Military and Civilian ESDP Missions: Ever Growing and Effective?

Demand for operations under the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has grown steadily since 2003, while the trends towards globalising its operational range and broadening its tasks have continued. However, ESDP performance is at best mixed. This partly hinges on policy inconsistencies, but the lack of experience should not be underestimated either. Even if the ESDP seems for many observers a well-established field of activity of the European Union, it must not be overlooked that it is still a young and on many aspects quite unpractised endeavour of the EU.

Revised version of a paper prepared for the German-Italian Expert Seminar "The EU in Conflict Prevention and Civil-Military Crisis Management: The Quest for Effectiveness and Legitimacy", organised in Turin on 25-26 June 2009 by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in cooperation with the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) within the framework of the project "The EU as a Global Player - Strengths and Weaknesses of the CFSP and ESDP as seen from an Italian-German Angle" (The EU as a global player: institutional trends in CFSP/ESDP).