpenitentiary personnel. Most of the training activities take placein the EU, but some will be conducted in the region.65 Similarly,after considering the assessment mission report and following thesigning of the agreement between the government of Indonesiaand the Free Aceh Movement on the 15th of August 2005, the EUdecided to launch a Monitoring Mission in Aceh together with fiveASEAN countries.66 This operation is also a first test case for EUexpertise in area of monitoring. The mission helps implement theagreement by monitoring the parties’ commitments, includingthe monitoring of the decommissioning of the Free Aceh Move-ments’s surrendered weapons and ammunition, relocation ofnon-organic military forces and police troops, and the re-integra-tion of active Free Aceh Movement members into civil society.67

Another three civilian operations were decided and deployed ina short period of time before the end of 2005. The EU Police Mis-sion in the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) was set up ascontinuation of EU support to the Palestinian Civil Police. An EUsupport office for the Palestinian Police (EU COPPS) was previ-ously established within the framework of the office of the EUSpecial Representative (EUSR) for the Middle East Peace Process.Since January 2006 this support takes the form of an ESDP opera-tion building on the work of the EU Co-ordination Office forPalestinian Policing Support. The mission is designed to assist the

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64. Natalie Pauwels, EUPOL ‘Kin-shasa: testing EU co-ordination,coherence and commitment toAfrica’, European Security Review,no. 25, March 2005.

65. Catriona Gourlay and Annal-isa Monaco, ‘Training civiliansand soldiers to improve security inIraq: an update of EU and NATOefforts’, European Security Reviewno. 25, March 2005.

66. ‘EU mission to monitor Asianpeace-agreement’, EUObserver,16 August 2005; see also Pierre-Antoine Braud and GiovanniGrevi, ‘The EU mission in Aceh:implementing peace’, OccasionalPaper no. 61 (Paris: EU Institutefor Security Studies, December2005).

67. See also Nicoletta Pirozzi andDamien Helly, ‘Aceh MonitoringMission: a new challenge forESDP’, European Security Reviewno. 27, October 2005 and in thesame review ‘The EU’s contribu-tion to consolidate peace in Aceh’,Summary of the European Con-tact Group meeting on 12 Octo-ber 2005, produced by the Inter-national Security InformationService (ISIS).

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Palestinian Authority in the implementation of the Civil PoliceDevelopment Plan as well as to coordinate EU assistance to Pales-tinian Civil Police.68

EU expertise in border monitoring is also tested within twonewly established assistance operations. The EU Border Assis-tance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EU BAM Rafah) hasbeen established in Gaza since 15 December 2005.69 Police andcustoms experts from the EU monitor the Palestinians’ capacity indifferent aspects of border management at Rafah Crossing Point.Similar in form, the EU Border Assistance Mission to Moldovaand Ukraine (EU BAM Moldova/Ukraine) has been deployed sincethe end of November on the Moldova-Ukraine border.70 The mis-sion helps the two states to reinforce their capacity in border sur-veillance and customs controls.

The fact that the EU has been able to deploy and run simulta-neously different types of civilian operations at different levels ofengagement and in different part of the world confirms the signif-icant progress made since 2004 at improving its civilian opera-tional capacity. The EU has become more active and more capablein the ‘soft’ dimension of crisis management. However, thesedevelopments do not mean that the process of European capacitybuilding is finalised.

The process continues following the objectives agreed underCivilian Headline Goal 2008 and further developments require asystematic review. The Civilian Capabilities Improvement Confer-ence at the ministerial level was organised in November 2005 andthe next conference of this type is foreseen at the end of 2006.71After reviewing the progress made in 2005, the EU Member Statesadopted the elements for a Civilian Capability Improvement Plan2006. The priorities areas of the Plan include better coordinationof civilian resources generation between the EU and MemberStates, elaboration (by the General Secretariat of the Council andthe Commission) of proposals on the issue of procurement andmission support, as well as a training paper which brings togetherthe training requirements in civilian ESDP. Further developmentof rapidly deployable capabilities (CRTs and Rapidly-DeployablePolice Elements) were also included in the priority areas and aninitial pool of up to 100 civilian experts is expected to be set up in2006.72

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68. EU Doc. 13696/05 of 8 No-vember 2005.

69. EU Doc. Joint Action2005/889/CFSP of 12 December2005.

70. EU Doc. Joint Action2005/776/CFSP of 7 November2005.

71. EU Pr

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