Key Insights

• In the early years of EU crisis management operations in the framework of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CSFP), the European Union relied heavily on civilian instruments, including civilian missions. The Union’s willingness, however, to engage in security cooperation and security force assistance by deploying military missions resulted in a more balanced civilian-military ratio by the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first EU mission in 2023.
• In the post-Lisbon era, with the establishment of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in 2009, the European Union increasingly participates in security cooperation activities, especially by providing security force assistance.
• An increased commitment to security cooperation, supported by an enhanced toolkit for intervention under CSDP and the centralization of EU defense policy, will further assist in consolidating the Union’s ability to pursue security cooperation and develop its role as a security assistance provider. 
• Some of the most likely lines of development are: a) an even more balanced civilian-military ratio of EU interventions in the framework of CSDP missions and operation; and b) a possible expansion of EU security force assistance efforts in the maritime domain, and an increased focus on security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and other non-neighboring regions.  

Introduction 

Security cooperation has become an integral part of the EU’s security and defense policy since the Lisbon Treaty. Representing a crucial constitutional milestone for member states of the EU following the largest enlargement in its history in 2004, the Lisbon Treaty, adopted in 2007 and coming into force in 2009, was particularly significant in granting full legal personality to the European Union. Furthermore, the Lisbon Treaty advanced EU engagement in the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by establishing a new shared policy, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The CSDP, as an integral part of the broader CFSP portfolio, facilitated not only the consolidation and harmonization of member states’ vision for European regional security, but also served as a mechanism for shaping security cooperation practices specific to the European Union. 

In 2016, the EU released “A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy” (“Global Strategy”), which heavily emphasized, for the first time, security force assistance as an element of common security practices alongside the EU’s prior emphasis on broader, civilian-focused security practices, including partnerships, security sector reform, and capacity building. Moreover, one of the main points of action contained within the Strategic Compass, the EU’s most recent strategic document published directly following the launch of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, was to develop multilateral and bilateral security partnerships. This specific focus on military assistance, training and capacity building, is a reinforced and more concrete, contemporary conceptualization of what the EU understands as security cooperation and security force assistance. 

Analysis

Security cooperation and security assistance have become a permanent and evolving component of the EU’s journey to become a security provider in the post-Lisbon era. Additionally, since 2016, with the release of the Global Strategy, the EU has consistently referred to itself as a security provider. This element of the EU grand strategy was reinforced by the Strategic Compass, which emphasized the need for the EU to “make a quantum leap to become a more assertive and decisive security provider, better prepared to tackle present and future threats and challenges.” The annual implementation report of the Strategic Compass in 2023 listed some of the most important developments of security cooperation, specifically what the document refers to as “tailored bilateral partnerships.” Moving beyond the already existing vital circle of EU partners, such as the United States, Norway, Canada, and Japan, most recent security cooperation efforts focus on several other relatively new partners for the Union, such as Peru, Indonesia, and the Republic of Korea. While many of these countries have already been engaged and partnered with the EU in a number of different fields, the security and defense angles of this cooperation were previously largely absent from the partnership framework. 

In this broader strategic context, and in parallel with the development and institutionalization of the EU security and defense policy, both EU civilian and military missions have been “quietly” proliferating since 2003, when the first EU-led missions were launched. The same year, in 2003, the EU adopted the European Security Strategy (ESS), which was the first of the EU’s specifically security-related documents and its first de facto security strategy. In reaction to the Balkan wars in the 1990s, occurring on the doorstep of the European Union, member states felt the imperative to enhance the EU’s collective efforts in foreign and security policy. A desire for the EU to become a "force for a fairer, safer, and more united world” underpinned the strategy outlined in the ESS. Moreover, a relatively limited public awareness (and acknowledgment) of EU security and defense policy, in contrast to more visible and prioritized issues in the early 2000s, allowed the Union to rather discretely but steadily progress on its journey of learning how to conduct multinational crisis management operations “on-the-job.”  

EU ‘CSDP missions and operations’, as it is officially termed in EU parlance, are classified into three broad categories: civilian missions, (non-executive) military missions, and executive military operations. The difference between the two types of military CSDP interventions that is non-executive military missions can only perform capacity building and advising tasks, in contrast with executive military operations, where the main objective of the deployment is to directly handle crisis by EU troops or replace missing partner military capacities with direct military engagement. While this overall typology of EU missions and operations has stayed rather stable, perpetual diversification and development has occurred vis-à-vis mandate objectives and financing, especially after the institutionalization of CSDP as direct implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. Previous small-scale military operations and civilian rule of law missions were succeeded by various other EU missions and operations with diverse mandates, providing balance to the EU’s previously heavy reliance on civilian missions. By the end of 2023, 36% of the EU’s crisis management engagements in the framework of the CSDP was military intervention compared to 26% of such missions in the first years of EU engagement in this regard.

The aforementioned diversification of mandate-related activities included many tasks related to security cooperation, such as, institutional capacity building of police forces or coast guard personnel, and specific monitoring missions. Additionally, out of the twenty missions launched between 2010 and the end of 2023, six were security force assistance missions, focusing specifically on training and advising activities for military personnel of partner countries. Starting with Somalia in 2010, the EU has been engaged primarily in providing basic military training, as well as partnering with and complementing other international efforts, such as the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), including security force assistance endeavors and direct financial contributions to AMISOM’s operations. The complementary nature of EU security force assistance in Somalia, Mali, and the Central African Republic in the 2010’s were the first instances of the EU specifically focusing on military capacity building as a part of security sector reform efforts and partner capacity building.

As a direct result of the 2016 EU Global Strategy, these early security force assistance missions of the EU were eventually consolidated under a single, unified EU command, the Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC), which was established in 2017 established in 2017 and serves as the EU’s command and control structure for EU-led, non-executive military missions Following the establishment of the MPCC, the EU, for the first time in history, has conducted more military missions under its central command than military operations commanded by individual member states or those that functioned under NATO command through the Berlin Plus Agreements. As of the beginning of 2024, six of the EU’s ongoing nine military CSDP missions and operations are under the central command of the MPCC from Brussels. Of the remaining three, one (EUFOR Althea in Bosnia Hercegovina) remains under NATO command, and two maritime operations, EUNAVFOR Somalia (Operation Atalanta) and EUNAVFOR Med (Operation Irini) are commanded, respectively, by Spain and by Italy and Greece. A noteworthy addition to the EU’s military CSDP crisis and conflict management endeavors is the recent decision of the Union to launch a military operation, Operation Aspides, from February 2024 in the Red Sea as a response to increasing Houthi aggression in the region.

Furthermore, there is an ongoing diversification within the non-executive military missions, the de facto security force assistance missions of the EU commanded by MPCC since 2020. The first three EU military training missions in Somalia, Mali, and the Central African Republic all possessed relatively similar mandates, focusing on basic, tactical training and advising and integrating both bottom-up and top-down approaches. In comparison with these first EU training missions, recent non-executive military missions, such as the one in Mozambique launched in 2021, represents a new type of SFA effort by the EU. EUTM Mozambique focuses on training special operation forces in the Mozambican military, instead of engaging in basic military training and capacity building from “scratch,” which was the dominant model in previous EU training missions. The EU Military Partnership Mission in Niger (EUMPM Niger), as well as the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine), also exhibit rather different types of security force assistance endeavors as compared to previous approaches, which is also reflected in the names of the missions. The first EU security force assistance missions established were all named “EU Training Mission” known and referred to as EUTMs in EU parlance. However, with the diversification of mandate related tasks of EU mission focusing on partner military capacity building, latest EU military missions are named more specifically, such as Niger being a “Military Assistance” mission or Ukraine named as “Military Partnership” mission. These changes in EU conceptualization of security force assistance are primarily the results of “on-the-job” learning and the pooling of institutional memory in MPCC through SFA practices, leading to a more comprehensive approach to military training as a larger part of military or defense capacity building efforts. 

In terms of specific characteristics of EU engagement as an aspiring security provider, the Union  seemed to opt primarily for low intensity, low risk, and relatively small footprint military interventions in the framework of CSDP implemented within the EU’s “integrated approach to external conflict and crisis.” At the same time, EU engagement in security force assistance often follows previous or ongoing US security cooperation practices in shared, predominantly African theatres, such as Somalia, Niger or Mozambique. This rather risk-averse approach and complementary nature of EU SFA to other international efforts in the overall application of military CSDP tools is the result of several internal and external elements including a core obstacle, namely budgetary restrictions on financing EU military intervention. This long-standing and rather obvious missing element of overall EU security force assistance was resolved permanently by the launch of the European Peace Facility (EPF) in 2021, an off-budget instrument for financing military capacity building activities by partner countries as well as funding its own military missions and operations. In the last two years, the EPF was used several times in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, and Africa and also supported EU partners in the Middle East. The importance of having a specific financing mechanism for security assistance demonstrates the Union’s willingness to overcome the barriers posed by its own constitutional principles. While the Treaty on European Union (TEU) declares that the aim of Union is to “promote peace,” the very same text prohibits the usage of EU common budget with regards to “military and defence implications.” The European Peace Facility, being an instrument outside of the EU’s common budget, helps the Union in passing this hurdle with structuring the fund for dual-purpose use through “operations” and “assistance measures” pillars. While the “operations” pillar is used for funding CSDP missions and other missions led by international partners, such as the previously mentioned African Union Mission in Somalia, the “assistance measures” pillar directly fund EU security assistance to partner nations. The initial approximately €5.7 billion ceiling of the EPF budget has more than doubled in less than two years, and the current €12 billion funding is also the source of military support for Ukraine from the “assistance measures” pocket.

Conclusion and Future Perspectives: Eyes on the Maritime Domain and the Indo-Pacific

With the launch of the European Peace Facility, as well as the strengthening and diversification of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) projects specifically designed for EU defense collaboration, the European Union has permanently added “security and defence cooperation” to its glossary. At the same time, the EU’s increasing engagement in security cooperation and security force assistance underlines its ambitions as an international security provider, while further fueling controversies, doubts and questions about the Union’s “strategic responsibility” and its ability to defend “itself”. Moreover, the ongoing focus on military capacity and capability building as an increasingly prominent component of EU foreign and security policy can stir up the long-standing argument and discussion on avoiding duplication between NATO and the European Union. With Finland and Sweden joining the Alliance, the dilemma of the European regional security and its European ownership may likely lead to a decisive moment in the future, as several countries being both NATO allies and EU member states face the question of where to allocate their resources, military capabilities and troops With the increasing number of countries being responsible for carrying out both their NATO and EU commitments in parallel, their dual allegiance will further stress them to tackle questions of burden sharing in European and Transatlantic security.  

In addition to these questions, other events may influence transatlantic unity and cohesion, including the July 2024 NATO summit and the November 2024 United States presidential election, along with a proliferation of regional conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas war. The upcoming elections in the United States specifically can bring new impetus in case of a win by the Republican candidate, where critical voices on NATO burden sharing or the prioritization of China and the Indo-Pacific instead of the European region and Transatlantic alliance can push dual EU-NATO members on even more commitment and resource allocation to EU-led regional defense initiatives, such as PESCO. These may, in turn, also implicate the EU’s ability to fortify its commitment to and tools for a more centralized Common Security and Defence Policy. 

Other regional dynamics, as well as the EU-US dialogue on China may also be decisive, especially considering the Union’s increased focus on maritime security and the Indo-Pacific region. The updated EU Maritime strategy, and to a greater extent the revised version of the Union’s strategy on maritime issues from 2023, places particular attention on broadening cooperation with and within the Indo-Pacific region as a maritime area of interest. The EU’s reinforced focus on maritime security is also demonstrated by the launch of Operation Aspides in the Red Sea in the subsequent months of 2024. Such direction and priority given to the maritime domain can bolster the expansion of ongoing SFA practices and lessons learned from previous EU engagements to be implemented in other regions, including the Indo-Pacific in the close future. The transformation and reinforced interest of the EU in the region are also expressed in the related 2021 EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, which prioritizes security and defense and highlights maritime capacity building as one of the pillars of the cooperation. While the EU has not yet applied the EPF framework for working with partners in the Indo-Pacific region, it might not come as a surprise if funding from the European Peace Facility would shortly land in the hands of one of the EU’s Indo-Pacific partners. 

Diversification of EU security cooperation and security force assistance requires a coherent EU approach and harmonization of language and practices, such as pre-deployment training for EU troops and experts sent to military CSDP missions. While the EU Military Advisory Mission to Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine) and the launch of EPF have somewhat assisted in putting the EU on the map as an international security provider, a clear conceptualization of EU security cooperation and security force assistance would reinforce this message both internally and externally. 

Policy Recommendations

• Increasing engagement and strengthening narrative on the EU being an international security provider will keep raising eyebrows until internal defense-related military capability development and security cooperation inside the Union is adequately addressed. 
• Transatlantic cohesion and unity would extensively benefit from an increased operational cooperation between the European Union and NATO, moving away from being stuck at the strategic dialogue relying on rhetorical commitment and high-level discussions taking advantage on increasingly overlapping list of countries in EU and NATO.
• To address the elephant in the room: who is responsible for the security of Europe and how to avoid duplication with EU CSDP and NATO structures while enhancing the issue of a truly “common” security and defense policy in Europe, EU and NATO should build on the operationalization of security cooperation and lessons learned from long-standing shared commitments in theatres such as Kosovo or Somalia.