Externalizing EU crisis management: EU orchestration of the OSCE during the Ukrainian conflict

ABSTRACT

Despite the Lisbon Treaty's modifications in the foreign and security policy domain, the EU has frequently relied on third parties to address external conflicts and crises. Using the Ukrainian conflict as a case study, this article adopts the orchestration model to explain why and how the EU enlists intermediary actors over which it has no formal control to pursue its objectives. It finds that in this conflict the EU outsourced part of its crisis management activities to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe because it lacked the civilian and military capabilities, as well as the regulatory competence and reputation to challenge Russia. Indeed, the Ukrainian case shows that orchestration has emerged as a crucial governance arrangement for the functioning of EU crisis management, raising serious questions about the EU overall capacity to act as a security provider in an international system marred by contestation and hard security concerns.

KEYWORDS:

• EU crisis management
• Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
• orchestration
• Ukraine

Acknowledgements

My special thanks go to Adrienne Héritier and James A. Caporaso for their invaluable inputs to this research work. Early versions of this article were presented at the EUSA Conference (Denver, CO, May 9–11, 2019) and at the Nortia Network Conference (Poznan, PL, June 5–7, 2019), where they were fruitfully discussed by Marianne Riddervold and Helene Sjursen respectively. I would also like to thank the journal's editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Foreign Affairs Council is the Council of the EU's formation composed of member states’ ministers responsible for foreign affairs, defence, and development.

2 For a detailed overview of the Lisbon Treaty's modification in the field of crisis management see Blockmans and Wessel (2009).

3 On NATO's use of force and the Security Council see Nuñez-Mietz (2018).

4 The Normandy Format included France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine.

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Notes on contributors

Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré

Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies/European University Institute (RSCAS/EUI) and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Center for European Studies. She is also Adjunct Professor of Political Science at LUISS University and Research Associate at Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). Before that, she has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at LUISS University and an Assistant Professor at the University of Leiden. Dr. Amadio Viceré has held visiting positions at: the RSCAS/EUI (Florence, IT); the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA, USA); and the Policy Institute at King's College London (UK). She published the book The High Representative and EU Foreign Policy Integration: A Comparative Study of Kosovo and Ukraine (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Her articles have appeared in journals such as Conflict, Security and Development Journal; European Security; Global Affairs; Journal of European Integration; and The International Spectator.