Development of the Union's crisis management capability
During the EU Intergovernmental Conference in 1996-1997, many Member States wanted the EU to further develop its fundamental ideas concerning peace and to become better at preventing and managing conflicts in the region. Experiences from the Balkan wars were a crucial factor, together with the realisation that on their own, the EU countries had much less opportunity to influence the region than if they acted together.
The Petersberg tasks
The Member States concluded that in the future, the EU must not stand by powerlessly in the face of situations like the one that arose during the Balkan wars. Sweden and Finland proposed that the EU should be able to take on various peace support operations, called the Petersberg tasks, that could include humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace-keeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. The Swedish-Finnish initiative received broad support, and the Petersberg tasks were incorporated into the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The initial idea was for the Western European Union (WEU) to carry out the tasks on behalf of the EU. However, at the Cologne European Council in the summer of 1999, EU heads of state and government decided that the EU itself should be able to prevent and respond to conflicts and threats of conflicts by deploying civilian and military personnel on peace support operations.
National and voluntary contributions
Another point established at Cologne was that this work was not to be confused with a collective defence, and that it was not a matter of creating a European army. The EU's crisis management capability was to be based on national resources made available to the Union on a voluntary basis in connection with decisions to carry out operations. Everyone was in agreement that under all circumstances, the Member States are to retain the right to decide if and when their national forces are to be deployed. Following the decision in Cologne, the EU countries began the practical work of drawing up the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
Read more about the EU's civilian and military goals and about the work to ensure that the overall resources are sufficient and effective under the heading Goals.
New ESDP body
To quickly and efficiently be able to plan, decide upon and carry out crisis management operations, the EU also needed new bodies. At the EU Helsinki Summit in December 1999, the heads of state and government decided to establish the Political and Security Committee (PSC) with the overall responsibility for coordinating the political control and strategic direction of EU crisis management operations, as well as the European Union Military Committee (EUMC) and the European Union Military Staff (EUMS). These bodies began operating in provisional form in March 2000 and were later made permanent through a decision taken by the General Affairs Council on 22 January 2001.
In May 2000, following a Swedish initiative, the Council also decide to establish the Committee for Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management (CIVCOM). CIVCOM operates as a Council working party and can also provide information, draft recommendations and give advice on civilian aspects of crisis management to the PSC and other appropriate Council bodies. In addition, a Police Unit was established in the Council Secretariat in 2001 to support CIVCOM's work.
Read more about how the EU takes decisions on carrying out crisis management operations under the heading How decisions on ESDP operations are taken.
The first operations
The EU Police Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which began on 1 January 2003, marked the first time the Union deployed uniformed personnel. Three months later, when the Union began its peace-keeping operation in Macedonia (Concordia), it marked the first time the EU deployed uniformed and armed personnel. The operation in Macedonia followed on from a NATO operation (Allied Harmony), which in turn followed on from a UN operation (United Nations Preventive Deployment Force, or UNPREDEP).
The EU Concordia operation utilised NATO assets and capabilities, which was made possible by an agreement reached by the EU and NATO in March 2003 on a framework for the organisations' permanent relations. One important component of this framework is the Berlin Plus arrangements, which allow the EU access to NATO's planning structure and crisis management capabilities. The Berlin Plus arrangements form the basis of practical cooperation between the EU and NATO.
In June 2003, the EU began an additional military operation, called ARTEMIS, in Congo. The operation ended in September 2003. ARTEMIS has been perceived as a successful operation that showed that the EU can conduct limited military operations. As such, ARTEMIS became a model for how the Member States envisaged the development of the EU's military rapid reaction capability (which has been fully deployable since 1 January 2007).
The European Security Strategy
In 2003, the EU also drew up a security strategy. One reason for doing so was the dissension that arose in the debate on the war in Iraq, but the document is seen as a milestone in the development of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The document addresses the global challenges and the primary threats facing Europe, the EU's strategic goals and the implications they have on European security policy.
Thus in 2003, the EU took several important, concrete steps to make practical contributions to peace efforts in troubled parts of the world.
Since 2003, the EU has launched more than ten operations, mostly civilian operations such as advisory police operations and border surveillance operations.
