Tackling the challenges of SSR.
Date: 2016-06-08
Institutions: European Union Institute for Security Studies
Subjects: common foreign and security policy, common security and defence policy, corruption, international security, security services, the EU's international role

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Tackling the challenges of SSR
by Thierry Tardy 

A sound security sector is key to the development 
and stability of countries in transition, and Security 
Sector  Reform  (SSR)  has  therefore  become  central 
to the EU’s broad security agenda. A decade ago the 
European Commission and the Council Secretariat 
adopted  two  separate  SSR  concepts,  which  at  the 
time was revealing of the existing cultural and opera-
tional differences between the then two ‘pillars’. This 
contributed  to  uncoordinated  policies  and  proved 
incompatible with the spirit of the comprehensive 
approach.  In  May  2015,  therefore,  the  Foreign 
Affairs  Council  invited  the  High  Representative 
and the Commission to develop, by mid-2016, an 
‘EU-wide strategic framework for SSR’, which must 
‘bring  together  CSDP  and  all  other  relevant  CFSP 
tools  as  well  as  development  co-operation  instru-
ments and freedom, security and justice actors.’ 

As of 2016, 14 of the 17 on-going CSDP operations 
include an SSR dimension, with only the two mari-
time  operations  –  Atalanta  and  Sophia  –  and  the 
monitoring mission in Georgia not being involved 
in reforming the security sector of recipient states. 
Missions such as EUCAP Sahel Niger, EUCAP Sahel 
Mali, EUSEC RDC, EUMAM RCA or EUAM Ukraine 
typically target the security sectors of the states con-
cerned.

In the meantime, the European Commission is en-
gaged in numerous SSR-related activities, in paral-
lel with CSDP or independently. The Commission 
mainly  finances  SSR  programmes  that  are  car-
ried  out  by  third  parties  –  be  they  international 

organisations, 
NGOs, partner states or EU member states. 

contractors/private 

companies, 

This being said, 20 years of SSR activities offer mixed 
results. While many programmes have contributed 
to the long-term stabilisation and much-needed re-
form of the host nations, many others are assessed 
less positively. In this context, the forthcoming SSR 
strategic  framework  is  expected  to  provide  a  new 
roadmap  and  then,  hopefully,  more  tangible  re-
sults.

What follows is a short review of the main challeng-
es that the EU faces in its SSR activities and that the 
SSR policy – and subsequent implementation – will 
have to address one way or the other.

External vs. internal politics. An external presence 
that aims to reform the security sector of a country in 
transition inherently suffers from the highly political 
nature of such a process. As a key component of the 
state apparatus, the security sector directly connects 
to the heart of state sovereignty. Any attempt to al-
ter the distribution of power within the sector, be it 
within one particular area (police, judiciary, parlia-
ment, etc.) or among those different branches, is ex-
tremely sensitive, irrespective of where the initiative 
comes from. In this context, the top-down external-
ly-driven  approach  that  characterises  SSR  and  the 
focus  on  the  reform  dimension  of  the  exercise  are 
inherent  sources  of  resistance  on  the  part  of  local 
actors/elites  that  are  often  mainly  concerned  with 
status quo and their own prerogatives. SSR relates to 

European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS)

April 2016

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‘theories of change’, i.e. the idea that peace and sta-
bility will result from change in the society, political 
system, distribution of power, which is triggered by 
the external presence. In other words, SSR entails a 
level of political and social reshuffle that is expected 
to create frustration and resistance. 

Local  ownership.  These  concerns  are  to  be  reme-
died by a constant political dialogue with the host 
nation as well as lasting local buy-in not only at the 
highest level of the state apparatus, but also in lower 
political and administrative layers, and beyond the 
capital city (decentralisation). Alongside the possi-
bility for the main recipients of an SSR programme 
to shape its mandate, the issue is also the capacity 
of local actors to absorb the changes that an opera-
tion  implies.  Yet  local  actors  are  seldom  involved 
in the design of SSR programmes. More worryingly, 
local actors can also be spoilers of a peace process 
and become threats to the external presence. When 
this is the case, international institutions are largely 
ill-equipped to respond. This, in turn, leads to the 
question  of  whose  security  SSR  is  supposed  to  be 
about.  EU-led  SSR  programmes  are  largely  state-
centric in the sense that they aim at strengthening 
the state apparatus. While the human security ele-
ment is theoretically central, in practice it is often 
seen as a by-product of good governance at the state 
level. De facto, civil society actors are not predomi-
nant interlocutors of SSR programmes.

Fragmentation  vs.  coherence.  While  SSR  pro-
grammes  can  only  produce  results  if  they  are 
wide-ranging  and  combine  in  a  coordinated  effort 
activities  at  different  levels  (police  reform,  crimi-
nal  justice,  anti-corruption),  in  practice  they  tend 
to suffer from a piecemeal approach, with lines of 
effort  that  are  insufficiently  coordinated  or  simply 
the object of uneven focus. Crisis management is a 
lot about defining priorities so that impact can be 
maximised through concentrated effort. The down-
side of this is neglect of areas that are nonetheless 
key to the overall success of SSR. A police reform 
that would not simultaneously tackle corruption or 
weaknesses in the penitentiary system would likely 
fail to have a sustainable impact. At a different level, 
these tactical considerations can only be examined 
in a broader strategic context, i.e. the need for SSR 
programmes to be embedded into and serve a wider 
stabilisation framework that evolves over time. SSR 
implies internal coordination of its various branch-
es,  but  also  a  clear  positioning  in  the  EU  broader 
governance/development/peacebuilding agenda, let 
alone inter-institutional coordination.  

Rewards  vs.  penalties.  Endemic  corruption  that 
characterises many of the countries under consid-
eration makes all of the good governance principles 

difficult to implement, and so far the record in anti-
corruption programmes  is not encouraging. As  an 
example, raising salaries of civil servants to reduce 
the temptation of corruption does not seem to have 
produced tangible results and, furthermore, is dif-
ficult to artificially sustain for long periods of time. 
Anti-corruption  and  anti-impunity  programmes 
are also faced with issues of witness protection and 
the difficulty to target higher-ranked officials rather 
than only lower-rank staff. Furthermore, the chang-
es  induced  by  SSR  programmes  require  the  iden-
tification  of  incentive  structures  that  have  proven 
difficult to establish. At a macro-level, the combina-
tion  of  economic  (through  some  kind  of  tangible 
pay-offs) and political incentives on the one hand, 
and some sort of penalties on the other, needs to be 
tailor-made. Yet incentives at an individual level are 
more difficult to implement.

Long-  vs.  short-term.  SSR  suffers  from  a  tension 
between long-term needs and short-term commit-
ments. By nature, reforming a security sector – or 
even,  in  some  cases,  creating  it  from  scratch  –  is 
a decade-long process and therefore requires a de-
gree of commitment that, more often than not, the 
EU and its member states cannot undertake. Some 
operations  end  up  lasting  a  decade  or  even  more. 
In those cases, the inevitably fading interest on the 
part  of  member  states  impacts  negatively  on  the 
mission. 

Institutional  capacity  and  lessons  learnt.  Finally, 
SSR activities would benefit from a proper EU ca-
pacity  (at  HQ  level,  in  CSDP  operations  and  EU 
Delegations) that would strengthen coherence and 
effectiveness  in  at  least  three  areas:  conflict  analy-
sis and understanding of local dynamics and needs; 
coordination of efforts from the three EU branches 
involved in SSR (CSDP, development and JHA); and 
monitoring  of  on-going  programmes  and  lessons 
learnt. 

The added-value of the EU for SSR is well under-
stood and appreciated. By nature, the security sec-
tor is composed of different branches which, to be 
reformed, require a joined-up and cross-cutting ap-
proach  that  the  EU  is  well-positioned  to  provide. 
The  mix  of  available  financial  resources  and  re-
nowned expertise across the board also makes the 
EU an obvious SSR actor. Yet these assets may not 
be sufficient. For SSR to be more effective, the new 
strategic  framework  would  have  to  provide  clarity 
on a level of ambition/expectations and means for 
a better impact. As, in the end, change can only be 
home-grown and – at best – only facilitated by ex-
ternal actors.

Thierry Tardy is a Senior Analyst at the EUISS.

European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS)

April 2016

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© EU Institute for Security Studies, 2016. | QN-AL-16-014-2A-N | ISBN 978-92-9198-388-9 | ISSN 2315-1129 | doi:10.2815/9185