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© USIP 2011 • All rights reserved.

“So far the EU’s 

impressive institutional 

and financial capacity has 

not been reflected in its 

operational decisiveness.”

May 26, 2011

EU Conflict Prevention Revisited

The New European External Action Service

Summary

•	 So far the European Union has not operated as the leading actor on prevention that it aims to 

be. The recent launch of the European External Action Service (EEAS) in December 2010 could 

present a breakthrough in this regard.

•	 Most of the existing prevention instruments will be relocated to the new Service. A tentative 

organogram of the EEAS also reveals the establishment of a Directorate for Conflict Prevention 

and Security Policy. 

•	 It remains to be seen whether this institutional innovation can address the challenges that 

have constrained the EU’s role in prevention so far, including the EU’s coherence, consensus, 

conceptual clarity and ambition.

Introduction 

The European Union highlighted conflict prevention as a strategic priority following the 1999 

war in Kosovo and the emergence of the human security paradigm in the 1990s. Its capacity to 

reduce tensions or manage violent conflict has strengthened significantly since. The Union has 

transformed from an inward-looking project aimed at internal economic and political stability 

into a serious player in international affairs. Yet, so far the EU has not operated as the leading 

actor on prevention that it aims to be. The launch of the European External Action Service (EEAS) 

in December 2010, an EU foreign ministry and diplomatic corps in development, could present a 

breakthrough in this regard, allowing the organization to act upon its commitments.

Its broad range of instruments, financial largesse and image of a benevolent soft power allow 

the EU to lead prevention activities from sub-Saharan Africa to the Arctic Ocean and from Central 

Asia to Morocco. With a seven-year budget of $2.59 billion for its Common Foreign and Security 

Policy (CFSP), an Instrument of Stability worth over $3 billion for a seven year-period1

, and $80 

billion of development aid available within the EU and member states combined in 2010, the EU’s 

financial capacity to prevent conflict is unrivaled.2 Its prevention toolbox includes conflict-sensitive 

development assistance, trade and environmental policy instruments, as well as economic, 

diplomatic and military tools for crisis management.

While institutionally the EU may thus appear to be a prevention giant, its operational visibility 

has remained relatively low. The Union faces coordination problems, remains confused about 

conflict prevention as a concept and lacks decisiveness due to occasional divergences among 

Jonas Claes

E-mail: jclaes@usip.org

Phone: 202.429.1982

peaceBrieF93
© USIP 2011 • All rights reserved.

EU Conflict Prevention Revisited

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its 27 member states. The EU also continues to punch below its weight, limiting itself to less 

controversial low-risk missions within a limited geographic area.

This brief describes the EU’s growing dedication to conflict prevention; assesses the anticipated 

impact of the new Service on EU prevention activities; and sets out the remaining challenges for 

the EU’s potential role in resolving conflicts outside EU borders.

Prevention on the EU Agenda: From Göteborg to Lisbon

The EU embodies the potential of regional integration as a structural conflict prevention approach, 

spreading political and economic stability across the old continent. The soft power combination of 

its socioeconomic appeal, accession criteria, stabilization and association agreements, and neighborhood policy stabilized most of the southern and eastern parts of Europe. But the 1999 war in 

Kosovo served as a reality check for Europe’s inability to manage crises, even in its own backyard.

Shortly after the Kosovar War, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security 

Policy, the European Commission and the European Council each issued a policy paper3 in an 

effort to develop a comprehensive EU conflict prevention policy. The final document, the 2001 

Göteborg Programme, represented a political commitment to pursue prevention as a key objective of the EU’s external relations. The Programme emphasized the distinction between structural 

or long-term prevention, and direct prevention or crisis-management, and was followed by the 

adoption of conflict prevention as a strategic priority in the 2003 European Security Strategy.

These commitments spurred the creation of new prevention tools. Prevention was gradually 

“mainstreamed” into EU development, trade and enlargement policies. With the creation of the 

European Security and Defense Policy in 1999, now called the Common Security and Defense 

Policy (CSDP), the Union also acquired new instruments for crisis management. The EU sent out EU 

Special Representatives to unstable countries and regions, and became involved in electoral assistance activities, peacekeeping and rescue tasks. A significant development was the creation of the 

Rapid Response Mechanism in 2001 to allow for quick, short-term and primarily civilian responses 

to crisis situations. In 2007, this Mechanism was transformed into the Instrument for Stability (IfS), a 

€2 billion instrument that is central to the EU capacity for conflict prevention. IfS funds have been 

used for a variety of projects, including peacekeeping in Chad and Darfur, electoral assistance 

in Bolivia and Moldova, and assistance to displaced populations in Georgia and Lebanon.4

 Since 

the EU Battlegroup concept reached full operational capability in 2007, the EU became able to 

undertake two concurrent single battalion-sized (about 1,500-strong) rapid response operations.5

These instruments allowed the EU to play a vital role as a peace broker defusing tensions in 

the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in 2001, or through its involvement in 

development and democratization programs in West Africa. To date, a total 28 civilian and military 

EU missions have been deployed, some of which effectively contributed to the prevention or 

resolution of violent conflict. Yet, these operations are generally limited in size and mandate. So 

far the EU’s impressive institutional and financial capacity has not been reflected in its operational 

decisiveness.

Preventing Conflict and the New European External Action Service

The Lisbon Treaty, signed in 2007 by member states after an arduous negotiation process, was aimed 

at further integrating the Union and adjusting its institutional structure to the EU’s recent enlargement, adding 12 additional member states. The creation of a new EEAS in December 2010 under 

the leadership of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Catherine 

Ashton, was prescribed in the Treaty to increase the visibility, coherence and effectiveness of the EU’s 
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EU Conflict Prevention Revisited

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foreign policy. The EEAS will initially consist of a diplomatic corps of about 1,200 personnel, and will 

combine and enhance the external action programs that had been scattered throughout the various 

EU institutions. The Service can draw from a broad range of policy fields, combine national and 

supranational resources, and apply both civilian and military instruments. With just several months 

since its inception, it may take two more years until this latest addition to the EU’s bureaucracy will be 

fully in service.

Conflict prevention was explicitly stated as a key purpose of the Union’s external action. The 

operational leverage of the EEAS will be crucial for the EU’s prevention capacity as it combines various security, development, migration and crisis management tools. It was long uncertain whether 

the EU would continue its “silver thread approach” and mainstream prevention or whether Ashton 

would opt for a vanguard office within the EEAS concentrating and coordinating prevention 

activities. The existing prevention instruments will be relocated to the new Service, including the 

IfS, the prevention, crisis response and peacebuilding units, and the CSDP structures. A tentative 

organogram of the EEAS distributed by Ashton also revealed the establishment of a Directorate 

for Conflict Prevention and Security Policy, and within it a Peacebuilding, Conflict Prevention and 

Mediation Unit. This Directorate is tasked with programming parts of the IfS and providing conflict 

analysis and support to the regional Directorates within the Service.6

The Directorate could develop into a vanguard office with dedicated focus on prevention, similar 

to the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) within the U.S. Department of State. Creating a separate prevention champion will reduce the chance of relevant Directorates merely paying lip service to the prevention mandate of the EEAS. But it remains to be seen 

whether this institutional innovation can address the challenges that have constrained the EU’s role 

in prevention so far, including the EU’s coherence, consensus, conceptual clarity and ambition:

Coherence. Prior to the Lisbon Treaty, most of the EU’s prevention capacity was scattered 

throughout the institutions. The EU also suffered from vertical inconsistency between the Union 

and the national level, and long-term structural prevention efforts were poorly coordinated with 

crisis management activities. The EEAS should be able to streamline the fragmented and complex 

EU decision-making procedures in external affairs. Unfortunately, several relevant policy areas will 

not be coordinated by Ashton, including the EU’s trade, development and enlargement policies. It 

is also unclear whether the new prevention Directorate will be linked to other prevention-related 

parts of the EEAS, in particular the crisis prevention structures. But the details of the announced 

structure are still subject to change.

Consensus. At times the member states experienced difficulties in reaching a consensus on 

sensitive foreign policy issues. Since member states are reluctant to surrender national sovereignty 

in their external affairs, most decisions under the Common Foreign and Security Policy are still 

taken at the intergovernmental level. Setting up an external relations pillar will not rule out 

disagreements. But the new position of Herman Van Rompuy as president of the European Council 

may smooth the decision-making procedures and overcome some of the ideological divergences. 

However, despite a number of highly publicized disagreements on controversial issues, member 

states generally reach a consensus on most issues.

Conceptual Clarity. The EU also needs to clarify its conceptual understanding of conflict prevention. EU directives, policy papers and statements by senior EU officials on prevention, as well 

as the EU’s organizational structure, reveal high levels of conceptual conflation between conflict 

prevention, crisis management and peacebuilding. The EU experiences difficulties distinguishing 

its prevention efforts from its work on human rights protection or development. Both at the EU 

and member state level, prevention instruments are too often applied reactively. Individual member states have also inappropriately labeled some of their work on post-conflict reconstruction 
© USIP 2011 • All rights reserved.

EU Conflict Prevention Revisited

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or counter-radicalization in former colonies as conflict prevention. Given its preference for early 

economic and political approaches, the EU also risks falling into the “trap of comprehensiveness.”7

The comment of one EU official, convinced that “All we do is conflict prevention,” exemplifies 

the validity of this concern. Human rights promotion, development, and capacity building often 

contribute to prevention strategies. But to qualify as conflict prevention, these actions need to 

include preventing large-scale violence explicitly among their goals.8 Moreover, those strategies 

aimed at preventing tensions before the outbreak of large-scale violence, also known as primary 

prevention, are preferable in moral, strategic and financial terms.

Ambition. So far the Union’s operational impact has not reflected the recent growth of its 

prevention capacity. The geographic scope of EU prevention activities and its willingness to use 

capabilities for prevention purposes have so far been limited. As Reinhardt Rummel points out, 

“The EU talks abundantly about its particular assets, but it forgets to use them.”9 The EU is also 

criticized for its eagerness to free-ride militarily on the back of its ultimate security guarantor, the 

United States. As a political organization with its roots in economic integration the EU remains 

reluctant to discuss military options. Perhaps the recent proposal to send two EU Battle Groups 

into Libya to assist the relief efforts indicates a first step toward more ambitious and assertive EU 

prevention operations.

The Road Ahead: The EU in Need of Strategic Prioritization

The EEAS may address a number of challenges that so far undermined EU prevention efforts. 

Although the new Service was launched almost half a year ago, it is still far from operational and 

the immediate changes will likely be institutional rather than programmatic. With the Lisbon 

Treaty, the EU focused on revamping its external representation, prioritizing form over content.10

The EU will also need an external action strategy that reflects the institutional innovations and sets 

out clear strategic priorities. Prevention advocates are hoping for an important signal from Ashton 

in June 2011, when she provides a review report of the Göteborg Programme that evaluates the 

EU support for prevention activities.

The EU will need to (re-)define its interests and strategic priorities. So far, its prioritization has 

been dictated by the geographic and thematic interests of individual member states. The priorities 

of the EEAS should reflect the interests of the Union and its closest allies, as well as the needs of the 

country or region at risk. This would lead to an expansion of policy initiatives outside its immediate 

neighborhood and former colonies, and a more upstream preventive approach.

Endnotes

1. From 2007 until 2013. 

2. European Union. “Publication of Preliminary Data on Official Development Assistance 2010”, 

MEMO/11/221, Brussels, April 6, 2011; “The Role of the EU in Conflict Prevention”, Background Note 

of Parliamentary Meeting on “The Future of Europe: from reflection to action”, December 4-5, 2006, 

Brussels, p. 3.

3. A Joint Report of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and 

the EU Commissioner for Foreign Relations (November 2000); a Communication of the European 

Commission on Conflict Prevention (April 2001); and the EU Programme for the Prevention of 

Violent Conflicts, also known as the Göteborg Programme (June 2001). 

4. European Commission. “2009 Annual Report from the European Commission on the Instrument for Stability”, SEC (2010) 1114, September 28, 2009, p. 4.
© USIP 2011 • All rights reserved.

USIP provides the analysis, training and 

tools that prevent and end conflicts, 

promotes stability and professionalizes 

the field of peacebuilding.

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About This Brief

Jonas Claes is a program specialist 

in USIP’s Center for Conflict 

Management. This Peace Brief 

follows a series of interviews 

conducted with senior EU officials 

in Brussels, and examines the 

anticipated impact of the new 

European External Action Service 

on EU prevention activities.

5. European Union. “EU Battlegroups”, EU Council Secretariat Press, September 2010, pp. 1-2.

6. European Peacebuilding Liaison Office. “Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Inside the 

EEAS”, EPLO Statement, February 21, 2011. Available at http://www.eplo.org/assets/files/2.%20

Activities/Working%20Groups/EEAS/EPLO_Statement_EEAS_Feb2011.pdf.

7. The ‘trap of comprehensiveness’ refers to the idea that, when a term widens conceptually, it 

becomes operationally useless.

8. Lawrence Woocher. “Preventing Violent Conflict: Assessing Progress, Meeting Challenges”, 

USIP Special Report, September 2009, p. 2.

9. Reinhardt Rummel. “The EU’s Involvement in Conflict Prevention- Strategy and Practice”, in 

Vincent Kronenberger and Jan Wouters (Eds.), The European Union and Conflict Prevention: Policy 

and Legal Aspects, (The Hague, the Netherlands: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2004): p. 92.

10. Edith Drieskens and Louise van Schaik. “Clingendael Input Paper”, in Edith Drieskens and 

Louise van Schaik (Eds.) The European External Action Service: Preparing for Success, (The Hague, the 

Netherlands: Clingendael, 2010): p. 8.

EU Conflict Prevention Revisited

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