EU Crisis Management in Berlin: The Fall of Ministerial Walls?

Abstract

The EU's civilian and military crisis management operations have grown in number, complexity, and geographical outreach. In the absence of EU-level capabilities, the success of EU external crisis management is highly dependent on the timely delivery of national financial, human, and material resources. This has posed challenges to national administrations, not least for a big member state such as Germany. The article provides a theoretical tool to measure processes of administrative Europeanisation and applies it to the case of Germany. It assesses German administrative change, clarifies the depth and origin of adaptation and concludes on the general institutional impact of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) during the first 10 years of its existence.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) for funding my field trip to Berlin, and to the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) for welcoming me as a Guest Researcher in 2009.

Notes

 1. AWACS/Somalia Case, Bundesverfassungsgericht 90, 286, 12 July 1994.

 2. As the empirical data in this article refer to the period prior to December 2009, this article consistently uses the term ESDP.

 3. Data have been collected primarily on the basis of semi-structured interviews with elite officials in the German administration (see list of interviews).

 4. Data collection took place in 2009. The examined period covers the early institutional setup of ESDP (1999–2002) as well as the operational period from 2003 to 2009.

 5. Examples are WEUPOL Mostar, WEU Danube, WEU MAPE in Albania, OSCE Croatia, OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, MINURSO in the Western Sahara, UNMIBH/IPTF in Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNTAC in Cambodia, UNMIK in Kosovo, UNOMIG in Georgia, UNMIL in Liberia, UNMIS in Sudan, and UNAMID in Darfur.

 6. In the period covering 2003–2009, Germany contributed to all EU civilian missions, except for EUPOL and EUSEC in DR Congo, and for the Aceh Monitoring Mission (Korski and Gowan 2009).

 7. In the period covering 2003–2009, Germany contributed to all EU military operations, except EUFOR (Chad and the Central African Republic, 2007) (Grevi et al.2009).

 8. The Königsteiner Schlüssel is a system to distribute financial responsibility across the federal states.

 9. The Parliament receives proposals as ‘Formal Information’ or as ‘General Information’. The former is prioritised and consequently thoroughly debated in the Bundestag. It contains matters that are likely to have legal implications, which applies to military (but not civilian) crisis management (Interview 14, 2009).

10. Protocol 15/2742 of the Bundestag.

11. Prior to the existence of the Special Envoy, the South-East Asia desk dealt with Afghanistan and Pakistan, which changed after 9/11. Pakistan was added later (in February 2009) to allow for a more regional approach (Interview 16, 2009).

12. This adaptation included that with contributions of up to 450 officers in the field, the calculation is as before (one-third from Bundespolizei, two-thirds from Lander), but contributions of over 450 officers are provided on a 50–50 basis (Knelangen 2009: 276).

13. Germany has promised 910 police officers, of which 90 to be deployable within 30 days.

14. The Foreign Office, the Federal Ministries of Defence, the Interior, Justice, Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Chancellery.