What conditions influence EU effectiveness in international mediation? A recent study by Julian Bergmann and Arne Niemann assesses how we can better evaluate the role of the EU institutions as a peace mediator by investigating the case of the Belgrade – Pristina dialogue, brokered by the EU between 2011 and 2013

Bergmann, Julian

Niemann, Arne

LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.ukhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/12/12/what-the-belgrade-pristina-agreement-says-about-the-eus-role-as-a-peace-mediator/What the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue says about the EU’s role as apeace mediatorWhat conditions influence EU effectiveness in international mediation? A recent study by JulianBergmann and Arne Niemann assesses how we can better evaluate the role of the EU institutionsas a peace mediator by investigating the case of the Belgrade – Pristina dialogue, brokered by theEU between 2011 and 2013. In November 2009, the European Union adopted the Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation andDialogue Capacities. In this document, which is the first policy document exclusively dealing withmediation and dialogue, the EU formulates the ambition to systematically enhance its mediationcapacities and to strengthen its overall ability to engage in non-military conflict prevention and crisismanagement missions. The Concept represents the main conceptual and policy reference for theEU’s approach to mediation and spells out different roles and guiding principles of EU mediation.Mediation is not a new element in the EU’s foreign policy toolbox. In fact, the EU has a considerabletrack record of mediation involvement in a number of cases in the European Neighbourhood andbeyond. For example, the EU together with the US was engaged in mediating the Ohrid FrameworkAgreement between the Macedonian government and the Albanian minority in 2001.In the same year and thereafter, the EU played a key role in mediating the Belgrade Agreement between Serbia andMontenegro on the formation of a state union. Since 2008, the EU acts as a mediator and co-chair of the GenevaInternational Discussions on Georgia’s territorial conflicts. In addition, the EU has played a significant role in anumber of collective coordination mechanisms to support peace processes such as UN Contact Groups and Groupsof Friends.Despite an increasing interest in the EU’s engagement in international mediation by policy-analysts and practitioners,as yet the academic literature has not paid much attention to the EU’s role in peace negotiations. In particular, twoquestions have been insufficiently addressed so far. First, how can EU mediator effectiveness be appropriatelyconceptualised and evaluated? And second, what conditions influence EU effectiveness in international mediation?The EU as a peace mediatorIn a recent study, which is part of a larger research project on EU mediation funded by the German Foundation forPeace Research, we have tackled these questions. Our point of departure is that both mediation research and EUforeign policy studies provide fruitful concepts and theoretical underpinning to study EU mediation, but are rarelycombined and seldom speak to each other. To contribute to ‘bridge-building’ between these fields, we draw onconcepts and empirical insights from both literatures and develop a conceptual framework for analysing EU mediatoreffectiveness that is intended to be applicable across cases.We propose a two-dimensional conceptualisation of EU mediator effectiveness, including both an EU-specific andconflict-specific perspective on effectiveness. The internal EU perspective assesses whether the EU has successfullyachieved its objectives as a mediator in a particular conflict. The external conflict-perspective evaluates whether theEU mediation effort had some positive impact on the conflict and its management in terms of settlement of conflictissues. Integrating these two perspectives on effectiveness into the framework allows for a more nuanced evaluationof EU mediation that goes beyond the signing of an agreement as sole reference point for assessing EU mediatoreffectiveness.The investigation of the conditions of mediator effectiveness is structured around four key sets of variables: mediatorleverage, defined as resources and instruments the EU can bring to the negotiation table to spur an agreementbetween the disputants; mediation strategy, referring to the degree of control the EU exerts on the negotiationprocess; coherence, describing the degree of coordination and substantive agreement between individual memberstates’ policies towards a conflict, and the mediation activities carried out by EU institutions; and finally the conflictcontext, capturing variables such as conflict parties’ internal cohesiveness and mediation timing.To probe the empirical utility of the framework, we investigate the first phase of the EU-facilitated dialogue betweenBelgrade and Pristina from 2011 to 2013. In this unique case of EU mediation, the EU managed to broker a number ofagreements between the parties, including issues such as integrated border management, mutual recognition ofdiplomas, customs regulations and the representation of Kosovo in regional institutions. In particular, the FirstAgreement of Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations that focuses on the governance of NorthernKosovo and was signed in April 2013 has been widely applauded as ground-breaking and historic.The findings of our empirical analysis suggest that the EU’s success in mediating a number of agreements betweenBelgrade and Pristina so far can be explained firstly by its great leverage vis-à-vis the conflict parties due to theiraspirations for EU accession, and secondly by its mix of a strategy of formulation and manipulation that draws on thisleverage to move parties toward agreement through the use of positive incentives.Both Serbia and Kosovo strongly aspire to move forward on their path toward EU accession and seek to win EUappeal in the dialogue process to improve their prospects of future membership. This also explains theirgovernments’ strong political will to stay committed to the dialogue. Explicitly linking the dialogue on normalisationwith the accession process has proven instrumental for the EU to further back the parties in their efforts to findcompromise solutions to the issues in dispute.In a number of cases, progress in the talks has been directly followed by EU rewards and incentives for furthercooperation. For example, only two days after the conflict parties had signed the April 2013 agreement, the EuropeanCommission recommended starting the EU membership negotiations process with Serbia in January 2014.In addition, the right timing of the mediation initiative during a window of opportunity in 2010/11 has also beenconducive to EU effectiveness. After the International Court of Justice had issued its advisory opinion that Kosovo’sunilateral declaration of independence did not violate any applicable rule of international law, the EU seized themoment to bring the parties to the negotiating table to achieve substantial progress before the parliamentary andpresidential elections in Serbia in spring 2012. The initial focus on rather technical issues in the first phase of thedialogue certainly further contributed to a low level of politicisation of the process.Given that the dialogue process is ongoing and the terms of implementation of a number of agreements are still beingnegotiated, it is certainly too early to draw some final conclusions and generalisations on EU mediator effectivenessbased on this case study. However, the empirical analysis demonstrates the utility of the conceptual framework tounderstand and evaluate EU effectiveness in international mediation and suggests that there is substantial ground forfurther research emanating from this study.For example, studying EU mediation initiatives in conflicts where the incentive of EU accession is less tangible, as inthe case of Kosovo and Serbia, may enrich our understanding of the extent to which EU mediator success iscontingent on the EU enlargement perspective. In addition, it may be worthwhile to further investigate in what waysthis framework – or a modified version of it – helps us to understand the EU’s effectiveness in supporting peaceprocesses beyond the role of acting as formally recognised mediator in negotiations.Finally, recent developments such as the establishment of the European Institute of Peace illustrate that mediationremains a vibrant field of EU foreign policy, which makes it even more an interesting topic for future academic inquiry.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: For a longer discussion of this topic, see the authors’ recent publication in the Journal of Common MarketStudies. This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy,nor of the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: eeas.europa.eu.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1IK9Pvo _________________________________About the authorsJulian Bergmann – Johannes Gutenberg-Universität MainzJulian Bergmann is research fellow and lecturer with the Chair of International Politics at theJohannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His main research interests are international conflictmanagement and EU foreign policy. Arne Niemann – Johannes Gutenberg-Universität MainzArne Niemann is Professor of International Politics and Jean Monnet Professor of EuropeanIntegration Studies at the Department of Political Science of the Johannes Gutenberg UniversityMainz, Germany. His research focuses on the European integration process and European Unionpolitics and policies, especially the EU’s external relations.

What the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue says about the EU’s role as a peace mediator

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