Civil-military Coordination in the Common Security and ... - ETC Graz

Markus MÖSTL
F Conclusions
Concepts like human security have changed our understanding of how to best tackle
today’s threats and crises. The growing demand for civil-military missions and the
qualitative requirements for CMCO pose a real challenge for the EU.
On a conceptual level, it seems that CMCO is taken very seriously within the EU
and the potential value added by CMCO seems to be undisputed. It appears that it
became a common understanding of the MS that CMCO should be on the agenda
not only for the planning and conduct of a concrete operation, but also during the
routine phase.
In institutional terms, some serious problems still remain. The Lisbon Treaty
diminished the pillar structure of the EU, but did not alter the still separate
responsibilities of the Commission and the Council of the EU. Due to the different
competences of these institutions, none of the actors may oblige the other to
coordinate or to be coordinated. All documents adopted in this regard are therefore
only recommendations and in no way binding. Although it seems that all actors
involved basically agree on the importance of CMCO, the question remains where
the limitations for coordination lie in practice. 37 The readiness and ability to
coordinate may vary from one instance to another, and might therefore hinder
permanent and systematic solutions paying due attention to CMCO.
The coordination between the civil and military institutions of the CSDP, however,
seems to be less problematic. 38 It is noteworthy that the institutional framework for
military crisis management was developed more vigorously from the beginning. It
may well be argued that the civilian dimension came in later and for a long time was
not able to alter the basic approaches for crisis management, e.g., for the planning of
operations. With the establishment of the CMPD real progress was made, as this
body encompasses civil and military experts that have established contacts with the
main civilian and military structures of the EU. The CMPD will therefore also have a
key role in further advancing CMCO. 39
Looking at the mere numbers of civilian and military capabilities the MS
committed themselves to provide for EU operations and missions, one is tempted to
conclude that the EU indeed has the ability to deploy integrated packages of civil and
military instruments. Yet, when taking a closer look at the capability development
process, the picture is not that encouraging anymore. In practice, not all of the
personnel committed by the MS will be made available to the EU and there is no
guarantee that the personnel will be trained in CMCO to any extent. How should they
live and implement a “culture of coordination”?
Recommendations”. The part including the case study and the resulting recommendation
has, however, not been declassified.
37 Hans-Georg Ehrhart, Civil-military co-operation and co-ordination in the EU and in
selected member states, 10 et seq.
38 See Radek Kohl, Civilian crisis management: the EU way, 127.
39 Despite this progress, some argue that only a joint civil-military headquarter would reflect
a truly successful institutionalization of CMCO.
38