The European Union Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS) of June 2016 highlights the need for the EU to further improve its civilian missions, by pursuing better communication, information-sharing, joint reporting, analysis and response planning between member state embassies, EU delegations, Commission services, EU Special Representatives and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions.
The broad variety and the multi-faceted complexity of civilian CSDP missions make the management of information and of resources critical with respect to situational awareness, decision-making, planning, optimization for pre-deployment and deployment of capabilities within civilian CSDP missions, and essential to increase the efficiency, visibility and impact of the EU external action. The communication and information sharing processes and systems, and the equipment currently in use in EU-funded civilian CSDP missions by the personnel seconded by Member States, need to be brought together and coordinated to constitute a common interoperable platform that will enhance the EU civilian crisis management and external action, in order to play its role in line with the objectives formulated in the EUGS.
The project will take into account and consider the findings emerged from the Cooperation and Support Action (CSA) "BES-11-2015: Information management topic 2: Information management, systems and infrastructure for civilian EU External Actions" of the 2014-2015 Secure Societies Work Programme. The resulting project CIVILEX, which was implemented until 30 April 2017, provides an initial road-map and recommendations for the project. The policy brief of July 2017 published on the CIVILEX website states:
“The CIVILEX research has led to the conclusion that communication and information management in EU civilian CSDP missions is currently in a rather fragmented state. Gaps during operations emerge: these seem characterized by enduring fragmentation in information exchange procedures and systems across missions, and a widespread prevalence of ad-hoc measures and practices. Additionally, there seems to be an uncomfortable relationship between formal information classification rules and practical information security practices, which results in a placating yet under-appreciated attitude towards information security. Although classified information is handled through proper, strict procedures and well-guarded communication systems, the analysis highlights a lack of an information security culture.”
Hence, the aim of CIVILnEXt is to support the development of a solution addressing “fragmentation” and closing “gaps” providing a secure, effective common situational awareness, information exchange and operation control platform. Furthermore, based on the analysis of past and current initiatives in the sphere of civilian CSDP and of the EU external action, including the external dimension of the EU activities in the field of AFSJ, the project will aim to develop solutions leveraging on the results extracted from relevant projects formerly funded by the EU.
CIVILnEXt common challenge is to develop, test and validate a cost-effective and interoperable Operation Control Platform that will support the execution of civilian CSDP missions, by facilitating information exchange and supporting situational awareness and operation control .In this context, CIVILnEXt will take into account the evolution of the Mission Support Platform (MSP) which is part of an effort to take the concept for CFSP of the Shared Services Centre (funded under heading 4 of the EU budget).
Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) is a powerful tool to tackle the main objective of the project, along with the above points, under one single joint initiative, and this is why CIVILnEXt is in an excellent position to reinforce future capabilities. The buyers in this Consortium, assisted by the technical and institutional advisors, will be in a position to draft common specifications for the procurement of R&D solutions for the operational validation of the next generation operational control platform that will support EU external policies.
With the support of KEMEA acting as a Lead Procurer, the CIVILnEXt buyers who participate as public procurers and are strong part of the EU External Policy setup (i.e. GUCI, HMOD, CEP, CMFA, IOM), have shared the need of being beneficiaries of such procurement results and will launch a PCP tender where a strong industrial involvement is expected. Under this PCP framework, users and industry will be able to cooperate, to define the solutions of the future, and, the latter shall promote the adoption of such solutions at EU level, thus assisting operationally relevant solutions reaching the market. That is, to stimulate the market to create a product which does not currently exist and is unlikely to exist without active intervention by all relevant stakeholders.
Thanks to the experience of all the partners of the Consortium in their specific domain, and through the effective exchange of knowledge and interdisciplinary work, the project has already reached important results. CIVILnEXt project is coordinated by the National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos” (Greece), and the project Consortium is formed by:
National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos” (NCSRD), Integrated Systems Laboratory (ISL) – Project Coordinator, Center for Security Studies (KEMEA) – Lead Procurer, Guardia Civil (GUCI), Hellenic Ministry of Defence (HMOD), Centre for European Perspective (CEP), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cyprus (CMFA), International Organization for Migration (IOM) – Public Procurers, European Union Satellite Centre (SATCEN), Atos Spain SA (ATOS), eBOS Technologies (eBOS), European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and, Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC), Kompetenzzentrum Internationale Sicherheit (KIS) – Technical and Policy Advisors.
