Managing crises on a shoestring

Date: 23/06/05

It is almost ten years since the European Union first appointed Aldo Ajello to be the EU's first special representative, to co-ordinate the EU's role in trying to solve the highly complex conflicts engulfing Africa's Great Lakes region.

In March 1996, in the wake of the Rwandan genocide and against the background of the subsequent Rwandan incursions into neighbouring Congo, Ajello was given responsibility for improving the EU's collective response to the troubled region.

Since then the proliferation of EU special representatives (EUSR, as they are known in the jargon), has mirrored the crises that have emerged around the world.

Some 19 men (no women) have since been asked to deal with various crises. The position of EUSR was legally formalised by the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam. Eight are currently active and two more, one for Sudan and one Central Asia, could be on the way.

But Ajello's experience is telling. Tying together the various policy traditions moulded from Belgian, British, French or German colonial experiences in the region has not always been easy.

Other envoys have had to perform similar political gymnastics in order to try to give a coherent EU message to a region.

Ajello's appointment was followed up by that of Miguel Ángel Moratinos, charged with co-ordinating the EU's role in trying to solve the Arab- Israeli conflict.

Against the background of Yasser Arafat's return to Gaza, of the Olso interim peace accords and the assassination of Yitzak Rabin, Moratinos, now Spain's foreign minister, was also tasked with improving the EU's collective response to the highly complex Middle East conflict.

Experts say Morantinos's work in improving relations with Israel helped increase the EU's profile and role in the region. That led to the EU later becoming part of the international Quartet, alongside the US, UN and Russia, which drafted the latest peace plan.

This on a budget of just over €3 million a year in 2000 and with nine staff.

Later, in 1998-2002, nine envoys were appointed, eight of them were destined for the Balkans as the EU tried to redress its previous inaction in its own backyard. One, Klaus Peter Klaiber, was also appointed for Afghanistan. But despite regular contacts with member states' representatives in the regions concerned, an EUSR's appointment seldom ties together neatly the underlying differences of opinion over how the EU should act.

Despite the appointment of representatives for conflicts in the former Soviet space, which came as countries formerly behind the iron curtain prepared to join the EU last year, some old member states retain dramatically different views over Russia's sensitivities. This limits considerably an EUSR's room for manoeuvre.

Bureaucracy, institutional structures and administrative restriction have also limited EUSRs' ability to act.

Paid for by the Council of Ministers from its meagre Common Foreign and Security Policy budget, resources and staffing levels are often inadequate.

And when EU military or police operations take place in the regions, the EUSRs are not part of the chain of command. Nor do they have a say in the way the EU provides aid and assistance, since most of these actions are under the control of the European Commission.

Diplomats also complain that with some representatives being based outside Brussels or the region, they are sometimes removed from decision-making in the EU institutions.

But as the EU's visibility on the international scene develops, albeit at a slow pace, there continue to be demands for more special representatives from China and Tibet to South America.

Feature analyses the role and value of the EU's 'Special Representatives' appointed to help deal with crisis situations around the world, as part of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

Council of the European Union: Policies: Foreign policies: EU Special Representatives http://consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=263&lang=en&mode=g

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