The establishment of ESDP/CSDP in 1999 has been accompanied by the anticipation that the European Union will represent a unique strategic actor because of its ability to mix civilian and military crisis management instruments as part of a comprehensive approach. But to what extent is this...

An increasing number of authors describe the European Union as an advanced form of transgovernmentalism. Whether called Europeanization, supranational intergovernmentalism, multilevel governance, administrative fusion or Brusselisation, the transgovernmentalist thesis states that European...

In this article we approach the functioning of bureaucracy in ESDP from a governance perspective that also focuses on informal patterns of interaction between the relevant bureaucratic actors. Following the governance and related network governance approaches, the interplay between formal and...

The Council Secretariat General has emerged as one of the institutional winners of the dynamic development of the EU’s foreign and security policy, especially in the field of crisis management. Despite this, the role of the Council Secretariat in European foreign policy remains under...

This paper analyses and evaluates the CSDP mission planning process, i.e. the procedural model for planning, launching and reviewing CSDP operations. It shows that the EU has developed an intricate planning mechanism by generously drawing upon existing NATO planning doctrine while adding a...

Democratic accountability is an aspect that seems to have been almost entirely overlooked in the discussions on the evolving role of the European External Action Service (EEAS). In modern democratic societies, it is increasingly difficult to sustain the claim that foreign policy and diplomacy...

Immediately after the formal introduction of the ESDP by the Nice European Council in 2000, the new policy was equipped with a starting set of governance structures and procedures for crisis management operations. In 2003, these new arrangements were tested for the first time in the context of...

This article analyses the extent to which the European Union (EU) constitutes a normative power in its relations with Moldova. ‘Normative power Europe’ is examined along three dimensions: (i) normative intent; (ii) normative process; and (iii) normative impact. Our empirical analysis focuses...

The distinctive profile of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) as it has emerged to date is complex and far-ranging. It involves the mobilisation – in the cause of international crisis management, regional stabilisation, nation-building and post-conflict reconstruction – of a...