This year’s annual General Meeting of the CoE will be hosted by the Permanent Representation of Spain in the European Union (a thank you goes to our friends in Brussels and Madrid)! 

It is the first “live” meeting after the initial one in February 2020 – right before the pandemic kicked in – when the CoE was founded by 14 EU Member States. By now, the number of our members has grown to 22 – and more are joining! 

We are excited to welcome our CoE members as well as CoE’s preferred partners, the EEAS and NATO IS! 

Topics of the General Meeting are: 

• Recap of 2022 (and 2023, to some degree), in particular of the Civilian CSDP Summer Forum as well as the Civilian CSDP Autumn Forum the CoE conducted last year, the Women’s Mentoring Programme, the support work for CoE members, the “informal NIP-clusters” and other undertakings. 

• Outlook on the rest of 2023 as well as the year 2024, with a focus on the processes the CoE is heavily engaged in: Supporting its members in putting together National Implementation Plans under the new Civilian CSDP Compact; and working on strengthening national capabilities (i.e., systems and structures) to provide more resources to EU missions, as stipulated in commitment #13 of the Compact. 

The General Meeting will be followed by the CoE’s Civilian CSDP Autumn Forum (19/20 October) also hosted by the Permanent Representation of Spain in the European Union (another BIG thank you!). More than 90 participants from all 27 EU Member States plus representatives from the EEAS and EU agencies will discuss how to implement deliverable #3 of the Civilian CSDP Compact which stipulates stepping up efforts to apply a “scalable and modular” approach to civilian missions, i.e., making them more agile, fit for purpose, and provide them with (more) resources from EU Member States in a dynamic and flexible manner.