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Key Text European Union Policy Approaches in Protracted Crises

Author: T Mowjee
Date: 2004
Size: 30 pages (164 KB)

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Summary

What challenges face the European Union (EU) in developing coherent strategies for protracted crises? This study for the Humanitarian Policy Group of the Overseas Development Institute (UK) examines the evolution of the EU’s policy approaches in protracted crises. It finds that overlaps of responsibility between the Commission and the Council, and within the Commission, have hindered the development and implementation of coherent, comprehensive strategies.

The European Union has struggled with both policy definition and implementation regarding protracted crises since the Commission’s 1996 Communication on the links between relief, rehabilitation and development (LRRD). This adopted a continuum approach to LRRD, although simultaneously acknowledging the difficulties of this model in complex emergencies. None of its main recommendations were implemented. The second Communication on LRRD in 2001 adopted a ‘contiguum’ approach – meaning that different funding instruments were used simultaneously without uniform patterns of chronological transition between them. A ‘road map’ process for LRRD was adopted, focussing on health and food security.

Problems have arisen because different services embrace the LRRD process to different extents and give it different priorities. Other measures stemming from the 2001 Communication proposed or adopted by the EU to address LRRD in complex emergencies are:

A narrower focus on immediate emergency needs for ECHO (the Commission’s humanitarian aid organisation)
The ‘Humanitarian Plus’ programme, which uses EDF money for humanitarian activities that support peace processes and preparing the ground for development activities
The use of EDF funds for peacekeeping, particularly the Africa Peace Facility. Money is to be used for non-military costs
A European Voluntary Humanitarian Corps to enable young Europeans to participate in humanitarian aid operations. This has been opposed by organisations within and outside the EU as dangerous and unprofessional.

LRRD has been an internal organisational issue for the EU, rather than a policy adapting its relationship to other actors in protracted crises. Policy development has been the product of bureaucratic pressure and wider political processes. Some of the severe problems facing the EU are:

Overlaps of responsibility between the Commission and the Council, and within the Commission, have hindered the development and implementation of coherent, comprehensive strategies
There is a danger that the CFSP will subordinate aid to trade and foreign policies, in opposition to the neutrality of the Commission’s humanitarian assistance
Security has been linked to development, but lack of clarity as to how the goals for the use of military force can be applied has hampered policy articulation
Conflict prevention (CP) has proved more successful, especially in the Balkans. However, humanitarian aid is not used as a CP tool and mainstreaming the process in other policy areas has been slow
It is likely that with the acquisition of 10 new countries, the EU’s focus will be on regional issues with aid directed at transition/middle-income countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

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Source: Mowjee, 2004, 'European Union Policy Approaches in Protracted Crises', Overseas Development Institute, London
Author: Tasneem Mowjee , tasneem.mowjee@lineone.net
Development Initiatives, http://www.devinit.org/