18 EU Integrated Rule of Law mission
for Iraq
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—
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| Council Decision amending Decision 2010/330/CSFP on the European Union Integrated Rule of Law mission for Iraq EUJUST LEX — IRAQ
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| Legal base | Articles 28 and 43(2) TEU; unanimity
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| Department | Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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| Basis of consideration | Minister's letter of 27 June 2013
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| Previous Committee Reports | HC 83-v (2013-14), chapter 7 (12 June 2013); also see (33911) —: HC 86-vii (2012-13), chapter 13 (4 July 2012) and HC 86-iv (2012-13), chapter 9 (14 June 2012); (32849) — : HC 428-xxx (2010-12), chapter 15 (22 June 2011); (31693) —: HC 428-i (2010-11), chapter 60 (8 September 2010); (30633) —: HC 19-xviii (2008-09), chapter 18 (3 June 2009) and HC 19-xvii (2008-09), chapter 3 (13 May 2009)
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| Discussion in Council | June 2013
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared; further information requested
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Background
18.1 EUJUST LEX-IRAQ is the EU "rule of law" mission
that was established in 2005 to provide professional development
opportunities for judges and others involved in developing and
applying the rule of law, and to foster confidence, mutual
respect and operational cooperation between the different
branches of the Iraqi criminal justice system. Courses are
designed to demonstrate international best practice and provide
Iraqi officials with the skills required to carry out criminal
investigations more effectively.
18.2 The full background to this mission and
the previous Committee's consideration thereof is set out in our
Reports under reference.[49]
18.3 At its first meeting in September 2010 the
Committee cleared a Council Decision that altered the mandate
in three ways:
— it
was extended for two years until 30 June 2012;
— the mission's focus further shifted towards
in-country training activities (although courses held in EU Member
States were to continue); and
— the mission's permanent presence within
Iraq was to increase in line with the increased focus on in-country
activities (five more staff in Baghdad; a new liaison office in
the northern city of Erbil with 15 members of staff; four mission
personnel in Basra, operating under the Baghdad office).
18.4 Two Council Decisions that the Committee
cleared in 2011 increased EUJUST LEX's 2010-11 budget to €22.3
million and provided for a 2011-12 budget of a further €27.25
million. The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington) said that
the new budget would allow the mission to continue to deliver
in-country training courses, facilitate better impact evaluation
and increase Iraqi ownership of the training process. He emphasised
that clear evaluation of these training courses would be a priority
over the next 12 months, to demonstrate the impact of the mission's
expansion in-country; and noted that, to reinforce the importance
the UK placed on evaluation and ensure that it remained such a
priority, a UK expert had been seconded as EUJUST LEX's head of
evaluation.
18.5 The Committee commended the Minister's determination
to improve the level and quality of the evaluation of EUJUST LEX's
impact and looked forward to hearing more about this as and when
any further mandate extension and/or budgetary increase proposals
were put forward.
The 2012 Council Decision
18.6 The Council Decision covers the Mission's
remaining 18 months. It was based on a strategic review, after
which it had been agreed to give EUJUST LEX sufficient time "to
enable it to implement a tighter, refocused mandate and make a
positive impact on Rule of Law in Iraq" and "simultaneously
prepare a proper exit strategy, in particular by building relations
with the Iraqi Authorities to ensure a smooth transition to Iraqi
ownership.... [which] will ensure that the investment and resources
deployed to date will be more fully utilised as the mission moves
towards closure." The Minister supported this new mandate
which he said would strengthen efforts to: increase local ownership,
including with co-funding in order to improve sustainability;
and refocus its efforts on particular aspects of rule of law which
were of most interest to the Iraqi authorities and which they
wished to continue beyond 2014. The cost would be a further €27.15
million.
18.7 When it considered the Decision on 14 June
2012, the Committee:
- noted that: with this latest budget, the EU would
have spent some €118 million on EUJUST LEX; and given the
Minister's (commendable, and commended) emphasis a year earlier
on assessment of the Mission's achievements, it had hoped to have
seen some concrete indications of such evaluation and not just
a brief description of some of the activity;
- asked for further details of: what evaluation
had taken place in the past year of the impact and sustainability
of the training provided, and about how the findings had been
reflected in the strategic review concerning the evaluation; the
cost of the UK's direct and indirect contribution thus far, for
which it first asked in 2009; and what NATO training mission had
been withdrawn at short notice, and why.
18.8 The Minister's detailed response was set
out in our most recent previous Report on the Decision. As it
provided all the information for which the Committee had asked,
and raised no further questions at that juncture, the Committee
cleared the draft Council Decision, with a final Report to the
House.[50]
The further draft Council Decision
18.9 The mission is due to be closed on 31 December
2013.
18.10 The draft Council Decision, which we considered
on 12 June, sets out a new €15,400,000 budget, covering the
period from 1 July 2013 until 30 June 2014: €13,770,000 for
the 2013 operational period plus €1,630,000 for the 2014
closure period. The additional funding will enable a small team
to spend six months carrying out residual tasks such as organising
the audit and closing accounts. The Minister for Europe (Mr David
Lidington), provided a full range of supporting information, as
set out in our previous Report and the annex to it.
18.11 The Minister recalled that closure —
while right for the UK, though resisted by some other Member States
back in 2012 — presents two broad challenges:
— that
the techniques instilled by EUJL become an enduring part of the
Iraqi way of working; to achieve this, EUJL experts will hand
over the responsibility for training to their Iraqi counterparts
over the last six months of the Mission mandate; and
— secondly, EUJL is the first CSDP mission
to close in 2013 and the first to close since the establishment
of a warehouse for CSDP materials; it is therefore important that
the costs and process of winding up operations and salvaging or
disposing of mission equipment and materials are closely monitored.
18.12 In his Explanatory Memorandum, the Minister
said:
"Closure does not represent a verdict that EUJL
has failed. In general the UK's attitude to CSDP missions is that
they should be short-term operational tools which deploy to achieve
well-defined objectives within finite timescales. Once their job
has been done, we take the view that missions should close, liberating
the resources which they consume for other purposes.
"However it is fair to say that closure does
also reflect the fact that EUJL is an expensive and long-standing
mission which — as our correspondence in 2012 reflected
— has not always monitored the impact of its activities
sufficiently closely. Our view in any case is that the situation
in Iraq has much improved since the mission's launch in 2005 and
that it is now more appropriate for security sector support to
be delivered by more flexible development programmes than by an
international deployment."
Our assessment
18.13 As the Minister suggested, there have
been many exchanges between him and the Committee over the need
for CSDP missions generally to be properly evaluated throughout
their existence and to be wound up either when their job has been
done or when it is plain that, for whatever reason, they are failing
to deliver value for money. We were accordingly in sympathy with
the broad thrust of his approach to the place of CSDP missions
in the spectrum of EU external action.
18.14 We also thanked the Minister for his detailed
exposition, and again commended him and his officials for their
endeavours in ensuring that appropriate focus is given to winding
up the mission in the most cost-efficient and effective fashion
possible.
18.15 However, we were concerned over two matters.
First, the Minister said nothing about a final cost-benefit review
of the mission: what it had finally cost, what it had achieved
over the past eight years, and what lessons it held for future
such missions.
18.16 Secondly, the Minister rightly noted the
importance of ensuring that the techniques instilled by EUJUST
LEX-Iraq became "an enduring part of the Iraqi way of working";
and that to achieve this, complementary to the handover to Iraqi
counterparts over the last six months of the Mission mandate,
the European Commission was developing a long term development
programme which was intended to carry forward EU Rule of Law engagement.
However, he also said that only recently had he learned that
there would be a gap between the Mission's closure and the start
of the Commission's development programme.
18.17 Talk of the UK "pushing to manage
the risk this presents", and of the EEAS consequently "exploring
options for bridging activities, which includes coordinating with
Member State activities" was, we felt, disturbing, since
it sounded as though the EEAS had either taken its eye off this
important ball or did not share the Minister's view of its role.
Moreover, his remark that Member States "generally remain
positive regarding Crisis Management Planning Department/CPCC
work on managing the gap between EUJUST LEX Iraq closure and the
DeVCo programme" did not sound like a vote of confidence.
18.18 In sum, this mission has cost a great deal
of EU taxpayers' money. We did not know what it had achieved
nor how the Commission and EEAS were going to ensure that its
achievements were embedded and taken forward. We therefore asked
if a final "VFM + lessons learned" assessment was to
be performed (when, and by whom); and why, with so much lead time
at their disposal, the Commission/EEAS had not properly prepared
for the transition to local ownership and their own subsequent
leadership role.
18.19 In the meantime, we retained the documents
under scrutiny.[51]
The Minister's letter of 27 June 2013
18.20 The Minister says that the UK, along with
Member States, is pressing the Commission for a final Lessons
Learned and Value for Money report, to be conducted by end of
2013 and will continue to do so.
18.21 The Minister also says that: the final
financial report on the mission, separate from that wider exercise,
will give a full account of all technical and financial aspects
related to the implementation of the mission, including a detailed
narrative description covering the whole contract duration; an
audit of account will also take place and that the auditor will
produce an external audit report and certify the final financial
statement. The purpose of the audit, the Minister says, is to
certify that the financial documents submitted to the Commission
comply with the financial provisions of this contract, that the
expenditures declared are the actual expenditure and that all
receipts have been declared.
18.22 He continues as follows:
"But the UK and other Member States are also
seeking to ensure that a wider Lessons Learned exercise is conducted.
As a result of UK pressure, the EEAS has established a mechanism
for identifying and implementing the lessons learned from all
CSDP activities. We will maintain the pressure to ensure that
experience derived from EUJUST LEX and indeed all CSDP missions
are applied for future mission planning."
18.23 Meanwhile, the Minister says, "it
may be helpful to give a sense of the Government's own assessment
of lessons learned, the achievements of this mission, and a cost/benefit
analysis."
18.24 He does so as follows:
"LESSONS LEARNED — AND THE ROLE OF MONITORING
AND EVALUATION
"The UK played a key role in convincing the
Commission that a monitoring and evaluation methodology should
be embedded in the mission's training activities from the outset.
The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) capacities of the Iraqi
Police Training and Qualifications Directorate will mean that
good practice in monitoring and evaluation continues in the rule
of law training after the EU mission leaves Iraq. The mission's
evaluation officers exchanged M&E methods with international
organisations including UNDP Iraq, USAID and the Red Cross, to
improve the mission's assessment of outcomes and impacts.
"The UK is working hard to ensure that lessons
learned in the course of this mission are conveyed to and considered
by project implementers and their Iraqi counterparts following
mission closure. We are also encouraging the EU to capture lessons
learned to ensure that future EU CSDP missions deliver value for
money as well as successful outcomes.
"In the UK Government's assessment, key lessons
from the Iraq mission to consider for future missions include:
1. "The value of co-locating the mission
and EU delegation;
2. "The importance of mission involvement
in the selection of trainees;
3. "The value added by co-ordinating political
reporting with the delegation;
4. "The importance of understanding the
host cultural environment and the need to secure a Status of Mission
agreement especially for launching a mission in a high-risk environment;
5. "That mandates and budgets should realistically
reflect the high security costs of working in difficult countries.
"MISSION ACHIEVEMENTS: UK ASSESSMENT
"Overall, I believe that it was right for the
EU to offer Iraq substantial and sustained help to improve the
Iraqi criminal justice system.
"EUJUST LEX has succeeded in bringing a critical
mass of Iraq's Criminal Justice Sector leaders together to examine
and debate international best practice. It has enabled Iraqi
judges, police officers and penitentiary managers — men
and women, from Sunni, Shiite, Kurd and other ethnic backgrounds
to discuss important issues of rule of law important to their
country's future in a safe, neutral and supportive environment.
"The technical assistance offered by the mission
has complemented the efforts of others who have provided equipment
and resources in this sector. The US Embassy, French Embassy
and UNDP (operating from Amman) have cooperated well with the
mission, and we have collectively avoided duplication of activities.
"The mission has also generated positive media
coverage, giving a strong political signal of EU engagement to
the Iraqi public and political class. Our Embassy's assessment
is that Iraqis understand and appreciate this effort, and the
investment for the future it represents.
"COSTS: UK ASSESSMENT
"If the budget under review here of Euros 15.4
million is approved, the EU will have spent Euros 118 million
on EUJUST LEX during the full period of its operation. As of
December 2012, the mission has run more than 500 courses and trained
more than 5,700 senior law enforcement practitioners. Key achievements
include delivering innovative activities such as training of an
Iraqi law enforcement training cadre ("training the trainers"),
mainstreaming human rights and gender issues into training, and
increasing the frequency and quality of contacts at the highest
level between the European experts working within the mission
and Iraqi officials. I would like to highlight in particular
three areas of concrete achievement that have made a difference
to rule of law for Iraqis: the establishment of Rule of Law Committees;
the delivery of a Police Federal Investigation Training course
and the delivery of a penitentiary International Standards of
Audit Programme. The mission also leaves behind bespoke training
manuals, audit programs and other technical literature.
"EU SUPPORT TO IRAQ AFTER CLOSURE OF THE MISSION:
COMMISSION AND EEAS PLANNING
"Your Committee's report of 12 June also raised
the important matter of how the EEAS and the Commission are going
to ensure that the mission's achievements are embedded and taken
forward. Your Committee's report suggested that the Commission
and EEAS had not properly prepared for the transition to local
ownership, and to their playing a leading role in this field.
They are preparing, but it is true, in our assessment, to say
that the process could have been improved and we are now pressing
for improvements to the plan for transitional activity after the
mission closes. I detail these below.
"The Commission have produced plans for the
mission's work to be taken on by Development instruments. Unfortunately,
this planning took the Commission longer than they anticipated,
and DG Development and Cooperation (DevCo) have designed an action
planning document which will pick up certain strands of the EUJUST
LEX mandate. However, Commission procedures mean that the activity
outlined in that document is unlikely to come into effect until
late in 2014. The Commission reported at the start of 2013 that
a gap between EUJUST LEX and DevCo activities looked likely.
The UK followed this up immediately by calling a meeting of likeminded
Member States (MS) to explore options for addressing this gap,
and requesting a Special Report from the EEAS to explore options
for either limiting, or managing it.
"This ensured that the EEAS refocused on ensuring
that the mission closes effectively, and their recent work to
address the gap looks promising. They are exploring funding a
core team to stay in-country and continue many of the activities
of EUJUST LEX, until the DevCo programme starts.
"Funding options for bridging the transition
are also being explored. Despite the Commission's claims that
the Instrument for Stability (IfS) was not appropriate as it should
not fund Mission exit, the UK and likeminded MS pushed back, and
consequently funding from this instrument looks increasingly likely.
"Ultimately, the handover plans have not been
developed in as satisfactory a way as we and other MS would have
hoped, but we are pressing for them to be improved and we are
encouraged by the EEAS recent progress on planning to bridge the
gap."
Conclusion
18.25 We note that the Commission has, it
seems, yet to be finally persuaded of the need for a final "Lessons
Learned and Value for Money" report. We therefore ask the
Minister to let us know what the position is before the Christmas
recess, and what handover plans have been finally developed.
18.26 In the meantime, we thank the Minister
for this further information, and especially for his own assessment
of lessons learned, mission achievements and cost/benefit analysis.
It is extraordinary that, even now, it seems that only as a result
of UK pressure has the EEAS established a mechanism for identifying
and implementing the lessons learned from all CSDP activities,
and that the Minister feels that he must still maintain pressure
to ensure that experience derived from EUJUST LEX and indeed all
CSDP missions is applied for future mission planning. As our
consideration of four other CSDP missions indicates, this is ever
more necessary: so, too, the validity of the "key lessons"
the Minister identifies — especially the importance of understanding
the host cultural environment; the need to secure a Status of
Mission agreement especially for launching a mission in a high-risk
environment; and ensuring that mandates and budgets realistically
reflect the high security costs of working in difficult countries.
[52]
18.27 We now clear the Council Decision.
49 See headnote: (30633) -: HC 19-xviii (2008-09),
chapter 18 (3 June 2009) and HC 19-xvii (2008-09), chapter 3 (13
May 2009). Back
50
See headnote: (33911) -: HC 86-vii (2012-13), chapter 13 (4
July 2012) and see HC 86-iv (2012-13), chapter 9 (14 June 2012). Back
51
See headnote: (35009) -: HC 83-v (2013-14), chapter 7 (12 June
2013). Back
52
See Chapter 17: (34664) - EU training of Malian armed forces;
see Chapter 16: (34518) - EU training of Somali security forces;
see Chapter 22: (35109) - The EU and the Horn of Africa; see
Chapter 21: (35108) - The EU and the Sahel]. Back
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