Learning in European Union peacebuilding: rhetoric and reality

The EU's growth as a security actor since 2003 has been closely accompanied by the development of various learning mechanisms to improve its performance. As most such activities have involved civilian rather than military resources, this article focuses on the learning culture underpinning the EU's civilian conflict prevention and peacebuilding activities. This is especially critical as the EU has increasingly framed these efforts in terms of ideational factors (training, mentoring, advising, capacity-building, resilience, etc.) rather than as “interventions” whereby the EU deploys its own resources to conflict zones. However, it is also clear that such efforts do not always produce the desired results, especially in a crisis situation, and that the EU does not always follow its own procedures regarding learning. Therefore despite considerable progress there is still much room for improvement in this realm, along with a need for broader institutional reforms to improve the EU's external capabilities.