The European Union

The European Union's role in peacebuilding

The EU was established as a peacebuilding mechanism for Europe after the Second World War. Today, as a union of 27 Member States, it is a major international peacebuilding actor with a common commitment to build ‘a secure and peaceful world.’ Equal to the United States in economic strength, it is the world’s largest trading bloc, the biggest global humanitarian and development donor and is present in more than 120 countries, over a third of which are affected by conflict.

The EU’s contribution to peacebuilding is constituted in a number of spheres:

i) policy dialogue, both with partner governments and with other key actors inside and outside the region (such as Russia, China and India). Dialogue covers a number of policy areas ranging from energy and trade to governance and human rights.

ii) economic incentives, such as closer co-operation, preferential access to EU markets and support for loans and investments. The reciprocal Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the African, Carribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, entering into force on 1 January 2008, have enormous significance in this regard.

iii) development assistance provided through budget lines for technical assistance and aid for humanitarian and development purposes and orientated through the elaboration of Regional and Country Strategy Papers.

iv) security-, Rule of Law- and public administration-related interventions under the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and under short-term actions put in place with Community (1st pillar) financing.

The EU’s efforts to improve the effectiveness of its contribution to peacebuilding are manifested in a wide variety of statements, communications and other documents. Foremost among these is the Programme of Action for the Prevention of Violent Conflict set out in Gothenburg in 2001. This is being complemented by emerging institutional generic work on Fragile States and Situations as well as region-specific approaches such as the EU-Africa Strategy. Internal guidelines have also been circulated within the Commission to promote systematic attention to conflict prevention and crisis management and a check-list of root causes of conflict has been produced. However, greater political will, capacity building and technical expertise is needed to put existing policy commitments into practice and further improve the effectiveness of the EU’s contribution to peacebuilding.

Influencing EU peacebuilding policy

Alert's understanding of the political and structural dynamics of the EU, coupled with our analysis of the causes and processes of violent conflict has meant that we have become one of the leading providers of expertise and advice to the EU Presidencies, Council, Commission, Parliament and NGO community on a range of strategic peacebuilding issues.

By doing this we aim to ensure that the EU addresses the long-term root causes and evolving drivers of violent conflict and puts the goal of peacebuilding at the centre of its policy and institutional practices. This requires coherent structures and strategies across all EU policy and practice that are informed by the people who are affected by conflict.

We work towards this through:

• Providing expert advice to the EU Presidencies and other relevant EU and Member State officials on policy, training, tools development and events
• Facilitating dialogue between EU representatives and civil society from Europe and conflict-affected countries, between Presidencies and across the EU institutions and Member States
• Policy analysis and recommendation through the production of joint position papers and briefings
• Advocacy initiatives including organisation of seminars, launches and media events in London, Brussels and other EU capitals
• Monitoring, consultation and research on critical conflict issues and progress of EU conflict prevention policy and practice in Brussels and countries affected by conflict

International Alert also works within a number of networks and partnerships to promote peacebuilding within and amongst the EU:

• We are a founding member of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO), a network of NGOs active in conflict prevention that seeks to promote peacebuilding policies among decision-makers in Europe. We work through EPLO to influence emerging EU policy papers, strategies and declarations. Following the finalisation of new Funding Instruments for 2007-2013 and with new programming plans being finalised by the Commission, International Alert worked with the EPLO, and with fellow member Saferworld, to produce the briefing paper Acting on commitments: How EU strategies and programming can better prevent violent conflict to highlight important areas of progress in the EU’s work during 2006 and to make specific recommendations on further improvements in the months ahead.

• In 2006, Alert participated in a four-member consortium, the Conflict Prevention Partnership, that was led by International Crisis Group. Under this collaboration, we engaged with a range of officials and local stakeholders to advise on the EU’s peacebuilding role in the two geographic contexts, the Great Lakes and the South Caucasus, and on two thematic areas, the economic dimensions of peacebuilding and linking security and development in dealing with the challenges posed by ex-combatants.

• Since late 2007, we have been leading a consortium of organisations in The Initiative for Peacebuilding (IfP). The IfP draws together the complementary geographic and thematic expertise of 10 civil society organisations (and their networks) with offices across the EU and in conflict-affected countries. IfP partners have joined together to develop and promote international knowledge and expertise in the field of conflict prevention and peacebuilding. IfP is a thematic project, exploring a number of cross-cutting issues in specific regions across four continents; emphasizing the inclusion of those affected by conflict in influencing national and international policy debates and ensuring a stronger link between policy and practice.

  The themes are: 1) Mediation; 2) Regional cooperation on environment, economy and natural resources; 3) Security; 4) Democratisation and transitional justice; 5) Gender; and 6) Capacity building and training.

For more information on our work with the EU, contact Lucia Montanaro-Jankovski

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Last updated: October 2007