Paper Titles & Abstracts

The European Union is a new actor in foreign and security policy and crisis management. It has developed institutions and procedures since the early 2000s and mandated 27 operations. However, debate exists about its ability to act at the international level. This paper distinguishes three different periods of European Union engagement in crisis management: The early period of establishing a European foreign policy in the early 1990s; the institutionalisation period of the early to mid-2000s leading to the adoption of the necessary procedures, working methods and institutional structures, as well as launching the first operations; and the period from 2006 onwards. This last period is focused on stabilisation, both in terms of consolidating the structures, as well as focusing on stabilisation as a strategy, rather than engaging in crisis management. The case of Kosovo is chosen as it exemplifies the change of thinking from ambitious crisis engagement in the mid-2000s, that became much more focused on stabilising the situation. By the time, the EU operation became possible in 2008, the EU and its member states had already shifted its strategic direction and thus, the mission never received the capabilities it needed for implementing its ambitious mandate.