Browsing by Author "Syrjänen, Ella"

This thesis analyses the global role of the European Union (EU) as a crisis and conflict manager from the viewpoint of the launch of the European Peace Facility (EPF). The European integration has often been pictured as a peace project and in fact, in 2012 EU was even awarded with a Nobel Peace Prize. However, recent changes in EU’s policies pose question on whether the role of EU in international arena is changing. This thesis focuses especially on the EPF, which is EU’s new off-budget funding instrument that was officially launched in March 2021. The EPF is used to fund EU’s external actions with defence and military implications. The decision to launch EPF was a historical one because it for the first time provided the EU an opportunity for the provision of lethal military equipment, including weapons. Especially this aspect of the EPF was strongly criticised by civil society organisations before, and after, the launch the facility. The EPF is very topical, because in year 2022 the EU used the change to send weapons to support Ukraine because of the Russia’s attack. However, research on the EPF and especially on its impact on the EU’s role is so far very limited. The main idea of this thesis is to research, whether the launch of the European Peace Facility is an example of the EU’s role changing towards a more military and a less civilian role in international arena, especially in the realm of crisis management. The thesis analyses the way that the EU justifies and frames the EPF and the role conception that the EU has of itself on global arena. Besides, the thesis analyses the role expectations of other actors, more specifically civil society organisations, towards the EU and on their views on the possible impact of the EPF for the EU’s role. The theoretical and conceptual base of this thesis is role theory and the concept of civilian power since the EU has often been referred as a civilian power. From role theory especially the concepts of role conception and role expectation are relevant for this thesis. The analysis is conducted by using qualitative document analysis. The data consists of documents produced by the EU, for example press releases and a speech, and documents of NGOs, mainly joint statements, and letters of groups of NGOs. The analysis of the data shows that for the EU the creation of the European Peace Facility was part of the discourse of making the EU a stronger security actor. The EU’s role conception of its role is not merely a civilian actor or an actor focusing on soft power. However, the EU still highlights its normative values as well as conflict prevention. The role expectations that the civil society has towards the EU, however, are more in line with the traditional civilian power role conception. The civil society expects the EU to have a role of a peace actor. To conclude, the analysis shows elements of a role conflict between the role conception of the EU and the role expectations posed towards the union. The NGOS see more military instruments as a threat for the role they expect the EU to have. The EU, however, tries to balance between soft normative values and a stronger military emphasis.