part 1 of the african peace facility evaluation - European ...

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’information note’ and approving political appropriateness. However, according to EC legal services, this delegation of powers from PSC to AWG would not be legally possible even through a Council decision. The latest APF decisions (AMISOM V and MICOPAX 1C) involve no special political sensitivity in comparison to AMISOM IV and MICOPAX 1B, nor any aspect which would justify double-checking at a higher diplomatic level; although AMISOM V entailed a mission reinforcement from 8,000 to 12,000 peacekeepers and the approval to use UN allowances for peace keepers, which, according to DEVCO C6, can be considered politically sensitive. While the evaluation encourages delegation of implementation powers (such as the norm under the EU´s deconcentration policy) to Addis and/or regional EU delegations, it seems that EU MS are unlikely to agree to delegate political appropriateness decisions (i.e. financing decisions) outside Brussels. In other words, centralised decision-making related to the political appropriateness and overall financing decisions should be kept in Brussels. However, the implementing powers for the individual contracts and contribution agreements, in particular for the APF components dealing with ERM, capacity building and service contracts should be deconcentrated to the respective EU delegations. The preparation of the ‘information note’ and the ‘dossier’ for each APF decision is currently done by DEVCO C6, which works together with DEVCO C5 on the financial aspects. They actually work very efficiently, taking advantage of the assistance provided by the military expert. Involving EU delegations at AU/REC level at this stage would be realistic only if their PSO experts staff would be available. Their closeness to AU/RECs would indeed help to collect better information for the documents and develop a better partnership EU-AU/RECs as regards APF. Concerning the required signatures for APF decision on a PSO, the evaluators consider that the two extra signatures from the financial section 43 dealing with decisions and global commitments do not add value and might be replaced by a Commission Secretary General decision. The ‘four eyes’ principle is a good one, but when three or four visas are required from the same unit, the evaluation doubts whether they add any value. The process before the inter-service consultation to adopt an APF decision is blamed for being too long. Five departments are targeted: Legal service, SG, ECHO, DG budget and OLAF. It seems reasonable to consult with all of them in order to provide transparency and collective responsibility. Nevertheless, a good solution would be that the inter-service consultation ‘fast track’ procedure be normally used with a special meeting involving all departments. However, this particular procedure is only allowed when the concerned department asks a special permission to the SG in case of a manifest political urgency. In this regard it should be noted that, for the two APF decisions currently going through inter-service consultation - AMISOM V and MICOPAX 1C, DEVCO did not request this procedure despite the relative urgency of these funds for the field. It is true that it is very difficult to justify urgency for every APF decision. An example of the lack of flexibility in the EC legal framework is the only current exception to the generalised procedure: the aid provided by the Commission through a special fund for the Haitian government after the January 2010 earthquake. All financial decisions 44 related to this fund had a special five-day inter-service consultation, following a decision taken by SG last year. The SG decision explicitly states that, ‘It is essential that these decisions are treated in the best delays, not only to face our political commitments but also to make our support start as soon as possible. Consequently, 43 "Engagements primaires et dérogations". 44 Faced to this disaster, the European Commission set up a fund that aimed at helping the recovery of Haiti. One amount of €100m was approved for short-term support. For the medium and long term, a €200m fund was approved to respond to the requests by the Haiti state. Page 30 of 49
aiming at allowing a fast and effective response to this matter, I ask your approval for a systematic reduction to 5 working days of delay for the inter-service consultation, for all the decisions regarding the help to the Haitian state’. Regarding the communication system within ISC, all documents for the ISC are loaded in an on-line system called CIS-NET and an e-mail directly linked to the ISC is automatically sent to relevant services. EC officers comment and directly send the revised versions of the documents on-line. All the documents are available 24/7 in the system, including supporting information and details of everyone involved in the exercise. Meetings are held only for fast-track ISC, when there is no time to exchange comments in writing and wait for the answers. Regarding adoption by the College of Commissioners, apart from the written procedure used for APF decisions, EC legislation also provides for: ‣ The empowerment procedure: one of the Commissioners is empowered by the College to adopt an individual decision (but the ACP envelope within EDF is not covered by this procedure); ‣ The sub-delegation procedure: the Commissioner delegates authority to the Director General concerned. A change from the general written procedure to the empowerment or sub-delegation procedures (the latter may only be used for decisions under €10m) would require an internal decision of the College of Commissioners. For APF, special competence would concern the Commissioner for Development or DEVCO Director General. In any case, on November 21 st 2010, the College took the decision to apply the empowerment procedure as a general rule, unless decided otherwise. This also means that no translation is needed and the procedure should save 5 working days: it should be applied to APF from now on. The evaluation commends this decision. ERM Every single APF contract (no matter how short) requires an EC financing decision, which normally requires a full clearance and approval process with 30 signatures. The evaluation considers this complexity might be reduced, and the ERM shows that this is possible, but it would require amendment to the current legal framework. The ERM can obtain clearance in 2 weeks, a remarkable improvement (but limited to small mediation-type missions not exceeding 6 months). According to most interlocutors, ERM has been innovative, and provides hope for further flexibility in EDF procedures. The evaluation considers that the accelerated ERM procedures work well for the purpose, as they are quite fast and flexible. III.2.3 DECISION-MAKING PROCEDURES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CURRENT EDF LEGAL FRAMEWORK EC-AU JOINT FORMULATION APF experience has shown that EC involvement with AU and RECs, including PSO expertise in military, policy and civilian interventions is needed at the request formulation level and should be formalised as part of the APF procedure. Page 31 of 49
Page 1 and 2: THE EUROPEAN UNION’S EDF PROGRAMM
Page 3 and 4: Contents Executive Summary.........
Page 5 and 6: EASBRIG East African Standby Brigad
Page 7 and 8: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EU foreign policy
Page 9 and 10: The principle of subsidiarity shoul
Page 11 and 12: econstruction, relevant capacities
Page 13 and 14: ‣ Areas for further study and que
Page 15 and 16: II. GENERAL APPRAISAL OF THE APF II
Page 17 and 18: Item in the APF budget 16 Amount an
Page 19 and 20: AU, the relative limited focus on t
Page 21 and 22: European Parliament and NGOs contin
Page 23 and 24: It is argued by the military bias s
Page 25 and 26: III. MAIN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATI
Page 27 and 28: 3) “Political appropriateness”
Page 29 and 30: ‣ EEAS, because APF finances peac
Page 31 and 32: The need to respond quickly to peac
Page 33 and 34: APF MANAGEMENT AND ACCOUNTING In 20
Page 35: Second, the main APF programmes (on
Page 39 and 40: mechanism, EDF has its own decision
Page 41 and 42: The costs covered by ATHENA include
Page 43 and 44: RECs that might not qualify or for
Page 45 and 46: IV. MAIN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIO
Page 47 and 48: At first sight, the Instrument for
Page 49 and 50: In the short term, this evaluation
Page 51 and 52: The evaluation recommends earmarks
Page 53 and 54: Lack of Synergy between RECs and th
Page 55: IV.4.4 AFRICAN P&S FUNDING POLICIES

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