EU as a Peace and Security Actor in Regional Conflict (original) (raw)
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The EU as a security actor in Africa
Instability and conflict in Africa create a range of security problems for Europe. Rapidly increasing migration via the Mediterranean Sea, extremism and terrorism, as well as cross-border crime, all have implications for security in Europe, but are spill-over effects of instability outside Europe. The European Union has a considerable interest in a stable Africa, and also seems willing to assume a special responsibility for the continent. This Clingendael report focuses on the European Union’s role as a security actor in Africa. It considers the use of all the policy instruments at the EU’s disposal. The authors concentrate mainly on the question how the integrated approach is evolving, and what consequences this has for the Common Security and Defence Policy.
The European Union has been seen as a new type of 'normative power', aiming at diffusing its values through its external policy. The EU influence in Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly worth noting. The EU is historically a leading partner for Africa and it presents itself to the African continent as a successful model of conflict transformation by regional integration. The European institutions have spent a considerable amount of material resources and diplomatic efforts for promoting regionalism in Africa and for encouraging the transition of African regional organizations from a security culture of 'non interference' to one of 'non indifference'. Yet, the expectation that the promotion of regional integration will contribute to the resolution of regional conflicts in Africa faces two sets of challenges. First, the historical, political and economic context of Africa may not be conducive to the success of regional cooperation as a conflict resolution strategy. Second, the effectiveness and the coherence of the EU's promotion of regional integration and regional conflict resolution in Africa are disputed. This paper presents REGIOCONF, a new collective research project aiming at investigating systematically the EU's engagement in addressing regional conflicts worldwide, particularly by promoting regional integration. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the project will address the cases of Sahel and the Great Lakes region
EU Conflict Management in Africa: The Limits of an International Actor
Ethnopolitics, 2009
The EU's conflict management policy towards Africa in the period 2003–2009 can best be understood within a realist framework. In terms of actors, the most powerful member states, and especially France, have set the agenda. In terms of motives, EU foreign policy in security issues appears to be driven by an aspiration to enhance the prestige of Europe in the world, and its independence from the USA. This article argues that member state leaders want to be perceived as ethical actors, and they use the EU as an instrument in order to share the responsibility of intervention. In practice, EU leverage on African conflicts, for example through aid conditionality and trade policies, is weak, and EU engagement is shaped largely by previous patterns of relations between former colonial powers and former colonies. While EU military missions are a new instrument in EU policy towards Africa, these are small in number, and limited in duration and territorial coverage. For these reasons, the article concludes that the EU's conflict management policy is generally not credible in African states.
The Emerging Peace and Security Regime in Africa: The Role of the EU
"This article focuses on the role the European Union (EU) is playing in peacekeeping and conflict prevention in Africa. In this article, it is argued that the EU’s peacekeeping approach is not only shaped by the interests of European Member States or EU institutions to deploy and maintain peacekeepers but is responsive to an emerging African peace and security regime. The majority of peacekeeping operations on the continent build upon some kind of inter-organizational arrangements between the United Nations (UN), the EU, and the African Union (AU) or in some cases other regional African organizations. This article will show how the existing forms of inter-organizational interaction between international organizations (IOs) in Africa impact on the EU’s engagement in peace operations in the continent. This article demonstrates the EU’s role in the multi-actor game of peacekeeping in Africa and how the EU’s involvement in these emerging international cooperation structures influences its peacekeeping strategy for Africa."
Theorising the EU's role in regional conflict management
European Security, 2010
This article seeks to contribute to the underdeveloped discussion about the way we theorise and conceptualise externally induced peace and security operations in regional conflict, with a particular focus on the EU's role. The framework draws on three theoretical components emphasised in this special issue: the construction of conflict, security governance and the impact of EU security practices. The EU's construction of the conflict is tightly linked to decisions about the mode of security governance and here we need to pay more attention to the often-neglected relationship between the external intervening party and the parties in conflict that are subject to the intervention. Furthermore, the impact of peace operations are usually analysed in terms of implementation and coordination failures, and in our view it is necessary to step back and address the construction of the criteria by which interventions are assessed – in particular, the way intervening actors construct and define ‘success and failure’.
The EU conflict management in Africa
The conflict management in Africa is an approach of European states to help the countries experiencing severe conflicts. However, the EU and especially France use it to fulfill their own interests and to enhance their prestige. The aid development program is not efficient as it creates more inequality among African people and is less and less used by the European states. This essay will argue that conflict management in Africa is inefficient because African interests are often put aside. The case studies of Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Sudan will be looked at, and the significant role France played in this conflict.
The Limits of the EU as a Peace and Security Actor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Afrika Spectrum, 46(3):45-70, 2011
The European Union (EU) is increasingly aspiring to be a global peace and security actor. Using the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as a test case to analyse such ambitions, this article reveals that the EU’s attempts to build peace and security are severely compromised by its bureaucratic and organizational complexity as well as by its ineffective policies. In fact, the EU’s state-centred approach in the DRC has resulted in the EU’s inability to deal with 1) the realities of governance in the DRC and 2) the strong transborder dimensions of the conflict. As a result, the EU continues to lack a coherent strategy for the DRC, despite a large budget. The analysis concludes that the EU is more concerned with establishing a symbolic presence and a form of representation than with achieving specific goals.
2001
Cotonou Agreement, will most likely remain the main priority channel for the EU's response to crisis situations in Africa. The Cotonou Agreement provides a channel for structural cooperation with ACP countries, and the linkages between crisis-management instruments and development cooperation could be improved. In parallel, CFSP instruments can complement and provide political impetus for more structural forms of support in the framework of the EDF. An analysis of current political developments in the EU suggests that it could indeed improve its capacity for dealing with politically fragile countries. There is a set of common interests upon which Europeans are willing to act and with which Europeans can be motivated. There is a dynamic system for decision-making that could be simplified. There is a growing set of common resources that can be drawn upon when action is called for. In other words, the EU has created a complex framework for sustained foreign and security policy cooperation that it can use for dealing with politically fragile countries. Whether or not this framework is effectively used in practice is a matter of political will.