EU Council Conclusions on Security and Development

Summary: 19 November 2007, Brussels - Council of the European Union, 2831st External Relations Council meeting, conclusions on Security and Development

The Council adopted the following conclusions:

"1. The 2003 European Security Strategy and the 2005 European Consensus on Development acknowledge that there cannot be sustainable development without peace and security, and that without development and poverty eradication there will be no sustainable peace.

2. The Council firmly believes that this nexus between development and security should inform EU strategies and policies in order to contribute to the coherence of EU external action, whilst recognising that the responsibilities and roles of development and security actors are complementary but remain specific.

3. The Council recalls that the EU, as an important global actor, can avail itself of a wide array of instruments to contribute to long-term development and poverty eradication, to prevent and manage violent conflict and to build peace in developing countries. The EU will endeavour to improve the coherence, efficiency and visibility of its external policies and build synergies between them, with due regard for cross-cutting issues such as human rights, gender, including the implementation of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, promotion of democracy, governance, the rule of law and environmental sustainability.

4. The Council fully recognises the important role of the UN in strengthening the inter-linkages between security, development and human rights. The Council also underlines the contributions of other international and regional organisations in this field, and the need to ensure coherence between work undertaken by the EU and those organisations.

5. The Council, underlining that conflict prevention should be pursued as a priority goal in particular by fostering and strengthening development cooperation, invites the Community, within the respective competences of its Institutions, to further enlarge and improve channels of dialogue and cooperation with civil society, NGOs, local authorities and the private sector.

6. Increasing coherence between security and development, both at a policy and an operational level, is a process that requires short-term improvements and longer term action. As a step in this process the Council has identified initial pragmatic actions for increased coherence in some of the areas spanning the security-development nexus: strategic planning, Security Sector Reform, partnerships with regional and sub regional organisations, and humanitarian aid and security. This is without prejudice to other important areas of the nexus, where work also should be taken forward in the future.

7. In addressing these areas, the Council also recalls its Conclusions on an EU response to situations of fragility.

I. Pragmatic Actions

Strategic Planning

8. The EU is addressing insecurity, and conflicts and their root causes, through a wide range of instruments. Inter-linkage between security and development should be seen as an integral part of the ongoing EU efforts, including those to enhance Civil-Military Coordination (CMCO) in order to address complex crises in a coherent manner.

9. To enhance coherence and consistency, the Council calls for further intensified cooperation within and between Council bodies, Commission services and Member States, in particular by improving the sequencing in the strategic planning of their short term and longer-term actions. This should be promoted by:

• a more systematic consideration by the relevant Council bodies of the potential synergies between security and development, for example through joint meetings where appropriate, including across pillars;

• systematically carrying out security/conflict sensitive assessments and conflict analysis, where appropriate, in the preparation of country and regional strategies and programmes;

• taking into account the development dimension in the preparation of CFSP/ESDP activities, and taking into account security aspects, including the CFSP/ESDP dimension, in the preparation of development activities;

• engaging in in-depth consultations, strategic political and conflict analyses and screenings with a view to planning and acting consistently on early signs of tension, instability and fragility;

• ensuring coordination across the pillars through consistent planning arrangements (Member States, Commission and General Secretariat of the Council (GSC)), sequencing and implementation arrangements, including joint Fact Finding Missions and the joint establishment of a Crisis Management Concept (CMC) for a given crisis, where appropriate;

• promoting joint training courses and joint Assessment Missions;

• intensifying cooperation with international institutions, in particular the UN, during the strategic planning process, especially on the basis of the Joint Statement on EU-UN Cooperation in Crisis Management.

Security Sector Reform (SSR)

10. Ongoing SSR activities have demonstrated the need for whole-of-government coordination between short and long-term planning and actions. Based on the EU Policy Framework for SSR and taking into account the work undertaken in the OECD/DAC regarding the whole of government approach, the Council calls on Member States, the Commission and the GSC to further improve coordination and information exchange and to pursue joint assessments by:

• enhancing information flows on policy developments and ongoing and planned SSR activities;

• pursuing field coordination between all actors, including non-EU actors;

• when appropriate, carrying out joint assessments and analyses covering all necessary components in the area of SSR to ensure timely and well coordinated engagement in the broader context of democratic governance;

• sharing experience on pooled funding and mechanisms for rapid deployment of experts and flexible support;

• boosting Commission and GSC in-house SSR expertise, including through joint training and secondment of national experts to assessment missions;

• pursuing joint efforts to build SSR capacity in regional organisations.

The Council notes that Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) is closely linked to SSR and the EU should continue its work on strengthening the EUs support to DDR on the basis of the EU Joint Concept.

Partnerships with regional and subregional organisations

11. The Council commends the work undertaken in the framework of the EU/Africa Partnership as a way forward for a coherent and holistic approach towards security and development challenges. It is built on the partnership with a regional organisation and based on the principle of ownership, while pursuing respective security priorities. The complementarity between EU security and development priorities is supported by the necessary interaction with other policy areas like governance or regional integration, all acting in a mutually reinforcing way.

12. The Council therefore underlines that frameworks agreed with regional and subregional organisations should be considered when designing future actions related to security and development. In this context, the Council stresses the importance of the framework of the future Joint EU-Africa Strategy and its Action Plan, particularly the Peace and Security cluster.

Humanitarian aid and security

13. The Council recalls that the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid sets out the principles and internationally agreed norms and guidelines applicable to EU humanitarian aid, which contains, inter alia, elements for developing future action. The Council underlines that, while humanitarian, development and military/security actors have different but complementary roles and mandates, interaction and cooperation must be ensured. The Council believes that the impartiality, humanity, neutrality and independence of the humanitarian action in such circumstances must and can be safeguarded, and that the effectiveness of the respective interventions can be improved by:

• consulting humanitarian actors from the outset during the planning process and follow up of military missions;

• ensuring coordination with humanitarian actors in the field, including through coordination mechanisms, when military activities are needed to secure the humanitarian space; in this regard, civil-military coordination and liaison officers should be deployed, where and when needed.

II. Way forward

14. The Council underlines that the importance of the security and development nexus warrants its particular attention in the future. The Council therefore invites Member States, the Commission and the GSC to take the work on security and development forward under the guidance of future Presidencies, including in the framework of Policy Coherence for Development (PCD).

15. The Council calls on the Commission and the GSC, in close cooperation with Member States, to prepare an Action Plan with a view to implementing the actions set out in these Conclusions, and to submit this Plan to the Council.

16. The Council firmly believes that lessons learned from past experiences, and concrete steps in a few specific countries are needed to inform the Action Plan and future policies. The Council therefore calls for an analysis focusing on countries where ESDP missions and operations are being planned or conducted or where CFSP, Community and bilateral Member State activities are being conducted, with a view to finding ways to improve the sequencing and coordination of EU activities. This should be done with due regard for the EU Code of Conduct on Complementarity and Division of Labour in Development Policy.

This work should start in 2008 and be reported to the Council in a timely manner.

17. Finally, the Council believes that future work on security and development should include a more detailed approach to the development perspective of security challenges, dialogue processes (political dialogue, mediation, human rights promotion, governance, democracy support), DDR and the inter-linkages with SSR, the security and development implications of climate change, environmental and natural resource management issues and migration, as well as aspects related to financing. In this context, particular attention should be paid to African-led peace support operations, without prejudice to initiatives in other regions.
________________________

ANNEX
• 2001 Gothenburg Programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflict.
• 2003 European Security Strategy, doc. 15895/03.
• 2005 European Consensus on Development, OJ C 46 of 24.2.2006, p. 1.
• EU Code of Conduct on Complementarity and Division of Labour in Development Policy, doc. 9558/07."

Ref: CL07-267EN
EU source: Council
UN forum:
Date: 19/11/2007

| Top |

< Back to previous page