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in development aid, providing roughly 60 percent of aid financing to developing
countries. The EU is also a major contributor to UN programs and activities. Its
member states provide 37 percent of the UN overall budget, and 40 percent of
the UN peacekeeping budget. Since the 1990s, the EU has steadily developed
its own common foreign and security policy, with a capacity to intervene outside
of Europe acting through the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). In
2003, Europe adopted a security strategy that envisions Europe as a global actor
in dealing with international security challenges, which was a first step towards
greater coherence in the EU’s foreign policy. At the conceptual level, all the elements
for strategic coherence are also laid out. The implementation document of
December 2008 reflecting European security policy establishes the importance of
the connections between security, development, poverty eradication, good governance,
and human rights. The goal of a systematic, comprehensive approach is
affirmed, and the importance of cooperating with the UN and other international
organizations is also stressed.
As a response, in part to its continuing enlargement, the EU has started to
streamline its institutions and decision-making procedures. These efforts led to
the Lisbon Treaty, which, despite a lot of setbacks, came into force in 2009. The
Treaty will increase the institutional coherence of the EU, such as through the
creation of the EU high representative and the establishment of the European
External Action Service, which serves as a European diplomatic corps. This will
lead to greater coordination between the supranational efforts of the European
Commission, on the one hand, and the inter-governmental efforts of the European
Council, on the other. It will also provide possibilities for small groups of states to
work more closely together on issues like defense policy. The EU has also established
the target of a more integrated civilian and military planning structure for
ESDP operations. It has early warning units and modalities, such as the European
Development Fund, EU special representatives, and the European Defence
Agency. In late December 2008, the European Council set for itself the goal of
creating the capability to undertake two major stabilization and reconstruction
operations supported by up to 10,000 troops for at least two years, and a dozen
other ESDP civilian rule-of-law or police missions. Ideas have also been pursued
in the European parliament to set up a civilian peace corps of 2,000-3,000 civilian
experts who would be sent out to post-conflict situations where needed.
On the ground, the EU is now engaged in 12 missions in Europe, the Middle
East, Afghanistan and Africa, deploying a total of about 5,000 people. Most of
these missions are civilian, such as police or rule-of-law missions which are relatively
small in nature. However, the EU has also recently fielded major military
missions in Bosnia with 2,500 troops and in Chad with 3,700 troops, the latter
of which was recently handed over to the UN. In addition, about 15 EU battle
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