CIAO DATE: 04/04

Developing and Applying EU Crisis Management. Test Case Macedonia

Ulrich Schneckener

January 2002

European Centre for Minority Issues

Introduction

Throughout the 1990s, the notion of conflict prevention had an impressive career. It reappeared on the international scene when UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali coined the term "preventive diplomacy" in this Agenda for Peace (1992). Since then, several international organizations or multilateral institutions, including the UN and its sub-organizations, the OSCE, the OAU, the OECD or the G-8, have published piles of papers and declarations committing themselves to the prevention of violent or armed conflicts, to change their policies accordingly (e.g. in the area of development or financial aid) and to develop new or to reform old tools, ranging from fact-finding or observer missions, special envoys, the use of sanctions, peace-building efforts, institution-building, reconciliation processes to humanitarian aid as well as long-term financial and economic assistance. Until now, however, many celebrated declarations hardly moved from rhetoric to substance, the "culture of prevention", as it has been called by UN Secretary-General Annan, is still to be developed.

One comparatively new actor in this field is the European Union, which since the mid-1990s has largely followed the global trend among international organizations of reforming its structures and building capacities for conflict prevention and management. Before analysing the EU's policy more closely, two areas should be distinguished. While the first can be understood as long-term or structural prevention, the second can be seen as efforts of short-term or operational prevention, here also called crisis management. The former category includes all measures and policies which aim at eliminating deep-rooted sources of conflict, such as poverty, economic inequalities, discrimination, political repression or ineffective institutions, and seek to develop self-sustaining solutions in the long run. They are usually applied in a preescalation or during a post-escalation phase (peace-building). The latter category summarizes all activities which attempt to respond to immediate crisis situations in order to prevent the use of violence or, at least, to prevent further escalation, either in a vertical (deepening of the conflict) or horizontal way (spreading of the conflict to other regions).

First, in relation to third countries the EU aims at strengthening and enforcing economic development, but also the respect of human rights, democratic values and the rule of law. For that purpose, the EU has launched various cooperation programmes, designed to assist political and economic transformation in all parts of the world, but in particular with regard to the Mediterranean area, to Central and Eastern Europe as well as to the Balkans (e.g. Phare, Tacis, Meda or Cards programmes). In some cases, this includes the prospect of EU membership; thus, the EU enlargement process itself can be seen as a measure of structural conflict prevention (see Rummel 1996).

Second , within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) the EU tries to deal with potential crises, on-going conflicts and/or postconflict situations. Here, over the last decade the EU has developed procedures and mechanisms for improving the coherence and efficiency of the CFSP itself as well as a range of instruments and capabilities for addressing crisis situations.

The two aspects can also be related to the three pillars of the EU. Since the Treaty on European Union, better known as Maastricht Treaty (1991), the EU has been characterized by a three-pillar structure. The first pillar contains the "old" European Community (EC) and its competencies, which mainly refer to internal matters such as the common market, common agricultural, environmental, social, industrial or regional policy, but the first pillar is equally concerned with the management of relations with third countries or other international organizations in the areas of trade, development, humanitarian aid and technical assistance, as well as with preparing EU enlargement. The second pillar is devoted to the CFSP, which succeeded the former European Political Cooperation (EPC). While the EPC since 1970 offered only a rather loose framework for coordinating the Member States' individual foreign policies, the CFSP was intended to assure better cooperation among Member States and common decision-making, leading to a common foreign policy in specific areas, including security matters. The third pillar deals with questions related to justice and home affairs, which cover inter alia policing, asylum and immigration policy as well as combating organized crime. With regard to crisis management, this pillar plays only a minor role; however, in cases of international police missions such as in Bosnia, Kosovo or Albania for instance, the EU can rely on its established cooperation in this area.

The three major EU institutions — the European Council, representing the governments of the Member States and headed by the rotating EU presidency, the European Commission and the European Parliament — have different rights and competencies in each pillar. The first pillar is marked by a supranational element, since in all areas, including budget matters, it requires decision-making according to the various Community methods under which the Council and the European Parliament act together as legislative bodies, on some issues by joint decision-making, on others by cooperation or consultation procedures. Furthermore, in many policy areas the Council decides by qualified majority voting (QMV) or even by simple majority. The Commission as the main administrative body usually proposes and drafts the legislation and implements it via directives, regulations and decisions which are binding for all Member States. By contrast, the second and third pillars are fully intergovernmental. Here, the European Council acts as the sole legislator, mainly by consensus. The Commission is allowed to table proposals for political actions and often has to implement Council decisions. The Parliament on the other hand has only a consultative and advisory role; it basically has to rely on political clout in order to influence the CFSP.

This paper is largely concerned with second-pillar activities, i.e. with short-term prevention or crisis management efforts as developed or planned by the EU. Hence, it addresses two issues: first, it analyses the gradual development of the EU crisis management machinery by referring to the internal processes of establishing a political framework and of building capacities for EU crisis management (section 2 and 3). Second, it is concerned with practical applications and experiences in cases of crisis; in this context, the paper investigates the most recent conflict in Macedonia in order to show if and how the EU was able to respond adequately to this crisis (section 4).

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