Developing the EU’s civilian capacity

Date: 26/05/05

In November 2004, EU defence ministers decided to develop up to ten 'battle groups' as rapid response units ready to intervene in multilateral peace operations in failed or failing states. Would it not be equally helpful for the EU to create a civilian capacity for rapid reaction?

This is one of a series of suggestions contained in a new pamphlet, jointly published by the Foreign Policy Centre and the British Council, entitled Rescuing the State: Europe's Next Challenge. The authors are Malcolm Chalmers of Bradford University, Michael von der Schulenburg, formerly a senior official with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and Julian Braithwaite, who has recently returned from Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he was the right-hand man of Paddy Ashdown, the EU's special representative.

They draw on the experience of the EU, or its member states, in Bosnia and Kosovo, in Africa (Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo), in Afghanistan and Iraq. They conclude that while the initial military interventions have largely been successful, the follow-up, in trying to build up a successful civilian administration, has had far more mixed results.

In part, they argue, this is down to a lack of advanced planning and recruitment of qualified personnel ready to be deployed in trouble spots at short notice. Although some miracles of improvisation were achieved, much of the subsequent effort has proved, all too often, to be wasteful or even counter-productive.

One problem has been the multiplicity of non-governmental organisations involved. Each has acted from good intentions, but all too often their efforts are unco-ordinated or overlapping, with each body having its own programme, budget, organisational structure, salary scales and communication systems, incompatible with each other.

One disastrous result has been the over-recruitment of qualified local talent, both by non-governmental organisations and by UN and EU agencies, at salaries vastly superior (sometimes by as much as 200 or 400 times, the pamphlet argues) to the local norm. This has meant that the governments or local and regional authorities of the country concerned have been quite unable to compete and this has greatly inhibited the building up of an effective civilian administration. Donor countries would be better advised to make it financially possible for national administrations to recruit the qualified personnel they so desperately need.

For it is the collapse - or the non-existence - of a properly functioning administration, respected by its citizens, which has caused the state, or the territory, to fail in the first place. Only by putting it back on a solid footing can lasting peace and security be provided.

International intervention may be an essential pre-condition to the re-creation of an effective state - but it is not an alternative. There is a lot that international bodies can do to help get the show back on the road, but the essential task of governing must be entrusted - in the shortest possible time - to indigenous authorities.

Attempts to establish a semi-permanent protectorate are doomed to failure and are certain to provoke the resentment of the local population, or to foster an unhealthy culture of dependence. The objective, from day one, must be to work consistently towards a progressive handover of authority.

The European record in state-building activities since 1945 is an impressive one. In Western Europe, the same impetus which brought six nations together to form the European Economic Community helped to strengthen each of the six, then rather fragile, states internally, transforming their economies.

The EU provided much material assistance - and the promise of eventual membership - to the former Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. It has followed a stonier path in parts of the former Yugoslavia, but despite many false starts and continuing errors, solid progress has been made in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Although Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Belarus (if the dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko is replaced) may well qualify for membership in the future, the probability must be that the majority of countries where the EU may be invited to intervene, militarily or with civilian assistance, will never be eligible.

The challenge to the EU will then be whether its methods and its example will be sufficiently strong to make a decisive difference, even without this powerful inducement. In most cases, such interventions are likely to occur, either in the Middle East or on the African continent.

Past experience is not particularly encouraging. Without a carefully prepared civilian follow-up, the EU's militarily successful intervention in 2003 in the Itun region of east Congo proved abortive. After the EU force was withdrawn, the area all but reverted to its former state. Before engaging in further such enterprises, the EU needs to rethink its military capacity.

• Dick Leonard is a former assistant editor of The Economist.

Article takes a look at the EU's track record in civilian crisis management.

Foreign Policy Centre: Publications: Global Europe. Rescuing the State: Europe's Next Challenge, May 2005 http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/451.pdf

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