The Treaty on European Union (TEU) allows for the Council of the European Union to decide upon ‘joint actions’, which include ‘humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making’. European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) was in practice launched by the European Council in Cologne in 1999 and rapidly became one of the most dynamic areas of European construction. From this, the EU has put in place a number of structures designed to anticipate, prepare for and conduct operations placed under its responsibility, notably a military staff including a civil-military cell which is the core of an operations centre, and a network of headquarters provided by certain member states.

Between the first military operation, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 2003 (Concordia, which put 300 troops under European command for 9 months to achieve stability in the country with the support of NATO assets), and the current plans for civilian and military intervention in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the increase in strength and the broadening of the spectrum of EU operations has been spectacular.

In the military domain, the EU intervened in Africa in 2003 in Operation Artemis, with France as the lead nation. This operation was aimed at restoring peace in Ituri, a province in the eastern region of Congo, in order to ease the deployment of MONUC blue-helmeted troops. With the support of NATO assets, Operation Althea has since 2 December 2004 aimed at maintaining and reinforcing stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since June 2005 EU action in support of the African Union’s operation in Darfur (AMIS 2), albeit limited, has included a military element. Finally, in 2006 and under the command of an operational HQ in Potsdam, the EU deployed some 2,200 troops in operation EUFOR DR Congo to ensure stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the presidential election there.