Participation of Local Actors is Needed for Successful Crisis Response

Academic Event at this year’s BSF was dedicated to answering the question how conflict-sensitive is the EU crisis response. Participants concluded that the EU shifted to a more pragmatic approach and improved its crisis response capacities, but that it needs to learn from both successes and failures more quickly. It was agreed that the local has to be included on different levels, but with re-examining what ’local’ means.

EU’s main emphasis was on institution and capacity building and short term security, rather than ensuring lasting results and long term-stability, Senior Researcher at NUPI Pernille Rieker underlined. However, actions have shown that the EU is willing to adapt, Rieker added. Morten Bøès, Research Professor at NUPI also warned that the EU must stop using a “top-down” approach. It must find a better way of transferring knowledge from the ground back to Brussels, Bøès said closing the Academic Event.

After the event, young researchers had the chance to talk about their career paths and receive advice from more experienced colleagues at the Method Café.

Academic Event at the Belgrade Security Forum is part of the EUNPACK project, that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no.: 693337. The content reflects only the authors’ views, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.