Evaluating the EU’s Crisis Missions in the Balkans

Since 2003, EU military and civilian crisis management has emerged as a new field in European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), also claiming a place high on the political agenda. This book evaluates the EU’s first such operations in the Western Balkans, focusing on lessons learned in the military and police missions to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Macedonia. The authors have conducted their research both in Brussels and in the field.

The evaluations place these operations in political and institutional perspectives, and highlight not only successes but also the shortcomings that will need to be addressed in the years ahead. The relevance of the book is heightened by the increasing number of crisis management missions that the EU is being mandated to take up worldwide, in Africa and Asia as well as the Western Balkans, with major challenges ahead in a police mission in Afghanistan and an impending rule of law mission in Kosovo.