France holds the European Union presidency during the second half of 2008. From a military perspective, one of the challenges consists specifically in managing two big current military operations: EUFOR Althea in Bosnia, launched on 2 December 2004, whose mandate is about to end; and EUFOR Chad/CAR, the largest autonomous EU military operation, which began deployment on 28 January 2008.

Five years after the first EU military engagement, called Concordia and launched on 31 March 2003, significant improvements have been achieved in EU military crisis management mechanisms. They are the result of lessons learned from the various operations carried out by the EU—Concordia, Artemis, EUFOR Althea, EUFOR RD Congo and EUFOR Chad/CAR. Their success constitutes a ‘virtuous circle’ enhancing trends that make it possible to understand ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) potentialities and to note the development of an ‘operational continuum’. Thus, the EU is fully asserting its presence as one of the crisis management actors on the international scene beside NATO and the UN. Nevertheless, despite these positive results, some challenges still need to be addressed, in particular improvement of EU decision-making mechanisms.

EUFOR Althea: an EU Political and Military Success

A Successful Mission

This operation took over from NATO’s SFOR. It comes within the framework of cooperation between EU and NATO, the Atlantic Alliance still being represented in Sarajevo by a ‘residual headquarters’ (150 men) and, the EU being able to call upon an out-of-theatre reserve, in the case of ‘difficulties’, while KFOR is deployed by NATO in Kosovo. A new step in the process of European policy-building has thus been taken: it is not simply to take over NATO’s operation but also to follow it, and move Bosnia and Herzegovina on from stabilisation to consolidation. This young political entity is destined to be associated with the EU, before being fully integrated, with the corresponding rights and obligations. Thus EUFOR Althea is a challenge of the greatest importance and the EU is mobilising its civil and military tools to put a stop to various forms of trafficking and to conclude this ‘nation-building’ plan.