Author: Maria Julià Barceló
Programme: Doctoral Programme on the Information and Knowledge Society
Language: Spanish
Supervisor: Dr Víctor M. Sánchez
Faculty / Institute: Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3)
Subjects: Social Sciences
Key words: European Union peace missions, Peacekeeping, Internal and external legal bases, Organic structure, Creation and monitoring procedure, International enforcement agreements
Area of knowledge: International Public Law and International Relations
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Summary
This thesis aims to study the EU peacekeeping missions in the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Through these missions, created between 2003 and 2011, the EU has become an active actor in the context of international relations in areas of geopolitical, economic, and strategic influence located outside the borders of the EU.
These missions are inspired by the United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKO). The EU has created and deployed these missions based on Chapters VI, VII and VIII of the UN Charter, which describe, respectively, the mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes, the ability to action enforcement, and the basic rules of accommodation with regional agreements relating to the maintenance of international peace and security. The origins of these missions date back to the 1992 TEU of CFSP. Since 2003 the number and range of functions of the missions have increased over time until the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), which includes in the CSPD the accumulated experience and practices concerning the implementation of peace missions developed by the EU. In addition, title V of the TEU on the Common Foreign and Security Policy has provided the legal basis for the creation of these missions as internal EU actions, unanimously approved by all its member states.
The process of creating and implementing the missions has also been analysed. This structure, headed by the political decisions of the European Council and normatively embodied by the EU Council, is also composed of a set of ad hoc bodies whose creation responds to the needs identified in the practice of the missions and which are today clustered into the administrative apparatus of the European External Action Service (EEAS). However, the functioning of these organs has shown the opacity of the financing of military missions, as well as the complexity derived from the intervention of different financial instruments.
Finally, these operations have also relied on complementary legal bases necessary for its implementation on the ground: the international agreements through which the status and the participation of non-member states are established.