Consolidating Civilian and Military Training for Crisis Management : Taking Stock of EU Initiatives

Djupanalys 13-04-2010

The implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon – including the new post of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign and Security Policy and the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS) – provides an opportunity for more effective action at the international level and for meeting the foreign policy objectives fixed in Article 21 of the Treaty. Training measures should be included in the current reform efforts for several good reasons: training builds the knowledge, experience and understanding of those involved in external relations at different levels; it creates the networks for the day-to-day tasks; it establishes working relations between national training institutes and EU institutions; it provides synergies and economies of scale within the EU; it might, in the long-run contribute to the development of a common strategic culture of the Union as envisioned in the European Security Strategy. This standard briefing focuses on the aspect of civil and military training for crisis management. It mainly analyses and evaluates two training initiatives: the European Group on Training (EGT) and the European Security and Defence College (ESDC). The author has been asked by the European Parliament (EP) to ‘take stock on these two parallel initiatives’ and to ‘put forward options for improving coordination and gradual integration’. The structure of the paper reflects this two-step-approach. The analysis has been conducted on the basis of documents, expert interviews and related literature.