This article puts forward the contrarian argument that the EU's 'comprehensive approach' does not exist as far as crisis response planning is concerned. This practical inexistence is the result of internal EU politics. The notion of a comprehensive approach is fundamentally driven by a functional need for effectiveness in crisis management, but this frequently clashes with the logic of intergovernmental decision-making prevalent amongst the Member States. The argument builds on an analysis of how EU crisis response planning arrangements have evolved over time and zooms in on topical ongoing debates such as the review of the EU's Crisis Management Procedures, the Comprehensive Approach Communication and the development of operational planning tools. The search for coordination mechanisms cannot be a merely technical quest for efficiency: as strategic coordination must follow a particular policy agenda it represents a battle for political influence. This runs against the EU's culture of dispersed authority and omnipresent checks and balances. The lack of policy coherence is therefore politically understandable and not necessarily 'bad'. Yet the current debate on the comprehensive approach ignores the dynamics of European politics and draws attention away from the bigger trends in European security.
European Foreign Affairs Review