Informal and Formal Practices within the EU Security Approach in Kosovo

The hesitant path of Western Balkans towards EU’s integration, the enduring borders and constitutional disputes and the unsettled ethnic tensions in the region trigger new security threats for Europe. The chapter explores the link between informal and formal actors and rules in EU security domain choosing as a case study, EULEX, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operation in Kosovo. The chapter addresses the following questions: how pragmatically EULEX has transformed itself reacting to operational needs in the field? Which is the framework of mobilization of informal networks, the source of their legitimacy and the ways they affect formal and international policies in high-institutionalised environments such has the one of CSDP in Kosovo? The research methodologically moves from a process tracing analysis of formal and informal traits in EULEX’s organization, in order to unpack the informality present in formal actors and practices and to discover the influence of informal actors, unwritten rules and practices in a field traditionally considered as the exclusive domain of formal institutional analysis. The study recognize the place given to “experiential institutional learning” and to the informal process as a “system function” to maintain EU security governance. The result of the analysis is that - beyond the rhetoric within the Crisis Management Concept and the Operation Plan of the CSDP operation prepared by EU policy-makers, operators in the field act and behave following different logics, introducing informal arrangements and being inspired by informal networks. Within the process of security governance, also EU officials may be caught by improvisation and do not necessarily follow formal treaties. The findings move to consider in a more comprehensive way EU’s security capacities and may question the source of legitimacy of CSDP operations.