EU Crisis Response and management (WP4)

The EU has gradually developed a number of tools and mechanisms to be able to respond to and engage with different types of external crisis. First and foremost, these have been developed within the framework of the intergovernmental Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP, formerly known as ESDP and established in 1999) with its civilian and military missions of different kinds (32 missions), but also as an integrated part of the Commission’s competencies in the areas of humanitarian assistance (ECHO) and development aid (EuropeAid). It is often argued that the EU should be better placed than many other actors since it has such a broad tool box of crisis management. Still, the EU is criticised, just like the other actors in the field have been for years, for its lack of  internal coordination – or coordination between the different institutions involved in crisis response at the EU-level. In an attempt to encounter part of this critique, the EU established the External European Action service (EEAS) in 2009. Through its Situation Room and IntCen that monitor world-wide events and with its Department for Crisis Response and Operational Coordination (including a crisis platform which brings together all the players in a crisis), the EEAS was supposed to play a crucial role when it comes to coordination of a potential response. The EU ambition is also to be able to implement a comprehensive approach to crisis and has developed a policy and an action plan on this (European Comission 2013; 2015). However, in spite of these improvements, a number of critical evaluations still identify gaps between EU ambitions and effective policies (see for example Vanhoonacker and Pomorska 2013; Smith 2013; Kartsonaki and Wolff 2015).