On Monday evening, 19 November, the European Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence agreed to establish a civilian Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) compact by summer 2023. Objective: to be able to send a civilian mission of 200 people anywhere in the world within 30 days.
The Council’s conclusions set out strategic approaches to strengthening the civilian CSDP and contain 22 political commitments made by the Council and the Member States.
A pact of this kind was called for by ministers last May (see EUROPE 12028), while the EU currently has 10 civilian CSDP missions deployed around the world.
In its conclusions, the Council was particularly committed to providing the civilian CSDP with increased capacity in terms of personnel and equipment, in the form of training initiatives, support with exercises or funding.
The civilian CSDP must be “more effective, flexible and responsive”, with missions provided with modular and evolving mandates, according to the Council. According to the Council, “the mandates and the length of missions should be aligned with the objectives of the missions and the situation in the field, and could be longer and multi-year, if necessary”.
Ministers also called for operational decisions to be taken more quickly “by reducing the time required for deployment in the field and allowing for efficient and flexible conduct”.
One of the objectives is to be able to launch a “new mission with a maximum of 200 personnel in any area of operation within 30 days of a Council decision, with all necessary equipment provided by the strategic warehouse, in accordance with the multi-level approach and the central responsiveness capability”. This warehouse should reach full operational capacity by spring 2019 (see EUROPE 12030).
The Council also wants the central response capability created in November 2017 (see EUROPE 11905) to be fully staffed, increasing it to 50 experts, with the ability to be deployed quickly.
Finally, the Council called for the civilian CSDP to be better coordinated, in particular by strengthening synergies and complementarity between the civilian and military dimensions of the CSDP.
Ministers look forward to implementation of the compact "as soon as possible and by early summer 2023 at the latest". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)