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The Lisbon Treaty (LT) has been designed to improve the coherence of the Union’s external relations. As HR Ashton has said in the European Parliament, peacebuilding is certainly central to what the EU does externally. However, it is not spelled out in a clear policy statement what this means. The result is that the means that are principally available within the Union are not mainstreamed towards peacebuilding.

If the EU is to play a role as an actor in international peacebuilding, a peacebuilding strategy should be set up. Such a strategy would seek to overcome both the conceptual diversity and the institutional fragmentation in view of coordinating the diverse instruments, providing for the appropriate resources and capabilities, and assuring their implementation. Assuming that peacebuilding is a central aim of the EU, developing a common, multidimensional strategy that welds together the wide range of potential EU responses into one overarching approach to peacebuilding is a moral responsibility.

Lessons learned from EU and UN missions have revealed the negative impact that a lack of coordination at the strategic level has on the security and long-term peace on the ground, for individuals as well as for societies. In the worst case, the whole mission is put at risk. Better peacebuilding cannot be achieved by simply changing institutional settings and administrative procedures at the level of the HR or the European External Action Service (EEAS). Conversely, the institutional rewiring has to be informed by strategic vision and mandated by a decision at the highest possible level. Such a mandate would bind all other actors that strive to achieve this aim. Moreover, besides potentially enhancing efficiency, an overall strategy can also support the legitimacy of international bureaucracies – like the EEAS - to act as external mediator in conflicts. It also offers an important yardstick that clarifies for what activities and aims the EEAS receives resources and how it would use them.

Therefore, a strategy is a necessary element to allow for a positive audit of the EEAS and other Institutions by those who exert oversight over them. The EU should use this once-in-a-generation chance to reset the system systematically and in a responsible manner. More broadly speaking, those who set up the institutional organisation of the EEAS should learn from similar problems and solutions at the national government level. As a result, holistic bureaucracy approaches to peacebuilding should be pursued as part of the holistic EU system approach. The establishment of a peacebuilding directorate is only one institutional solution among several. Eventually, given the diversity of challenges faced by peacebuilding, the organisation of the EEAS should rely more on flexible working methods rather than formal hierarchies.

One of the key recommendations in this study is for the European Parliament to support the development of a peacebuilding strategy for the EU. It should also ensure that the existing Commission services (Unit or Directorate level) dealing with peacebuilding (under the Instrument for Stability) are integrated into the EEAS in a way that respects the Commission's prerogatives as well as ensuring that its experience (including working with international, national and NGO peacebuilding actors) will add real value to the EEAS during its start up phase. It is only by having individuals in structures responsible for peacebuilding that the vision promoted by HR Ashton of EU peacebuilding being implemented through its many actions can be realised.

Dr. Christian Mölling works for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin.

Dr. Claudia Major is a research fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin.