Welcome to the CoE Knowledge Hub!

This document has been produced by the European Centre of Excellence for Civilian Crisis Management (CoE) and serves as a report from the CoE's Civilian CSDP Autumn Forum on the topic "Implementing deliverable number 3 under the Civilian CSDP Compact". It took place on 19/20 October 2023 at the Spanish Representation to the EU in Brussels, under the auspices of the Spanish Council Presidency. This report can be used by EU MS as well as the EEAS to inform their further discussion – and eventual decision-making – to what extent a scalable and modular approach shall be used to make civilian CSDP more agile, flexible, effective and efficient.

Civilian CSDP Missions are lacking a standardised approach to knowledge management. To effectively carry out Missions, knowledge needs to be captured, stored, organised and remain retrievable. How to achieve this goal, also mentioned in the Civilian CSDP Compact 2023, was discussed at the panel discussion at the European Association of Peace Operations Training Centres (EAPTC) Annual Conference 2023.

On June 15th and 16th, 2023, the CoE, in collaboration with the Swedish Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) and under the auspice of the Swedish council presidency, gathered representatives from 23 EU Member States, as well as the EEAS, Eurojust, and Frontex for the Civilian CSDP Summer Forum. The primary objective was to familiarise and identify the necessary capabilities within EU Member States to strengthen and enhance civilian CSDP missions, making them more inclusive, effective, and efficient.

The report provides an overview of all 21 military and civilian CSDP operations and missions. For each mission, it describes their mandate, considering recent developments, and summarises their achievements and activities. The report also makes mention of regional developments of the environment in which the missions are conducted – the Eastern neighbourhood, the Western Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Central and Southern Africa.

This study, published by the European Parliament, analyses disinformation campaigns against CSDP missions and operations with case studies on the missions in Georgia, Moldova, and Mali. The authors find that disinformation campaigns do not systematically target missions but threaten them in broader campaigns against EU influence in host countries. To counter them the study recommends a more cohesive and proactive approach making use of strategic communication tools to protect EU credibility and legitimacy with local audiences and actors.

These guidelines set and clarify the chain of command and specific roles of the institutions and individuals in civilian CSDP, from the Council down to the individual Heads of Mission. They outline the distinctions between operational and tactical command and control and go into great detail on the responsibilities of the Civilian Operations Commander and the Heads of Mission.

On 27-28 October 2022, upon invitation from the CoE, representatives from 25 EU Member States (MS), SecDefPol, CPCC, ISP and FPI gathered to continue discussions on a new Level of Ambition (LoA) for civilian CSDP against the backdrop of the negotiations of the new Civilian CSDP Compact to be adopted in May 2023. You will find on this page the report of discussions and additional documents that were shared during the event.

This infographic looks at the data on women's representation in multilateral peace operations (UN peace operations, EU CSDP missions and operations, and OSCE field operations) over the period 2013-2022. It aims to monitor progress and improve transparency in order to inform the debate on the future of the Women, Peace and Security agenda and refine strategies to address potential gaps.

On 17 June 2022, 21 EU Member States as well as EEAS- and EC-representatives gathered in Berlin for the CoE Civilian CSDP Summer Forum to reflect in an informal setting on the Level of Ambition (LoA) for civilian CSDP, focusing on type, number, size and geographical scope of civilian CSDP missions.

These guidelines are a follow-up to the 2020 Climate Change and Defence Roadmap and aim to provide a basic toolbox for the integration of environmental and climate aspects into civilian CSDP missions. Their purpose is manifold: to raise awareness in missions, to optimise the use of resources and energy in missions, to integrate environmental security and environmental crime considerations into mission mandates and, in the long term, to provide host states with best practices in greening the security sector.