The European Union's capacities for managing crises

Abstract

This article draws on a comprehensive new data set of crisis management capacities at the European Union level to highlight key patterns in their development and use. Organised within the categories of detection, sense-making, decision-making, coordination, meaning-making, communication, and accountability, the data show considerable accumulation of capacities in detection and sense-making, while decision-making capacities lag behind. We find that most capacities are sector-oriented rather than cross-sectoral, and reside primarily within the European Commission rather than other EU institutions. Comparing the data to previous studies, we note that capacities overall are increasing and some are undergoing evolution; for example, horizon-scanning tools once limited to collecting information have increasingly been given an analytical, “information enrichment” function akin to sense-making.