Parliamentary control of CSDP: the case of the EU's fight against piracy off the Somali coast

Abstract

Parliamentary involvement remains a key tool for the democratic control of executive policies. This article explores the web of parliamentary involvement in decision-making on European Union (EU) military operations, using insights gained in an in-depth case study on the EU's anti-piracy mission Atalanta. We find that parliaments at all levels became involved only after key political decisions had already been made. At the member state level, we find highly uneven involvement with only some parliaments being very well informed and closely monitoring, if not influencing government policy. The European Parliament became active only after the launch of the mission but then scrutinised it intensely, profiting (in contrast to national parliaments) from its access to top military officials and key decision-makers. Finally, transnational parliamentary assemblies as well as more informal networks provided opportunities to transmit information across the boundaries of individual parliaments and party-groups thus potentially enhancing the ability of parliamentarians to scrutinise government policies.

Keywords:

• CSDP
• parliaments
• parliamentary control
• anti-piracy operation
• Atalanta

Acknowledgments

Research for this article was carried out in the project ‘Reconstituting Democracy in Europe (RECON)’, an Integrated Project supported by the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme for Research, Priority 7 ‘Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-based Society’. We presented previous versions of this article at two workshops of the RECON project in Oslo in September 2010 and 2011. We thank the participants for their helpful comments and suggestions. A special thanks goes to Anna Herranz-Surrallés for providing valuable background on the Spanish case.

Notes on contributors

Dirk Peters is a senior research fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). His research focuses on EU foreign and security policy, foreign policy analysis and on legitimacy issues in international cooperation. He is the author of Constrained Balancing: The EU's Security Policy (Palgrave Macmillan).

Wolfgang Wagner is Professor of International Security at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and theme leader for “Europe and the World” within the Amsterdam Centre for Contemporary European Studies (Access Europe). His research interests include theories of international relations, EU foreign, security and defence policy and comparative foreign policy analysis. He is the author of Die demokratische Kontrolle internationalisierter Sicherheitspolitik (Nomos Verlag).

Cosima Glahn currently works as a research fellow at the Institute for East-European Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a BA from the University of Mannheim and an MA in ‘International Studies/Peace and Conflict Studies’ from the TU Darmstadt and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. She was a student research assistant at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and worked as a junior policy advisor at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), group Strategic Alliances and Partnerships.

Notes

1. Council of the European Union: Council Decision 2010/437/CFSP, Brussels, 30 July 2010 (Official Journal L 210/33 of 11 August 2010).

2. See Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 29 December 2011 and of 31 December 2011.

3. Council of the European Union: Council Decision 2012/174/CFSP of 23 March 2012 (Official Journal L 89/69 of 27.3.2012). The political decision to revise the operational plan accordingly had already been taken in late 2011 by the PSC (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 29 December 2011). The revised operational plan entered into force in April 2012. As of early 2014, however, Somali costal territory has only been targeted once.

4. See http://eunavfor.eu/key-facts-and-figures [Accessed January 2014].

5. For a good overview, see van Ginkel et al. (2013).

6. The EUMC is composed of the Chiefs of Staff of the member states but usually works on the level of the Military Representatives. It advices the PSC and instructs the EUMS which consists of some 200 military experts. If necessary, the EUMS can draw on resources of the much larger military staff of NATO.

7. The PSC is composed of representatives of the member states at ambassador level and is tasked with ‘the political control and strategic direction of the crisis management operations’ (art. 28 TEU-L). The PSC has therefore been considered to be ‘the political mind’ of the CSDP (Thym 2006, p. 110).

8. We do not attribute quotes to individual MPs in the sections that follow as most interviewees asked that direct quotations not be attributed to them.

9. The cabinet had decided that it would ask the Bundestag for approval the day after the Council meeting and forwarded a proposal on 10 December 2008 (BT Drucksache 16/11337). The Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee recommended participation on 17 December 2008 (BT Drucksache 16/11416) and the plenary debated the issue on 17 and 19 December. For more background on the decision-making process within the government, see Brummer (2013, p. 205ff).

10. Whereas the decision to extend the area of operation to the entire Indian Ocean received broad support in the Bundestag, the decision to allow attacks on ‘the beach’ was accepted by a narrower margin of 305 votes in favour and 206 against, because Social Democrats, Greens and the Left did not support what they perceived as an unwarranted escalation of the conflict (see BT Drucksachen 16/13187 and 17/9339).

11. Bundestagsdrucksachen 17/179; 17/3691; 17/7742; 17/9939 and 17/13111.

12. See http://www.nouripour.de/fileadmin/pdfs/international/0901_Reisebericht_Djibouti.pdf [Accessed 1 June 2011].

13. Interviews with German MPs, conducted between April and June 2010 as well as in January 2013.

14. See the minutes of the debate in the Bundestag on 26 April 2012, especially the speech by Rainer Stinner (F.D.P.).

15. See Herranz-Surrallés (2010) as well as personal communication with Herranz-Surrallés in January 2014.

16. Proposición no de Ley presentada por el Grupo Parlamentario Socialista, por la que se insta al Gobierno al cumplimiento de lo previsto en la Ley Orgánica 5/2005, de 17 de noviembre, de la Defensa Nacional en relación con el control parlamentario de las misiones en el exterior y en concreto de la misión Atalanta, Boletín Oficial del Congreso de los Diputados, Serie D. Núm. 75, 16 April 2012.

17. Interview on 30 May 2010.

18. Volkskrant of 26 February 2011.

19. Letter from the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs to Parliament of 5 April 2012 (Kamerstuk 29 521, No. 182).

20. Minutes of the joint meeting of the committees for foreign affairs and defence with ministers of foreign affairs, Timmermans, and defence, Hennis-Plasschaert, on 16 January 2013 (kamerstuk 29 521, No. 203), p. 15.

21. Interviews with MEPs and parliamentary assistants to MEPs in May 2011.

22. Interview with a German MP in 2010.

23. This corresponds to findings on transnational cooperation between MPs in general (Miklin and Crum 2011, Miklin 2013).

24. In our previous work, we emphasised that the empirical reality of parliaments in CSDP appeared to be out of sync with the developments in the executive realm, especially the high level of military integration in Battlegroups, etc. (see reference deleted for anonymous review). However, such a misfit is hardly discernible in the case of Atalanta because the degree of military integration of this maritime mission is low and individual member states’ decisions about national contributions have little if any effect on the feasibility of the mission as such.