Political Rhetoric and Institutional Practices in the EU and Its Member States
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Introduction
Reports
EU
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
The big picture: Torwards a whole-of-Europe approach to external conflict management
About the Authors
About the Advisory Board
Acknowledgments
Annex: Questionnaire on WGA Approaches in the EU and Its Member States
Abstract
The end of the Cold War initially relaxed the security situation in Europe and enabled the European Union to press ahead with its effort to peacefully unify the continent. Almost everywhere (with the exception of the Balkans), hopes were flying high that a new era would dawn in which human rights and democracy could triumph and usher in a lasting era of peaceful, prosperous development. The EU, in particular, was confident that its soft power would enable it to export its own ‘peace-through-integration’ model. In fact, nothing less was expected than that the EU would soon be surrounded by a ring of well-governed democratic states that shared its values of rules-based, non-violent conflict resolution in internal and foreign affairs.
Today, we know that history took a different course. Geopolitics is back, and the growing superpower rivalry between the United States and China – not to mention Russia’s new hegemonic policy – do not bode well. In response to these developments, many democratic reform processes that the EU and its member states were engaging in slowed down, suffered setbacks or failed to materialise at all. Accordingly, intra- and inter-state crises and conflicts continue to haunt international affairs – and this worrying situation is only exacerbated by climate change. In fact, the 2019 annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that there was a record number of forcibly displaced persons worldwide in 2018, a staggering figure of over 70 million.
The impact of the deteriorating security environment is becoming increasingly tangible in Europe itself, and threatens both security and political stability within the EU. As with 9/11 in the US, the large-scale attacks by Islamist-motivated terrorists in Brussels, Paris, London, Berlin and elsewhere have left European citizens feeling extremely vulnerable and insecure. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the hybrid warfare it is engaged in in eastern Ukraine have broken with the post-Cold War security order that the EU has trusted in and relied upon. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of people who were seeking refuge in Europe following the still-ongoing war in Syria and the wider region have heightened Europeans’ anxieties about cultural alienation and a loss of social status, leading to increased support for extremist parties.
Given these circumstances, the EU is being called upon – and perhaps even more so than ever before – to maintain its influence as a force for peace and to become the responsible global actor it expressly desires to be. Unfortunately, we repeatedly see that both the EU and its member states are failing to live up to their aspirations. In sad fact, more often than not, the EU’s response to crisis is ‘too little, too late’. For example, the Union is largely absent from Syria and the rest of the Middle East; France and Italy have torpedoed each other’s and the EU’s policies in Libya; and only France and Germany have been making overt efforts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in the Donbas region. What’s more, though they are all well-intended, EU crisis- and conflict-management missions in the Sahel region and other parts of Africa often lack the military clout needed to have a significant and/or lasting impact.
Arguably, the EU is the only instrument that its member states – and even the biggest among them – have at their disposal to make a difference on the international stage. Nevertheless, we see that the EU rarely speaks with one voice, and that national interests prevail over joint actions. This results from the fact that the EU’s foreign and security policy has predominantly remained the domain of its member states. In principle, this could only be changed if member states were to transfer the exercise of their sovereign powers and allow for foreign and security policy to be (to use a good EU word) communitarised. Unfortunately, the chances that this will happen anytime soon are exceedingly slim.
Before thinking about any major treaty reforms that a truly ‘common’ foreign and security policy would require, it is worth reflecting on whether there are other incremental reforms that could be made to the existing system to enhance the capabilities of the EU and its member states to effectively respond to and manage external crises and conflicts.
Already in the early 1990s, there was a growing awareness that the complex and interlinked problems of human security, social and economic underdevelopment, and bad governance – factors that underpinned and kept fuelling many of these conflicts – required entirely new policy approaches if there were to be any chance of achieving a successful peace policy. A first step in this direction was taken in 1992 with the release of the UN report ‘An Agenda for Peace’. The Agenda, which acknowledged the nexus between development and security, prompted a reorganisation of the UN’s peacebuilding architecture. Its aim was to achieve greater policy coherence across the political, military, humanitarian and development realms by improving coordination and by pooling the responsibilities spread out among multiple departments and agencies, on the one hand, and the instruments that played a role in peacebuilding, on the other.
Since then, there have been ongoing discussions about the need for a new approach to foreign, development and security policy. In addition to being subject to a broad concept of security, this approach is meant to align short-term responses focused on security and stability with the long-term development concerns set forth in the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN in 2015. Under various names –such as ‘3D’, for the interaction of diplomacy, development and defence, or ‘integrated approach’, as most recently in the EU Global Strategy of 2016 – this holistic policy approach has been further developed and refined.
The concept has repeatedly been given fresh impetus by organisational theory, which deals with complex, interdependent and rapidly changing problems in a wide range of policy areas. This theory has formed the theoretical basis for whole-of-government approaches (WGAs), which aim to foster vertical and horizontal coordination of various government departments and public institutions (see, e.g., Christensen and Laegreid 2007; Bouckaert, Peters and Verhoest 2010; Colgan, Kennedy and Doherty 2014; Tosun and Lang 2017; Gray and Purdy 2018; Trein, Meyer and Maggetti 2019). A WGA has two basic elements: first, joint conflict analysis; and, second, jointly elaborated strategies that are coordinated and deconflicted at a minimum and ideally integrated to enable responses that align interests, avoid duplications and reduce costs.
Roughly speaking, four WGA enablers can be identified in the organisational literature (see, e.g., Ling 2002; Hunt 2005; ADE 2010; Colgan, Kennedy and Doherty 2014). First, adaptations to institutional setups and structures (e.g. the creation of specific units or inter-departmental structures of coordination) are attributed with facilitating coordinated and coherent approaches. Second, the presence of WGA-specific human resources (including specialised staff or resources and specific trainings) may enable successful WGA implementation. Third, political and administrative leadership is identified as playing an important role in actively pushing for a WGA. And, lastly, the establishment of specific instruments and tools (e.g. joint financial instruments, early warning, country/regional/sectoral strategies, joint analysis, and guidelines or rules of procedure informing the WGA conduct) can also contribute to successful whole-of-government action.
By now, it is widely recognised that meaningful responses to the wide range of security challenges fuelling many of today’s crises and conflicts require new forms of inter-institutional coordination and cooperation. This certainly applies to the EU member states, as they have all subscribed to the EU’s Global Strategy and its integrated approach. Accordingly, efforts have been made to implement such a WGA not only among those ministries that have traditionally been in charge of security, but also among ministries and agencies that gradually came to be seen as indispensable partners in efforts to forge effective and coherent responses to crises and conflicts. These additional ministries and agencies come from a broad range of policy fields, including the economy and social affairs, justice and home affairs, trade, environment, agriculture, finance, transport and infrastructure, education, information and communication, and health.
Nowadays, WGAs have become ubiquitous on paper and in political rhetoric. However, one should stay alert and ask whether the practice has followed accordingly – that is, whether deeds have followed words. Thus, this book is dedicated to answering one overarching question: Have both the EU and its member states gotten serious about implementing WGAs? It aims to assess whether and, if so, how and with what degree of success the EU and its member states have opted to overhaul their respective governance and to adapt their individual policies, strategies, instruments and procedures related to responding to and managing external crisis and conflicts so as to ensure greater policy coherence. However, the reader should be aware of one significant caveat, namely, that this volume only deals with WGAs on the headquarters level. This implies that the research does not assess whether any of the institutional, structural and procedural changes that have accompanied the implementation of WGAs might also have improved the related outcomes. In other words, it deliberately does not explore whether it can be shown that the EU and its member states have actually and verifiably become better actors when it comes to preventing crises and managing conflict on the ground.
Much has already been written on the subject of policy coherence in conflict transformation and peacebuilding, especially as regards fragile and precarious statehood. However, such scholarship is limited to select international organisations, the EU or larger member states, or it focuses on individual fields of action (see, e.g., OECD 2006; Hauck and Rocca 2014; Tardy 2017). What has been missing so far is a comprehensive overview and analysis of the policy coherence policies of the EU and its (currently) 28 member states. This book aims to fill this gap in the literature for the first time. Our hope is that the new material will help decision-makers in the EU to hone their respective WGA approaches after learning about the best practices of other countries. Likewise, we hope that scholars will use our rich data to further develop the theoretical basis of WGAs to external crisis and conflict management.
This anthology is the result of a project of the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s ‘Europe’s Future’ programme. The project follows on from an earlier study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, the results of which were published in 2010 under the title ‘Diplomacy, Development and Defense: A Paradigm for Policy Coherence’ (Weiss, Spanger and van Meurs 2010), which supplied a comparative analysis of the WGA strategies of that time in the EU, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Ten years on, we deemed it time to take a second look at how the policy coherence agenda has advanced in the intervening period. The research plan was developed in cooperation with the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). The research for the studies was jointly conducted in 2019 and completed on 1 December 2019. Thus, it predated Brexit and took place before the new set of EU leaders took office. What’s more, it naturally only reflects the state of affairs at that time.
Methodologically, the research assumes that the organisation of political coherence through a WGA is a necessary though insufficient condition for success in crisis and conflict management. The project is also based on the assumption that any country that claims to have adopted a WGA must necessarily have undergone changes in its method of cooperation – both within and between its institutions on the national level as well as with the EU or other international organisations – and that these changes can be observed and described. The same also applies to the EU and its implementation of an integrated approach, which is described in what follows as a ‘whole of governance’ rather than a ‘whole of government’ approach’.
The research is based on a semi-structured questionnaire that inquired into the institutional or procedural changes – or ‘enablers’ – described above (limited to the headquarters level). The questionnaire, which is included in the Annex, centred on three inter-related sets of questions: (1) What WGA policies have been designed? (2) Who are the actors involved in these WGA policies? And (3) how has the WGA been institutionalised?
The group of individuals conducting this research included experts from all EU member states. Some of them were current or former diplomats, military officers or government officials involved in development cooperation, but all of them have worked for or with their respective governments and therefore have first-hand knowledge of the organisation and procedures of governmental practice. The research was also supported by numerous interviews with representatives of the relevant bureaucracies.
The reports condense the results of the questionnaire. In order to make the country reports more easily comparable, a uniform structure was applied and the titles of the individual chapters in the respective country reports were standardised. The following questions guided the research under the following headings:
Starting Point: Briefly reflect about when and why a WGA has/hasn’t been introduced in your country. In what ways does a WGA in your country reflect the country’s specificities (e.g. in relation to its institutional and constitutional setup)?
Policies on Paper: Discuss both explicitly formulated WGA policies and more implicit references to a WGA in your country. You may, for example, describe and assess the scope and quality of official or semi-official policies or discuss the country’s obligations under international and EU agreements.
Players and Interplay: Who are the main actors that cooperate in a WGA-like fashion in your country? At what levels do you see cooperation and coordination, whether in a formal or informal manner, taking place in your country’s dealings with external crises and conflicts?
Policies in Action: What administrative structures and processes are in place to back up the policies described in the previous section? How does your country operationalise a WGA, and with what success? What are the key operational ‘enablers’ and ‘disablers’ of a WGA in your country?
Progress Report: Overall, in what ways and with what success has your country implemented a WGA? What would you consider the success factors underpinning a WGA in your country?
The careful reader will note a few anomalies: first, that subjects covered in specific sections of one report can occasionally be found in different ‘silos’ of others; and, second, that information is sometimes repeated in different ‘silos’ within individual reports (which only underlines how difficult it is to overcome fragmentation). Nevertheless, we have determined that using this structure is the most prudent path to follow when collecting data providing for a comparison of the state of affairs in the EU and its 28 member states. In the process, we took into account that the various histories, geographies, institutions and experiences of individual EU member states have sometimes led them to be less amenable to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ system of categorisation – and, therefore, schematisation. We therefore decided – both for describing complex causal and institutional interconnections and providing the reader with an easy-to-grasp, all-in-one-place explanation – that it is sometimes preferable to opt for repetition over crispness.
All reports will be made available online at https://www.wga-project.eu. This platform will enable a simple and direct comparison of the 28 countries and the EU via various applications.
The final part of this volume has two purposes. First, it summarises the findings of the country studies. And, second, it attempts to classify and group together the 28 member states based on success factors or enablers in order to highlight best practices and to point out where there might be room for improvement.
ADE (2010). Thematic Evaluation of European Commission Support to Conflict Prevention and Peace Building: Concept Study. Brussels: Particip. https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sites/devco/files/evaluation-cooperation-ec-conflict-ppb-1277-main-report-201009_en_3_0.pdf.
Below, Alexis, and Anne-Sophie Belzile (2013). Comparing Whole of Government Approaches to Fragile States. Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security (BIGS) Policy Paper No. 3. May 2013. www.bigs-potsdam.org/images/Policy%20Paper/BIGS%20Policy%20Paper%20No.%203%20Fragile%20States%20Bildschirmversion.pdf.
Bouckaert, Geert, B. Guy Peters and Koen Verhoest (2010). The Coordination of Public Sector Organizations: Shifting Patterns of Public Management. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
Christensen, Tom, and Per Laegreid (2007). “The Whole-of-Government Approach to Public Sector Reform.” Public Administration Review (67) 6: 1059–1066.
Colgan, Anne, Lisa Ann Kennedy and Nuala Doherty (2014) A Primer on Implementing Whole of Government Approaches. Dublin: Centre for Effective Services (CES). www.effectiveservices.org/downloads/CES_Whole_of_Government_Approaches.pdf.
Gray, Barbara, and Jill Purdy (2018). Collaborating for Our Future: Multistakeholder Partnerships for Solving Complex Problems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hauck, Volker, and Camilla Rocca (2014). Gaps between Comprehensive Approaches of the EU and the EU Member States: Scoping Study. European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM). December 2014. https://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/Gaps-Between-Comprehensieve-Approach-of-the-EU-and-EU-Member-States.pdf.
Hunt, Sue (2005). “Whole-of-government: does working together work?” Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government Discussion Paper 05-01. https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/43012/2/PDP05-1.pdf.
Ling, Tom. (2002). “Delivering joined-up government in the UK: Dimensions, issues and problems.” Public Administration 80: 615–642.
OECD (2006). Whole of Government Approaches to Fragile States. Paris: OECD.
Post, Svenja (2014). Toward a Whole-of-Europe Approach: Organizing the European Union’s and Member States’ Comprehensive Crisis Management. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Stepputat, Finn, and Lauren Greenwood (2013). Whole-of-Government Approaches to Fragile States and Situations. Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) Report 2013: 25. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ffc5/3c1403ebd1db067ed72541fe84b10aa4381a.pdf.
Tardy, Thierry (2017). The EU: from comprehensive vision to integrated action. European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) Brief Issue 5 (February 2017). www.iss.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EUISSFiles/Brief_5_Integrated_Approach.pdf.
Tosun, Jale, and Achim Lang (2017). “Policy integration: mapping the different concepts.” Policy Studies (38) 6: 553–570.
Trein, Philipp, Iris Meyer and Martino Maggetti (2019). “The Integration and Coordination of Public Policies: A Systematic Comparative Review.” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice (21) 4: 332–349.
Weiss, Stefani, Hans-Joachim Spanger and Wim van Meurs (eds.) (2010). Diplomacy, Development and Defense: A Paradigm for Policy Coherence. Guetersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung.
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.
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.
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 may trigger integrated action at the bureaucratic level, it will not necessarily do so at the political level. For a service that was expected to be the embodiment of inter-institutional cooperation, it is paradoxical to have developed thick bureaucratic walls within its own organisation.
Moreover, the member states are largely absent from the new directorate’s activities even though the Political and Security Committee is permanently chaired by someone in-house and despite the efforts of Dir. ISP to convene meetings of an informal network of corresponding structures, which exist in some ministries of foreign affairs.
To be truly effective from an IA perspective, the latest wave of institutional reforms should have been more informed by, and geared towards, the DSG for political affairs. In this regard, lessons can be learned from the recent UN reforms, which tried to do just that: The former Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO, now the Department for Peace Operations, or DPO) was integrated with the former Department of Political Affairs (DPA, now the Department for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, or DPPA). This was done at both the assistant-DSG and geographical levels in headquarters and in-country through newly empowered resident coordinators.
By failing to realise the integration of the new structures for CSDP and crisis response into the geographical managing directorates of the EEAS, mainly due to limitations posed by the Treaties, Dir. ISP cannot be seen as a silver bullet for a ‘whole-of-Europe’ approach to external conflicts and crises. That said, the new directorate is an important step in efforts to improve the EU’s bureaucratic capacity to coordinate its IA.
When it comes to implementing the IA at an inter-service EU level, there are some formal bodies that facilitate coordination among the various EU institutions – principally among the European Commission, the Council and the EEAS – in tackling external conflict and crisis.
The crisis meetings previously organised by PRISM are now convened by the new Dir. ISP on a ‘need to act’ basis (interview EEAS, May 2019). The goal of these meetings is to bring together all relevant EEAS and Commission services and actors – including EEAS crisis response/management structures, geographical divisions, the EU Military Committee and relevant European Commission DGs (ECHO, DEVCO, NEAR) – to ensure an adequate and timely crisis response. The crisis meetings are intended to establish a clear division of labour among the different services and to provide political and/or strategic guidance in the management of a given crisis (interview EEAS, May 2019).
The Commissioner’s Group on External Action (CGEA) was reactivated by then-President Jean-Claude Juncker and represents one of the most important institutional initiatives in EU foreign policymaking since the merger of the position of the high representative for CFSP with that of vice-president of the Commission (to form the HRVP) and the creation of the EEAS (Blockmans and Russack 2015). The CGEA, chaired by the HRVP, brings together the commissioners for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, International Cooperation and Development, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, and Trade. Commissioners who do not belong to this pre-defined cluster of four, but who nevertheless have an interest in the items on the CGEA’s agenda, are also invited.
Depending on the topic on the agenda, the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) convenes member states’ ministers of foreign affairs, defence, development or trade. The FAC is chaired by the HRVP and also attended by responsible members of the Commission (Keukeleire and Delreux 2014: 66). However, rather than by the FAC, most decisions are taken by the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER II) or the Political and Security Council (PSC). While the former deals with EU external action (e.g. development cooperation and trade policy) and internal policies with an external dimension, the latter deals with CFSP/CSDP policies. The PSC, which is composed of one ambassador per member state as well as a representative of the Commission, of the EU Military Committee (EUMC) and of the Committee for Civilian Aspects for Crisis Management (CIVCOM), is in fact the logical counterpart in the Council of the CGEA. As the central body for preparatory work for the FAC, it convenes at least once a week in addition to exercising the political control and strategic direction of civilian and military CSDP operations (ibid.: 69–70).
Both in the Commission (SG Inter-institutional and external relations) and the EEAS (SG AFFGEN Inter-institutional relations, policy coordination and public diplomacy), there are also specific units that facilitate intra- and inter-service coordination. These units also facilitate an IA by setting up platforms and guidelines to cooperate (interview EEAS policy coordination unit, April 2019). In times of crisis, the heads of division operate in a rather informal but swift manner, including via a pre-established WhatsApp group (interview EEAS, April 2019).
The role of the European Parliament (EP) in EU foreign policy in general and crisis response in particular is quite limited. In the CFSP/CSDP framework, the EP has only a consultative role, and the Treaty on the European Union (Art. 36) says that the HRVP “shall regularly consult the European Parliament on the main aspects and basic choices” of the CFSP and CSDP, and that the EP “may address questions or make recommendations to the Council or the High Representative.” When it comes to EU external action (outside CFSP/CSDP) and internal policies with an external dimension, the EP has two major instruments to influence EU foreign policy (Keukeleire and Delreux 2014). On the one hand, there is the consent procedure, which gives the EP a veto power over the ratification of international agreements. On the other hand, the EP has important budgetary powers, which it can indirectly use as leverage over EU foreign policy.
One ‘crisis response’ area in which the EP does play a role is mediation activities. What originally started as an informal consultation by Commissioner Johannes Hahn with certain MEPs in North Macedonia (or the FYROM, as it was then called) has gradually developed into a Mediation and Dialogue Unit (one pillar within the Directorate for Democracy Support at DG EXPO) in the European Parliament. In terms of conflict prevention and mediation, this unit regularly cooperates with DG NEAR, DG DEVCO, the EEAS and the EU delegation on the ground.
Regarding coordination at the international level, one can note that UN-EU cooperation has seen worse days, as both multilateral actors aim to preserve the importance of multilateralism in today’s multipolar world (interview UNLOPS, May 2019). While the EU’s CSDP missions and the UN’s peacekeeping operations were somehow in competition a decade ago, the urgency of the threat posed to a multilateral, rules-based order – in combination with the important steering role played by HRVP Federica Mogherini and the UN Liaison Office representing the DPA and DPKO in Brussels – has greatly fostered EU-UN cooperation and coordination in the past five years.
EU-NATO relations have traditionally been described in lethargic terms due to longstanding political blockages (Duke 2008; Smith 2011). Nevertheless, bound by a shared commitment to universal values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, NATO and the EU have not only strategic goals, but also global security challenges in common. The new security environment has driven the EU to assume a bigger role in security and defence, and has forced EU-NATO relations to evolve into a more practical strategic partnership. This has been prompted by the facts that their security is interconnected and that neither organisation has the full range of tools needed to address the new security challenges on its own.
Only limited progress has been made in developing synergies between the OSCE and the EU, which alone comprises already half of the membership of the OSCE (Jorgensen 2008). The contributions of the EU family make up over 70 percent of the OSCE’s budget, not to mention the extensive financial support the EU gives to specific operations, such as the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Furthermore, there are many examples of cooperation between the OSCE and the EU, such as in electoral observation missions or in addressing protracted conflicts, such as the Transdniestrian settlement process. At the same time, there are areas in which this cooperation could be improved. For instance, conflict mediation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere in the Balkan region would lend itself to more extensive EU-OSCE cooperation and a pooling of expertise.
The EU regularly cooperates with the International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF), a subsidiary body of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which brings together DAC members and key multilateral agencies working in fragile and conflict-affected contexts (interview DG DEVCO, April 2019). Among the other international organisations with which the EU cooperates closely is the Council of Europe, whose Venice Commission plays a very valuable (and, in many respects, unique) role in buttressing the rule of law in Europe’s wider neighbourhood. Furthermore, while civil society organisations play an important role in conflict theatres, their role at the headquarters level is generally limited to providing inputs in consultations for the development and review of policies.
Regarding operationalisation of its WGA, the EU’s current external financing instruments, as established under the 2014–2020 multi-annual financial framework (MFF), have struggled to provide enough coherence and flexibility in responding to today’s quickly shifting contexts. In the face of mounting instability in the neighbourhood (and beyond) and a sharp increase in refugee flows and migration, the key finding of a mid-term self-assessment by the Commission was the need for “more strategic and overarching programming” and “coherent interactions at operational level in the renewed international context” (EC 2017b: 2). The need for flexibility and the problem of silo approaches similarly figure in a ‘Coherence Report’ from external evaluators (EC 2017a) and the European Parliament’s implementation assessment (EPRS 2018).
In an effort to address these recommendations, the Commission has come up with a new and bold proposal for future spending on issues relating to the neighbourhood, development and international cooperation (EC 2018a). By merging the 11 existing instruments (cf. Debuysere and Blockmans 2019b: Table 2) into one financial instrument, the so-called Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) put forward in the Commission’s proposal seeks to increase simplification, coherence, responsiveness and strategic direction in EU external action.