Multi-Layered Actions? Sustaining Partnerships in the EU Integrated Approach to Conflicts and Crises

The European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy can be conceptualised as “multi-layered” action. Multi-layeredness refers to two interrelated ways of intervening in crises abroad, which the EU has articulated in the so-called Integrated Approach to crises and conflicts. First is the need for the EU and its member states to partner with diverse stakeholders acting at different levels (from the global and regional levels to interaction with national governments and civil society). Second comes the fact that EU involvement in conflict and crises must be sustained over a long period of time and must target all aspects of the conflict cycle, from prevention to sustainable peace. Yet despite these meaningful conceptual strides, the capacity of the EU to both “partner” and “prolong” remains severely limited.