The EU’s partners in crisis response and peacebuilding: complementarities and synergies with the UN and OSCE

Abstract

A stated aim in the EU Global Strategy is for the EU to work with partners in addressing crises across the world. This article analyses such potential in the area of crisis response and peacebuilding, with an emphasis on the EU's interaction with the UN and OSCE. It starts off comparatively by examining where the EU, UN and OSCE add value in crisis response and peacebuilding and reach complementarities. It shows that deployments differ across geographical locations and that the mandates of these organizations vary considerably with the EU focusing on police capacity building, the OSCE on the judiciary and the UN providing monitoring functions. In the second half, the article uses insights from cooperation between these organizations on the ground in Kosovo, Mali and Armenia to determine levels of interaction. Despite relatively few conflicts between these organizations, we find that they continue to work in parallel with each organization focusing on their narrow mandate and competences.

На Пути К Более Стратегическому Партнерству: Укрепление ОБСЕ Путем Расширения Сотрудничества ЕС И ОБСЕ

“…Однако, как отмечают многие исследователи, на практике две эти организации в своей деятельности не следовали совместному подходу к вопросам безопасности и скорее действовали параллельно, но не вместе 10 . Несмотря на положительные примеры обратного, такие как сотрудничество между нынешней Специальной мо-ниторинговой миссией ОБСЕ в Украине и Консультативной миссией Европейского союза в Украине, данная тенденция скорее укрепилась и стала более распространенной.…”

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

“…Indeed, scholarly literature has frequently addressed EU interactions with other IGOs, among which the OSCE (van Ham, 2008;van Willigen, 2014;van Willigen & Koops, 2015). Research on these matters has explored especially how such interactions can foster "policy coordination" between the EU and other IGOs, and thus increase their efficiency in addressing specific issues (Gawrich, 2017;McEvoy, 2017;Koops & Tardy, 2015), including in the context of the EU comprehensive approach to conflicts and crises (Major & Mölling, 2009) and of the implementation of the 2016 EU Global Strategy (Dijkstra et al, 2018). In this context, resource dependency approaches to inter-organizational relations (Biermann & Harsch, 2017;Biermann, 2014) have provided relevant insights into the reasons why the EU seeks partnerships with other IGOs in its security efforts and how these interactions are structured (Brosig, 2014;Petrov et al, 2019).…”

“…In principle, the EU has been increasingly qualified as a "regional organization" able to foster peace and security under the authority of the United Nations Security Council (Gibney & Biscop, 2012). Still, the EU may lack problem-solving capacity in external crises where other international and/or regional actors enjoy such rights, due to: geographical and functional reasons (Dijkstra at al., 2018); and/or to the distinctive features of its approach to external conflicts and crises (Faleg, 2018).…”

“…As for the civilian crisis management capabilities, the OSCE suffered from significant operational limitations (Debuysere & Blockmans, 2019). In fact, despite its deficiencies in the civilian crisis management sector, the EU had essentially replaced the OSCE as the most prominent provider of civilian missions (Dijkstra et al, 2018). During the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia, for instance, the EU had conducted a civilian monitoring mission (EUMM) to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire between the two conflicting parties.…”

Auf dem Weg zu einer strategischen Partnerschaft: Die Stärkung der OSZE durch eine bessere Zusammenarbeit mit der EU

“…Die beiden Organisationen verfolgen keinen gemeinsamen Ansatz bei Sicherheitsfragen und arbeiten eher parallel, anstatt an einem Strang zu ziehen. 12 Trotz positiver Gegenbeispiele -wie etwa die Zusammenarbeit zwischen der aktuellen OSZE-Sonderbeobachtermission in der Ukraine und der dortigen European Union Advisory Mission -hat sich diese Tendenz in letzter Zeit noch verstärkt. Die Spannungen innerhalb der OSZE sind weiter gewachsen, und die EU bemüht sich mittlerweile um eine größere Autonomie als Sicherheitsakteur in Europa, vor allem seit dem Vertrag von Lissabon aus dem Jahr 2007.…”