What is Civilian Crisis Management?
Civilian Crisis Management refers to the deployment of non-military civilian personnel to prevent or respond to the outbreak of crisis or conflict situations.
Civilian crisis management missions can be deployed throughout a crisis's entire lifecycle: preventing escalation by addressing instability or monitoring, stabilising conflicts, and supporting post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding.
Support can come in various forms, such as through monitoring compliance with ceasefires or peace agreements, promoting human rights and the rule of law, supporting judicial and security sector reform, and capacity building—through training and technical assistance—to strengthen local authorities’ ability to manage and respond to crises in the future.
Civilian CSDP
Civilian CSDP represents the EU’s contribution to civilian crisis management. Civilian CSDP refers to the civilian dimensions of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), which sits within the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
EU civilian CSDP specifically focuses on the civilian dimension of the CSDP, as opposed to military aspects. It refers to the deployment of civilian personnel, experts, and resources to support peacekeeping, conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict reconstruction efforts. This can involve tasks such as promoting the rule of law, supporting security sector reform, strengthening governance, and providing assistance in various areas of civilian expertise.
Civilian CSDP Compact
The Civilian CSDP Compact is the core document guiding the work of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and Member States on the topic of civilian CSDP.
The first Civilian CSDP Compact was signed by all EU Member States in 2018. In response to the increasingly complex challenges and environments being faced by civilian crisis management missions, Member States agreed in the 2018 Civilian CSDP Compact, to focus not only on policing, rule of law, support to civil administrations, and security sector reform (the so-called Feira priorities), but also on new security challenges such as irregular migration, hybrid threats, cyber security, terrorism, and organised crime.
In May 2023 a new civilian CSDP Compact was adopted in the context of strong concern about the emergence or escalation of conflicts around the EU, as well as other challenges including violations of international law and human rights, democratic backsliding, the persistence of instability and transnational threats, and climate change and its effects on conflicts and crises.
The new Compact includes 20 commitments to strengthen civilian CSDP. The Council and Member States aim to regularly review progress made and to fully deliver on the new Compact by early summer 2027.
