Governance of EU crisis management

Abstract

This chapter assesses the translation of recent European Union crisismanagement concepts into practice. In its quest for a comprehensive crisismanagement policy, has the EU been able to move from strategic concepts to coherent planning? Assuming an institutionalist perspective on organisational change, the chapter explores the gap between crisis management concepts and the organisational realities of everyday and work-level interactions. Through tracing the development of crisis management coordination in the EU architecture, the chapter takes stock of the successes and failures in the EU’s governance of its policies in this area. It contends that the Council and the Commission have followed different organisational strategies for implementing comprehensive crisismanagement operations and outlines three general trends in their relationship: convergence, coordination and compartmentalisation.