ABSTRACT
What are the main features of the EU’s, the UN’s and the US’s respective foreign policies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (Research Question/RQ 1)? How effective are the missions and initiatives of the EU in terms of input, output and impact compared to those of the UN or the US (RQ 2)? What causal factors have possibly influenced the effectiveness of the EU in comparison to that of the US and the UN (RQ 3)? Among the various fields of EU foreign policy-making, the European Union’s (EU) ambitions as an international actor have become most pronounced in the field of ESDP/CSDP civilian missions or military operations. As of summer 2014, the EU has a list of 33 such (past and present) missions and operations (European Union 2014). Given the context of political, economic and social instability, the United Nations (UN), the EU and the United States (US) have created different policies for the DRC with the declared goal of creating peace and stability in this central but failing African state. In this analysis, the EU’s foreign policy missions and operations vis-à-vis the DRC will be compared to UN and US engagement since 2003 – when the EU began operation ARTEMIS as its first ESDP operation outside Europe, charged with supporting MONUC (UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, started in 1999) in its efforts to protect infrastructure, civilians and UN and humanitarian staff, thus indicating the EU’s ambitions to act as a truly international actor (Helly 2009a; Major 2009).
