EU Crisis Management Research Articles

Political conditionality as an EU foreign policy and crisis management tool. The case of EU wartime political conditionality vis-à-vis Ukraine

ABSTRACT This article explores the compatibility between the EU’s political conditionality as a policy tool and the EU’s approach to conflict management, guided by the EU Global Strategy. It does so based on the unique case of the EU’s application of political conditionality vis-à-vis Ukraine amidst the war and the reinvigoration of the EU’s enlargement policy in response thereto. We find conditionality to fit the EU’s crisis management toolbox, especially when it comes to the long-term approach and building resilience of state institutions in a target country. Though not yet strongly visible in the case of Ukraine, the application of conditionality may come into contradiction with the principles of societal resilience and local ownership, embedded into the EU’s approach to conflict management and the EU Global Strategy, more broadly.

‘When in a hole, keep digging’. How the EUCO system process managed its way to an energy price cap

ABSTRACT This article analyses how the European Council, and its support structures, have been dealing with the energy crisis. On a theoretical level, it sheds light on how the EUCO system deals with polycrisis, which requires high-level political engagement, combined with deep technical expertise and out-of-the-box thinking. I contend that in a polycrisis the process as such can become an important part of the solution, thereby challenging outcome-oriented approaches to EU crisis management. I use embedded process tracing to analyse, in real-time, how the EUCO system sought to shape and steer policy-making on energy prices. The analysis shows how, in spite of deep divisions between member states, the EUCO system ‘process managed’ its way out of this politics trap, and managed to square the circle on the issue of a price cap. Through positive politicisation, the EUCO system prevented an oscillating process from derailing, and eventually tunnelled a way out.

“Not Great, Not Terrible” – EU Crisis Management and Constitutional Identity Regarding The COVID-19 Pandemic

Summary The conformity of the European Union’s Own Resources Decision with the constitution was brought before the authentic interpreters of the constitutions in Finland and Germany. This paper tends to examine the so-called ‘identity review’ engaged by these interpreters regarding procedural guarantees. In Finland, the competence-related debate between the Constitutional Law Committee and the Grand Committee and their interference with the EU-law as well as the subsequent Finnish legislative process raised some serious concerns. The relevant decisions of the German Federal Constitutional Court also highlight some disadvantages of decision-making in a crisis situation, for instance, the lack of reasoning or the failure to request a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union. In this paper, we aim to highlight the promising and the less favourable aspects of the (quasi-)constitutional courts’ procedure.

The Institutional Ingredients of Polycrisis Management: Unpacking European Council’s Handling of the Energy Crisis

This article analyses how the European Council and the institutional infrastructure that supports it have been managing the early stages of the energy crisis. This was the time when the European Council, as the “control room” of EU crisis management, was unable to come up with any solutions to high energy prices. It makes a methodological and empirical contribution to the debate on how the European Council system manages (poly)crises. Methodologically, we introduce the method of embedded process tracing to study EU crisis management from within. Embedded process tracing combines mainstream causal process tracing techniques with elements from interpretivist approaches, to deal with context dependency, case heterogeneity, and empirical density. Empirically, we offer a process-management analysis of the first nine months of the energy crisis. We delineate the roles of various actors and institutions: the president of the European Council, the Council Secretariat, the Commission president, and the Commission Services. We unpack the crucial ingredients of polycrisis management: how to get and keep an issue on the agenda, how to shape and steer European-Council-level debates and conclusions, and how to ensure a proper follow-up by the Commission and the Council. Finally, we re-assess the image of the malfunctioning control room and show the causal relevance of the European Council’s early performance.

Tekushchaya volna populizma kak faktor krizisa identichnosti v Evrope

The wave of development since approximately 2012 was the manifestation of contemporary identity crisis in Europe. The low efficiency of EU crisis management had led the sense of insecurity which has already pervaded among communities combined with the sense of distrust toward political system impact the existing systematic identity. The populist wave in the past decade was the very consequence of this identity crisis.

Peacekeeping and crisis management: a brief assessment of EU-UN cooperation

The present short paper aims to add to the debate on the future of peacekeeping and crisis management in the current context of international relations. Starting from the premise that cooperation between the European Union and the United Nations (UN) for peace and security is a significant source of synergies between both organisations, the paper highlights the way in which the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) were built, summarising the applicable legal regime, especially following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. By providing a review of the legal background to EU crisis management and assessing the EU’s added value for UN-led efforts, the paper concludes that the Lisbon Treaty provisions provide the EU with the instruments necessary to assume a significant role in peacekeeping and crisis management. Although the EU’s natural partner in the field of peacekeeping and crisis management is the UN, there is growing uncertainty regarding the strength of the ties between both organisations as multilateralism traverses a crisis seemingly unlike others in the past.

ПРАВОВОЕ РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЕ ДВУСТОРОННИХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ МЕЖДУ РЕСПУБЛИКОЙ КОРЕЯ И ЕВРОПЕЙСКИМ СОЮЗОМ

The Korea-EU relation has developed based on multilateral and bilateral legal infrastructures. Among the international legal document, the three bilateral agreements between Korea and EU provide the foundational basis for the bilateral relations. First agreement is the Korea-EU FTA which effectively became a legal tool creating favorable environment for development of the economic relations between the parties. Second is Korea-EU Framework Agreement, amended in 2010. It proclaimed a strategic partnership between Korea and the EU elevating the status of cooperation. Third is the Agreement establishing a framework for the participation of Korea in EU crisis management operations. This agreement created a new cooperation field between the partners. The documents described above represent international legal infrastructures that directly regulate Korea-EU cooperation activities and in this they differ from multilateral documents such as the WTO or the UN laws which can provide rules for certain areas of bilateral cooperation but are not directly related to Korea-EU relations. International laws are cohesively becoming important in areas beyond trade relations and in future may change the paradigm of their bilateral dialogue. Although the two partners may have some challenges and different views of the laws and their application, they main purpose is to provide significant new engines in boosting cooperation between the partners.

Perspectives on the Development of the EU Crisis Management System

The article reveals the main features of the European Union crisis management system and outlines the endeavors undertaken to improve it further by introducing a more proactive approach through enhancing the response mechanism and expanding the capabilities for prevention, preparedness and resilience. The article highlights the ability of the EU crisis management to meet the challenges of the security environment and respond to different scenarios, including overseas political-military crises having a strong impact on various aspects of common security. Furthermore, the article explores the capabilities of the Union to conduct military and civilian missions and operations within the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and analyzes their specific contribution to international peace and security. The article underlines the importance of self-reliant strategic airlift as a token of strategic autonomy and a provider of flexible mobility options. It goes on to argue that matters of strategic air mobility should be addressed along with the concerns preventing the use of the EU multinational battlegroups so far. Then, the article identifies the Strategic Compass, due to be adopted in 2022, as a platform for a common strategic vision for the Union’s security and defense priorities, a sound basis for consensus on future response options and a facilitator for further integration of the military component of defense into the EU crisis management system. It also maintains that increased responsibilities would impose higher requirements upon the key elements of the crisis management process. The article points to intelligence as an integrated effort supporting CSDP military and civilian missions. Finally, it suggests three main approaches to the development of the European crisis management system and concludes that the main goal should be reinforcing the role of the EU as one of the pillars of international peace and security.

Unijne ramy zarządzania kryzysowego w sektorze bankowym – główne problemy do rozwiązania

The Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) introduced into EU legislation a new procedure, i.e. resolution, maintaining at the same time standard insolvency proceedings as a default option for dealing with failing banks. The experience so far indicates that such a shape of EU crisis management framework is not optimal. The article presents six main issues that need to be addressed in order to ensure greater consistency, effectiveness, and credibility of EU crisis management framework. The topics reviewed in the article concern public interest assessment, unalignment between triggers for resolution and triggers for initiating insolvency proceedings, availability of state aid as well as lack of clear regulations for liquidity in resolution. Other topics discussed in the article include resolution of small and medium-sized banks with greater support of deposit guarantee schemes. The paper presents the reasons why the indicated areas need to be addressed as well as tries to provide a direction of desired regulatory changes.

Externalizing EU crisis management: EU orchestration of the OSCE during the Ukrainian conflict

ABSTRACT Despite the Lisbon Treaty's modifications in the foreign and security policy domain, the EU has frequently relied on third parties to address external conflicts and crises. Using the Ukrainian conflict as a case study, this article adopts the orchestration model to explain why and how the EU enlists intermediary actors over which it has no formal control to pursue its objectives. It finds that in this conflict the EU outsourced part of its crisis management activities to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe because it lacked the civilian and military capabilities, as well as the regulatory competence and reputation to challenge Russia. Indeed, the Ukrainian case shows that orchestration has emerged as a crucial governance arrangement for the functioning of EU crisis management, raising serious questions about the EU overall capacity to act as a security provider in an international system marred by contestation and hard security concerns.

The emergence of a New European Labour Policy regime: Continuity and change since the euro crisis

The architecture of European labour policy has changed in the past years of the euro crisis and its management. While in the pre-crisis phase EU labour policy still had a mainly symbolic character, the EU crisis management gave it a much more binding character. The article analyses the continuities and shifts in European labour policy against the background of austerity and crisis policy arguing that a new labour policy complex was able to emerge at the European level. While institutional shifts were considerable, the market-liberal orientation of labour policy remained in place. However, it was radicalized with the resilience approach. The article therefore provides an overview of the continuity and change of European labour policy in the euro crisis on the basis of institutional and discursive shifts.

Failing forward in the EU's common security and defense policy: the integration of EU crisis management

ABSTRACT Recent years have witnessed renewed efforts to advance integration in the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), including in the domain of military and civilian capability development. The adoption of a Civilian CSDP Compact (CCC) and the creation of a European Peace Facility (EPF) are prominent examples of recent steps taken towards further integration. Still, despite recent progress, CSDP reforms have often been slow to materialise, lag behind the reform ambitions of key EU foreign policy actors, and fail to address important shortcomings experienced by CSDP. This article addresses why this might be by exploring the evolution of CSDP crisis management through a failing forward approach, which charts the course of integration dynamics, identified by neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, through time, revealing its cyclical nature. Our case studies of the EPF and the CCC demonstrate how the long-term integrative dynamics in EU military and civilian crisis management are marked by a cycle of crisis followed by incomplete institutional reforms, policy feedback, experiential learning and subsequent, yet again incomplete, efforts to remedy institutional shortcomings and policy failure.

The EU’s reaction in the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic between centralisation and decentralisation, formality and informality

ABSTRACT The Covid-19 pandemic is a multi-faceted crisis that challenges not only the health systems and other policy sub-systems in the single Member States, but also the European Union’s ability to provide policy responses that address the transnational nature of pandemic control as a union-wide ‘public good’ that affects health and social policies, border control and security as well as topics related to the single market. Thus, the pandemic constitutes a veritable capacity test for the EU integration project. This article attempts to take stock of the Union’s early reaction to the first wave of the Covid-19 outbreak. After an introduction and a short note on the scope and methodology of the analysis a theoretical framework is developed. Scrutinising the pertinent literature on crisis management, we reflect the traditional hypothesis that in times of crisis the centre becomes more relevant against the background of the EU crisis management system, and discuss the role of informality in particular during the time of crisis. Against this backdrop, empirical evidence from interviews with EU officials and documents in selected policy fields (health and emergency management, digitalisation, and economic recovery) are analysed, before a discussion and conclusion complete the study.

Evaluating Hungary’s Participation in the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy

Abstract Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 but started to participate in EU crisis management operations well before. Since the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) was a new policy area at that time, it was an extraordinary experience for Hungary to be integrated into a policy still under development. Aft er briefly detailing the foreign and security policy options Hungary faced right after the transition from communism, this paper analyses Hungary’s contribution to the CSDP. The CSDP is based on two pillars — one operational and the other related to capability-building. The paper first analyses Hungary’s participation in the civilian and military operations launched in the framework of the CSDP. Specifically, it explores the operations Hungary has joined, the kind of capacities it has contributed and the deficiencies and problems that have emerged in this sphere. Second, the paper addresses Hungary’s perspectives and aspirations regarding capability development. Specifically, it looks at how Hungary views the future of the CSDP, especially in light of the country’s participation in permanent structured cooperation (PESCO), the central element in the EU’s joint defence capability development. Methodologically, the paper employs qualitative content and discourse analysis, drawing on relevant secondary literature and analyses of official EU and Hungarian (legislative and non-legislative) documents. Surveying Hungary’s participation in EU crisis management operations since the beginning of the CSDP, the paper finds it has joined 42 per cent of civilian and 70 per cent of military operations. These have been in the immediate neighbourhood but also distant locations (Africa, Central Asia, and the Near East). At the same time, distinct challenges have hampered Hungary’s contribution to certain operations, such as a dearth of foreign language skills and a lack of strategic airlift and mobile logistics capabilities. The paper also finds that regional defence cooperation was not the central driver of cooperation within PESCO projects. Overall, Hungary is somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of the number of PESCO projects it participates in.

EU bank insolvency law harmonisation: What next?

AbstractAfter the COVID‐19 crisis has subsided, the (further) harmonization of bank insolvency law will again be high on the agenda of EU regulators and policymakers. On the basis of an analysis of the status quo pain points, this article advocates the extension of the BRRD resolution regime to all bank failures, regardless of their systemic relevance. This could be achieved by removing the public interest requirement as part of the resolution trigger. The ensuing consolidation would significantly reduce complexity and enhance the transparency and legitimacy of the EU crisis management framework.

The EU and critical crisis transformation: the evolution of a policy concept

ABSTRACT While often caused by conflict, crises are treated by the EU as a phenomenon of their own. Contemporary EU crisis management represents a watering down of normative EU approaches to peacebuilding, reduced to a technical exercise with the limited ambition to contain spillover effects of crises. In theoretical terms this is a reversal, which tilts intervention towards EU security interests and avoids engagement with the root causes of the crises. This paper develops a novel crisis response typology derived from conflict theory, which ranges from crisis management to crisis resolution and (critical) crisis transformation. By drawing on EU interventions in Libya, Mali and Ukraine, the paper demonstrates that basic crisis management approaches are pre-eminent in practice. More promising innovations remain largely confined to the realms of discourse and policy documentation.

Rethinking EU Crisis Management - From Battlegroups to a European Legion?

Rethinking EU Crisis Management - From Battlegroups to a European Legion?

EU Bank Insolvency Law Harmonization: What Next?

After the COVID-19 crisis has subsided, the (further) harmonization of bank insolvency law will again be high on the agenda of EU regulators and policy makers. On the basis of an analysis of the status quo pain points, the paper advocates the extension of the BRRD resolution regime to all bank failures, regardless of their systemic relevance. This could be achieved by removing the public interest requirement as part of the resolution trigger. The ensuing consolidation would significantly reduce complexity and enhance the transparency and legitimacy of the EU crisis management framework.

Blueprints and Modalities of Status Arrangements for CSDP Operations and Missions

Status agreements for EU crisis management operations and missions represent a necessary legal aspect of their consensual conduct and completion. The adopted Status of Forces (SOFA) and Status of Mission (SOMA) Model Agreements for military and civilian deployments respectively have been implemented regularly in Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) undertakings for the presence and transit of EU-led multinational contingents and assets on land or at sea. Variations and repetition in the application of the ready standard frameworks dominate the spectrum of evolved practice, but casual and adaptive solutions have also indicated the occasional need for specific modalities of status arrangements for CSDP operations and missions. These include the extension of existing SOFA arrangements of an EU member, a UN peacekeeping mission or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to an EU-led successive, supplementary or reinforcing multinational engagement in the same theatre of operation. With respect to non-standard arrangements for certain civilian CSDP crisis management deployments, their status came to be defined as activities of diplomatic missions due to the particular nature and context of EU undertakings in Bosnia, in Congo or in Kosovo. The available blueprints and tested modalities of status arrangements offer a comprehensive set of examples for the choice of adequate solutions for any future CSDP operation or mission. CSDP, crisis management operation, crisis management mission, status of forces, status of mission, Model Agreement, EU forces, EULEX Kosovo

Gender Justice in EU Crisis Management Missions

This paper examines competing understanding of gender justice between CSDP civil and military staff and representatives of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). Using the three GLOBUS concepts of justice as an analytical framework the paper shows that there is a sharp contrast between CSDP staff discourse on gender justice and the implementation the Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, and discourse from CSOs. It finds that approaches to gender justice in CSDP missions have been largely dominated by a justice as impartiality approach, located in the language of universal human rights but when we look at the actual the implementation of the WPS agenda in the field (or lack thereof), an approach rooted in the state-centric model of justice as non-domination emerges. In contrast, CSOs tend to advocate for the inclusion of a more context specific approach, one that takes account of intersectionality and complexity, more aligned with justice as mutual recognition. This disconnect in understandings of gender justice is problematic because in order for missions to be successful, or to have any transformative power, there is a need for a level of engagement between mission staff and CSOs. This is in order to take a context specific approach to gender justice in CDPD missions and to avoid the curtailing of certain women’s voices. The paper uses qualitative data from interviews with civilian and personnel from within military field missions and representatives of a variety of CSOs from both the global North and South.