Report on EU Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding in the Horn of Africa and Western Balkans
A comparative assessment of EU conflict prevention and peacebuilding efforts across two strategically significant regions, examining the effectiveness of CSDP missions in practice.
Introduction
The European Union (EU) has long pursued the development of civilian capabilities for
conflict prevention and peacebuilding. This deliverable contributes to the wider work of EU-
CIVCAP as a comparative study of such capabilities applied in the Western Balkans and the
Horn of Africa. It assesses whether the EU has had appropriate capabilities to meet its
stated ambitions in both regions. The study focuses mainly on capabilities developed under
the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and whether their application has matched
EU objectives in this regard.
EU-CIVCAP’s overall research focus on the development of civilian capabilities for
peacebuilding and conflict prevention identified EULEX Kosovo and EUCAP Nestor as the
most relevant cases to study, as these are the primary CSDP civilian instruments in each
region. The two are similar in their typology as civilian CSDP missions, but differ in the
mandates and contexts within which they were deployed. The two regions have significant
dissimilarities; the Horn of Africa is a region characterised by ongoing crisis with a heavy
military presence and continuous peace enforcement operations, while the Western
Balkans is a post-conflict stabilisation and conflict prevention scenario. These dissimilarities
mean that the two cases are at opposite ends of a continuum of possible contexts for CSDP
engagements. As such, this assessment of the effectiveness of EU civilian CSDP capabilities
sheds light on more than the individual cases and indicates where within the conflict cycle
the EU is currently best equipped to act.
The study builds on both primary and secondary data collected from EU documents and
reports, existing studies and original research in the form of field work and semi-structured
interviews conducted with EU missions, agencies and departments, and non-governmental
organisations in both regions (see Annex 1 for list of interviews). EU capabilities are
analysed using the framework for evaluating effectiveness in operational conflict prevention
established by Rodt (2017; see Figure 1 for illustration).
Keywords
- European Union; CSDP missions; Conflict Prevention; Peacebuilding; Horn of Africa; Western Balkans