Putting Ideas into Action: EU Civilian Crisis Management in the Western Balkans

Abstract

Since the early days of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the European Security and Defence Policy, the EU has always paid special attention to developments in the Western Balkans and therefore declared them a strategic priority for European external action. Thus, it is not surprising that the first missions in the framework of ESDP were deployed to this region. Considering the deployment of civilian crisis management missions to the Western Balkans a first step in the shaping of a strategic culture and based on the assumption that the European Union clearly possesses the prerequisites to form such a strategic culture, the following chapter will analyse the development of civilian crisis management and chronologically describe and evaluate the four civilian missions carried out in the Western Balkans. The conclusion is that despite the fact that ESDP is still a work in progress, the engagement in civilian crisis management missions already provides a marker for the existence of an emerging European strategic culture in the process of formation.