Friday 7 February 2025 marked a significant milestone for the CoE and its partners, with the official launch of the first informal working group of EU Member States (“Cluster”), on National Governance.

The Finnish Ministry of the Interior, Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and CMC Finland launched the National Governance Cluster with the facilitation of the European Centre of Excellence for Civilian Crisis Management. 

It is the first of three Clusters to be initiated in early 2025, with Human Resources Management and Strategic Communications following soon. 

The Civilian CSDP Compact (2023-2027) emphasises stronger national contributions to civilian crisis management, calling for enhanced decision-making, financing, and legislative structures within EU Member States.

To support this, informal working groups, “Clusters”, were introduced – designed to give a boost to Member States’ work on their National Implementation Plans (NIPs) under the Compact – all with the aim to strengthen the EU’s civilian crisis management.

The Cluster structure was developed in a collaborative two-day workshop on 26/27 September 2024, organised by the CoE in collaboration with the European External Action Service (EEAS).

In this workshop, participants from EU Member States and the EEAS came together to discuss how the creation of an informal working group system (Clusters) could support Member States to strengthen their national civilian capabilities (structures, systems and processes) and deliver on their commitments under the Civilian CSDP Compact.

Based on the outcomes of the workshop, it was decided that three Clusters would be launched: National Governance, Human Resources Management, and Strategic Communications, with National Governance being the first.

The National Governance Cluster’s first task is to develop the 2025 Work Plan reflecting Member States’ national plans on how to implement their commitments under the Compact (so called National Implementation Plans, NIPs). This process begun by assessing the short-, mid- and long-term needs of Member States in areas such as national coordination, legislative procedures, budgetary issues, administrative or procedural issues, and political support.