Civil-military coordination

EU civil-military coordination ensures that all stakeholders (Council of the EU, European Commission and member state experts) responsible for managing crisis/emergency act in a coordinated manner throughout the whole process from planning of operations to post-conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction. Civil-military coordination is quickly becoming one of the top priorities of the Common Security and Defence Policy.

In June of 2005, three EU member states (the United Kingdom, Austria and Finland), prior to the launch of their trio Presidency of the Council of the EU, presented a joint document on the necessity to introduce  comprehensive approach to crisis management at the EU level.

During its presidency, the United Kingdom developed the Comprehensive Planning Concept that provides guidelines on joint planning of civil-military operations. During its presidency, Austria finalised a framework paper with guidelines for civil-military personnel (such as diplomatic service, police and military) cooperation during operations. Whereas Finish presidency addressed another dimension of the civil-military coordination, i.e. information exchange and flows on the site of the operation.

Current development of the civil-military coordination focuses on two key dimensions: development of capabilities (defining of information exchange requirements and development of technical solutions) and institutional cooperation between the civilian and military units of the Council of the EU.

Latvia also believes that civil-military coordination must be improved because, as experience shows, quite often crisis management resources (both financial and human) are utilised inefficiently and all responsible stakeholders are not always explicitly coordinating their activities. Latvia has actively contributed to planning and continues to participate in the implementation of various civil-military coordination initiatives.