Keywords

1 Introduction

This collective book analyses the contribution of the European Union (EU) to the Colombian peace process, principally the implementation of the Havana Peace Agreement signed in 2016 between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) guerrilla organization. More particularly, it explores the axes of this EU support and the extent to which it incorporates possible innovative elements that go beyond conventional liberal peace, following the lines of so-called “post-liberal peace”.

Colombia provides highly suggestive initiatives and perspectives for Peace Studies. This country, which has suffered one of the longest armed conflicts in the world, has a long experience of negotiation processes and the demobilization of armed groups. Likewise, it has a diverse and well-articulated civil society, which for decades has mobilized in favour of peace with social change and has promoted a wide repertoire of peacebuilding initiatives from below.

Since 2016, Colombia has been involved in one of the most complex and comprehensive peace processes that has taken place in the world, given that the Havana Agreement, along with the contents related to the ending of the armed conflict, also include various political, economic and social transformations that can contribute to a positive peace. In addition, it is particularly important that it includes three innovative transversal approaches: gender, differential and territorial. The latter, embodied in the concept of “territorial peace”, aims to promote peace processes tailored to the conditions of the country's various territories, which are very different from one another. However, the great expectations generated inside and outside the country by the Agreement have been partially frustrated by its slow and partial implementation by the government of President Duque, elected in 2018. The election in the summer of 2022 of Gustavo Petro, a leader of the left and a staunch defender of the Agreement, as the new president presages a historic change in the country. This includes a reactivation of the implementation of the Agreement, particularly its deeper structural transformations, as well as new peace negotiations with other armed groups, based on the so-called “total peace” objective.

The EU has maintained a stable presence in Colombia since the late 1990s. Two circumstances have coincided during this period. On one side, the internationalization of the Colombian armed conflict, with the involvement of the EU and other international actors in initiatives to end it. On the other, the emergence and shaping of the EU's foreign policy, by which it aspires to consolidate itself as a global, normative and peacebuilding actor.

This involvement of the EU in the armed conflict in Colombia has specific and differentiated features with respect to that of other international actors, in particular the US, the most influential of these in the country and the region. This European presence is characterized by having maintained a coherent line over time, throughout various phases and historical contexts, marked fundamentally by: (a) the defence of a negotiated solution to the armed conflict, as the only viable solution; (b) a peacebuilding approach aimed at addressing the root causes of the armed conflict, not only its consequences, which requires the promotion of socio-economic development in the most isolated and violence-stricken areas; (c) the strengthening of Colombian civil society and support for its initiatives; (d) support for the defence of human rights; and (e) a territorial approach, linked to the principle of “territorial peace” contained in the Havana Agreement, which is a good example of the recent “local turn” in the field of peacebuilding.

Thus, unlike the US’s involvement, motivated mainly by its security objectives and for a long time chiefly focused on providing military support to the government, the EU has been acting with a peacebuilding approach, using for this purpose the numerous civilian instruments at its disposal, principally: political dialogue and diplomatic relations; development cooperation and other financial aid mechanisms; and trade cooperation.

Consistent with its perspective regarding the need for a negotiated solution, the EU was one of the main supporters of the negotiation process between the government and the FARC-EP, which were initiated in 2012 and concluded with the 2016 Havana Peace Agreement. Since then, the EU has strengthened its involvement in the country to support the implementation of the Agreement: both at the political level, for example, with the monitoring carried out by the European Parliament or the appointment of a Special Envoy for the Peace Process; and through development cooperation, with the constitution of a novel Trust Fund for Peace.

In this context, the EU is implementing relatively innovative approaches and working mechanisms in Colombia, from which lessons can be drawn that can be applied in other countries and that could enrich the EU’s conflict prevention and peacebuilding policies. The opportunity to explore such approaches and mechanisms has probably been facilitated by the fact that Colombia is geographically distant and its conflict does not directly affect European security. Likewise, it has been encouraged by the opportunity to distance itself from the postulates promoted by the United States for that country, and thus advance in shaping a European foreign policy with its own characteristics, coherent with its own image as a peacebuilding power.

In sum, the analysis of the European support for the current peace process in Colombia represents an interesting empirical contribution to different debates in the field of Peace Studies, such as those related to peace from below, the local turn and the crucial relevance of space in peace processes.

This book, one of the few recent studies on the subject, brings together the work of different specialists from different universities and institutions who have participated in a research project implemented over the last three years. The chapters address different issues in which the EU, through its development cooperation in particular, is supporting the implementation of the Havana Agreement. The book as a whole seeks to explore the extent to which the EU is applying and experimenting with approaches and mechanisms that go beyond those that characterize liberal peace, hegemonic for decades in international peacebuilding policies. In particular, we are interested in observing to what extent, and with what successes and limitations, European policies in Colombia are contributing to the strengthening of civil society, the defence of human rights, and a territorial approach sensitive to local needs, identities and processes.

To this end, we take as a starting point the reflection made by Richmond et al. (2011) regarding the discursive and normative potential of the EU to articulate a framework for the building of “post-liberal peace”, with emancipatory profiles. These authors, on the basis of their analysis focused mainly on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Middle East, conclude that such potential has hardly materialized. Our work is based on the hypothesis that the EU's actions in Colombia are indeed based to a large extent on the postulates of liberal peace that inspire its policies elsewhere. However, given certain peculiarities of the Colombian case (distance, no impact on European security, links with the strong Colombian civil society, comprehensiveness and transversal approaches of the Peace Agreement), EU cooperation has been able to incorporate some characteristic elements of what Richmond (2009) calls the “fourth generation” of peacebuilding, with a post-liberal and emancipatory profile. Thus, Colombia could be offering experiences and lessons that could contribute to broadening the EU's normative and political framework for peacebuilding.

2 The Armed Conflict, the Havana Peace Agreement and the Difficulties in Its Implementation

Colombia has suffered from armed conflict and political violence throughout its history. However, the beginning of the contemporary armed conflict is often placed in the 1960s, with the formation of the two main guerrilla organizations: the FARC-EP and the National Liberation Army (ELN). The conflict has also involved other guerrilla organizations, paramilitary groups and drug trafficking gangs, as well as the state security forces.

Its roots are to be found in the combination of several structural factors, among which the following stand out: a great socioeconomic inequality, evidenced by the enormous asymmetry in land ownership; the absence of the state and public services in large rural areas; and a political system characterized by elite control and the exclusion of broad socio-political sectors. It should be noted that, unlike in other countries, ethnic, religious or (sub)nationalist drivers are absent from this conflict (De Lombaerde et al., 2006: 3). However, the intensity and complexity of the conflict escalated from the 1980s onwards, due to the expansion of the production and commercialization of coca and other illicit crops, which multiplied its sources of financing, and since the 1990s, due to the expansion of paramilitarism in collusion with sectors of the state and the elite.

During these decades, the conflict has resulted in dire consequences: some 200,000 people dead, 100,000 missing and 7.7 million internally displaced (HRW, 2018). The vast majority of the victims have been rural civilians, with peasants accounting for 60% of all fatalities, further exacerbating the rural–urban structural disparity (CNMH, 2013: 54). To these effects of the violence must be added its socioeconomic costs, a widespread disaffection towards institutions and a deep political polarization.

Over time there have been different processes of dialogue and negotiation with the guerrilla organizations, although successive Colombian governments have had different attitudes in this regard (Chernick, 2015). After the failed negotiation attempt of President Pastrana (1998–2002), President Alvaro Uribe (2002–2010) denied the existence of a conflict and opposed any negotiation with the guerrilla organizations, described as terrorists. Instead, he adopted a policy of harsh military confrontation, called Democratic Security, backed by the US and denounced inside and outside the country for causing serious human rights violations. Subsequently, President Juan Manuel Santos (2010–2018) undertook a negotiation process in 2012 that led to the 2016 Havana Peace Agreement. In this way, the pro-negotiated peace approach, which had always been advocated by broad sectors of Colombian civil society as well as the EU, prevailed.

The Peace Agreement, due to its broad and ambitious nature, is not only an instrument for ending hostilities, but also for addressing some of the underlying causes of the conflict and undertaking certain structural transformations, especially in terms of the socioeconomic development of the rural areas most affected by the conflict and the improvement of political participation. However, other relevant aspects are not contemplated, such as the economic model, the constitutional system or the reform of the security sector.

Specifically, the Agreement includes six main points referring to: (a) Comprehensive rural reform, seen as a requirement for the development of the most impoverished areas and for a stable peace; (b) The conversion of the FARC-EP into a political party and guarantees for its institutional participation; (c) The ceasefire, the laying down of arms by the FARC-EP and the reincorporation (a concept used instead of reintegration) of its former combatants into civilian life; (d) The resolution of the issue of illicit crops through programs for their substitution and rural development; (e) Victims and a transitional justice system, including a Truth Commission and a Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP); and (f) Mechanisms for public support, implementation, verification and ratification.

This Agreement has become a “global reference” due to its extremely comprehensive nature and its proposing political solutions to the conflict through innovative frameworks and approaches (Herbolzheimer, 2016: 1). Among the latter, three transversal approaches that reflect a human rights-based peacebuilding perspective stand out: the gender approach, which has an unusual relevance compared to other agreements in the world; the differential approach, focused mainly on the problems of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities; and the territorial approach, referring to the prioritization of the territories most affected by the war, where it promotes processes of rural development, citizen participation and peacebuilding adjusted to their specific conditions.

In sum, the Peace Agreement represents a major milestone in Colombia’s recent history. Beyond its technical aspects, it constitutes a commitment to reconciliation. It was the result of negotiations between the two sides, but was also due to the impetus of civil society, which for decades mobilized in favour of a negotiated solution and the inclusion of its various demands, which they conveyed to the negotiating delegations in Havana. In addition, the Agreement is the result of the support given by the international community, which played a decisive role in its achievement and, since then, has been instrumental in preventing its collapse and promoting its implementation in a context plagued with difficulties.

The materialization of the Agreement has a time frame of 15 years. After the first six years, an ambivalent analysis can be made of its degree of implementation. During the Duque presidency, there was growing concern about the lack of compliance with many of its contents as well as the risk of failure and the loss of a historic opportunity.

There was a successful and rapid implementation of the first steps contained in the Agreement: ending of hostilities, creation of legal and institutional frameworks for implementation and verification, laying down of weapons, confidence building, and cantonment of ex-guerrillas and beginning their reincorporation. By October 2017, of the 35 elements of the Agreement related to the cessation of hostilities and laying down of arms, 89% were fully implemented and another 9% were on track to be implemented (Joshi & Quinn, 2017).

Similarly, in September 2017, the conversion of the guerrilla organization into a political party, first called Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Comun (FARC) and, later, Comunes, was successfully concluded, together with the allocation of its 5 seats in the Congress and 5 in the Senate. It should be noted that, in this context, in September 2016, the EU had suspended its restrictive measures against the FARC-EP and, in November 2017, removed this organization from the list of terrorist groups (something the US only did in 2022). At the same time, another fully implemented commitment was the creation of the Truth Commission.

However, the implementation of the Agreement has been extremely slow, and even null, in those contents that entail long-term structural reforms, which has generated a sense of frustration and fear about the sustainability of the peace process in broad sectors of the country and the international community. Undoubtedly, the implementation of such a broad and complex process has been hampered by technical aspects, such as the lack of coordination and resource allocation among the different state institutions (Kroc Institute, 2018: 57). But another fundamental cause, of a political nature, has been the lack of commitment, if not hostility, towards the Agreement by the government of President Duque. He came to power in 2018, after his party, the Democratic Centre, led by former President Uribe, mobilized against the Agreement. During the campaign, Duque stated that he would not repeal the Agreement but would modify it (Amat, 2018). His government thus represented an important part of the Colombian population critical of what it considers to be the lenient treatment of the former guerrillas. There has thus been the paradox that the government responsible for continuing the implementation of the Agreement did not believe in it, although it has not been able to openly renounce it either, given its legitimacy and support in the international community.

The Duque government relied on the so-called Peace with Legality perspective, which minimized references to the Agreement and implemented its provisions selectively. It applied an iron fist policy, reminiscent of that of President Uribe, palpable in the commitment to military control of conflict zones and forced eradication of illicit crops (Forero, 2021: 36–37), as well as in the violent repression of citizen mobilizations that erupted in 2021 in numerous cities of the country.

In addition, the Duque administration and its party in the Congress used different tactics to hinder the implementation of numerous elements agreed upon in Havana. Thus, for example, it tried to reduce the capacity and legitimacy of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the basic mechanism of the transitional justice system established in the Agreement, by reducing its budget, objecting to several articles of its Statutory Law and subjecting it to criticism (Kroc, 2018; Ioannides, 2019: 43).

The least developed part of the Agreement is related to comprehensive rural reform, one of the main demands of the FARC-EP in the negotiations and of particular importance for addressing the roots of the conflict. By 2018, 50% of the stipulations in this area had seen no progress and 38% only minimal progress (Kroc, 2018). The Duque government did not focus on the development of peasant family farming, but rather on the expansion of large-scale commercial agriculture (Ioannides, 2019: 52). Similarly, it lacked the political will to implement the policy of land restitution to victims displaced by the conflict, who had to abandon some 8 million hectares. In addition, pressure from hacienda owners and agribusiness entrepreneurs has hindered land restitution processes and agrarian reform programs (Forjando Futuros, 2018; Oxfam, 2017). As a result, serious problems of isolation, exclusion and high levels of poverty persist in large rural areas.

Two other areas of the Agreement at risk are the voluntary substitution of illegal crops, as the Duque government returned to the old practice of forced eradication through fumigation, and the reincorporation of the 11,345 FARC-EP members who joined the process, which has been plagued with problems. Among others, the granting of land to ex-combatants has been slow and scarce, as has the approval of projects for productive activities, in addition to the murder of numerous former guerrillas.

In addition, the implementation of the Agreement is seriously affected by the severe deterioration of security conditions in large areas of the country, where there is hardly any state presence or services. The state has been unable to expand into many territories formerly controlled by the FARC-EP, which have thus come under the control of a plurality of armed actors: FARC-EP dissidents, the ELN and other guerrilla organizations, paramilitary and criminal organizations, drug trafficking groups, etc. These actors fight for control of territory and are often linked to drug production and commercialization, as well as illegal mining and other activities. In this context, large rural regions continue to suffer from very high levels of violence. It is striking that in them, since the signing of the Agreement in 2016, there has been an increase in the number of aggressions and assassinations of human rights defenders and social leaders working against the drug economy or in favour of land restitution for victims (Indepaz, 2021; Somos defensores, 2019). As criticized by a United Nations report on the subject, these practices reveal failures in security policy, and are facilitated by impunity and by discourses of criminalization and stigmatization on the part of political leaders and officials (Human Rights Council, 2020: art 25–31).

3 The EU: A Normative Power with a (Relative) Interest in Colombia

Since the 1990s, conflict prevention and peacebuilding have become an integral and relevant part of the EU's external action. The EU sees itself as a “global peacebuilder” (Castañeda, 2014: 94, 2017: 43) and, in general, as a normative power that through its policies seeks to spread certain values and principles in the world, including peacebuilding and conflict prevention, as well as multiparty democracy, human rights, sustainable development and multilateralism (Manners, 2008). Thus, its foreign and security policy has traditionally had a cosmopolitan and transformative character (Barbé & Morillas, 2019: 758).

The EU has gradually shaped a normative and political framework on conflict prevention and peacebuilding, supported by different key documents that have established principles and objectives, and has also created a dense network of political, institutional and financial instruments in the field, which depend on different EU institutions (Pérez de Armiño, 2020, 2021). Although this framework has gained discursive and political substance, only a decade ago it was still described as “nascent” and “embryonic” (Richmond et al., 2011: 449). It is a mainly civilian model, which has its greatest weight in the soft power present in development cooperation, trade and, where appropriate, the prospect of future integration into the EU.

On the other hand, the EU's external action is marked by its peculiar features: it is an organization made up of states, whose structure is still under construction, and its level of political power is still much lower than its economic weight. In fact, the EU’s foreign policy tends to reflect the minimum consensus among its member states, insofar as it has to coexist with their interests and foreign policy strategies. Given the heterogeneity and institutional complexity of the EU as an entity, with its different levels of decision-making and action, one of its great challenges has been to articulate its multiple foreign policy instruments and policies in a coherent and integrated framework, something still insufficiently achieved (Debuysere & Blockmans, 2019). But it is undeniable that, especially since the Lisbon Treaty came into force in 2009, the EU has equipped itself with new institutional instruments that have strengthened its common foreign policy, such as its diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS). It is also worth highlighting the adoption in 2005, and revision in 2017, of the European Consensus on Development, a common agenda for development cooperation with which to respond to challenges, such as sustainable peace, among others.

The development of EU foreign policy, including the shaping of its approaches and policies on peacebuilding, has coincided in time with its presence in Colombia. It is therefore tempting to consider to what extent the experience accumulated in this country has contributed experiences and influenced the design of European policies in this field.

To begin with, it should be noted that Colombia, like Latin America as a whole, is not a priority country for EU foreign policy. From both the economic and security points of view, the EU has much more interest in its neighbouring areas, and even in Asia. Latin America has a low level of economic interdependence with Europe (De Lombaerde et al., 2006: 14), while it does not pose a threat to European security and nor are its migratory flows of concern (Bocchi, 2009: 180). To this is added the dominant role of the US in the region, so that Colombian foreign policy has traditionally favoured a close (bandwagon) link with the former; as well as the existence in the countries of the region of two different political and development models, which hinders the articulation of a common European strategy in relationship with it (Bodemer, 2019: 300, 312). Neither side is a major priority for the other.

However, the geographical and geopolitical distance, the absence of a strong economic interdependence and the fact that the Colombian armed conflict does not represent a direct threat, can be assumed to have provided the EU with an opportunity. In other words, these are the conditions that have probably allowed the EU to dare to experiment with relatively innovative mechanisms of action to support peacebuilding.

In any case, although without this reaching a strategic dimension, it is evident that a number of factors stimulate the EU's interest in Colombia and its commitment to promoting peace there. Among them, the following stand out:

  1. (a)

    Growing commercial interests. The EU is Colombia’s largest external investor and second largest trading partner, while Colombia is the EU’s fourth largest trading partner in Latin America. Trade relations between the EU and Colombia have increased significantly since the coming into force of the Trade Agreement in 2013, relations that the EU wishes to increase to offset China's growing penetration in Latin America (Sullivan & Lum, 2018).

  2. (b)

    Wealth of resources and economic opportunities. Colombia is an attractive middle-income country for foreign investment, thanks to its good growth ratios and macroeconomic stability. Added to this is its abundance of energy, mining, water and agricultural resources, some of which Europe lacks (Bodemer, 2019: 305); and it has one of the highest biodiversities in the world, which merits the attention of EU environmental and sustainable development policies (Kurtenbach, 2014: 500). Moreover, its strategic geographical location, with coasts on two oceans, makes it a bridge between the South and the Centre and North of the continent.

  3. (c)

    Regional stability. The EU sees Colombia as a key ally in the region, due to its strong regional leadership, the stability of its democratic regime and shared values, such as representative democracy and free trade. Moreover, it perceives it as a liberal political-ideological lever vis-à-vis Venezuela, which has led the region in anti-liberal postulates, popular democracy and a more closed economy (Bodemer, 2019: 305, 311). In this context, the EU considers that peace will contribute to the stability of the region (European Commission, 2016). Indeed, the Colombian conflict has had indirect destabilizing effects on neighbouring countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela, with the risk of regional spill-overs effects: drug trafficking, refugee flows, border-crossing by insurgent groups, militarization of borders, etc.

    It should be added that Colombia has established several free trade agreements and actively belongs to several regional economic integration organizations. The EU supports these cooperation and integration initiatives, such as the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), because the countries of the region share interrelated problems (Kurtenbach, 2014: 505); and also because the EU assumes, based on Europe's own history and a liberal peace framework, that regional cooperation and integration reduce the risk of conflicts between them.

  4. (d)

    The impact of drug trafficking. Given the close relationship between drug trafficking and armed conflict, this is one of the main reasons why the EU has become involved in the search for peace. Although the main destination of Colombian cocaine is the US, cartels also move large quantities to Europe, which is associated with other criminal activities, such as arms or human trafficking (Castilla, 2018). The EU’s anti-drug strategy is based on confronting the problem on a regional scale, within the framework of its interregional relations with the CAN, through crop substitution programs (Kurtenbach, 2014: 498).

  5. (e)

    The political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. This problem, which has deserved increasing attention from the EU, has notably affected Colombia, where a good part of the three million people who have left the country have settled. In recent years, the latter have been one of the main recipients of European humanitarian aid in Colombia.

  6. (f)

    Multilateral alliance. The high-level EU-Colombia relationship has made them allies capable of coordinating their policies and supporting each other in discussions in multilateral forums, for example in relation to the environment and climate change (Mass et al., 2015: 2). The environment will henceforth have an increasing weight in bilateral relations, as the EU has defined it as one of the axes of its presence in Colombia in coming years.

4 EU Support for Peace Prior to the Agreement

For more than two decades the EU has been active in Colombia during different stages: proposing a negotiated solution to the armed conflict, acting as an observer of the negotiations in Havana, and then supporting the implementation of the resulting Agreement. Throughout this time it has maintained a consistent line, based on the idea of the need to address the structural causes of the conflict.

The involvement of the EU as such in support of the peace process did not materialize until the late 1990s. Previously, several European countries (Spain and Germany) had acted as facilitators between the Colombian government and the guerrilla organizations. As for the EU, the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) had been providing humanitarian aid since the beginning of the decade, while in the middle of the decade the EU presence in Bogotá increased, with high-level visits and declarations (De Lombaerde et al., 2006: 2). But the EU presence increased during Pastrana’s presidency (1998–2002) with his Diplomacy for Peace, which called on the international community to participate in the negotiations with the FARC-EP and the ELN. Thus, the negotiations with the ELN were supported by several “friendly countries”, among them France and Spain. The EU also supported the El Caguán negotiations with the FARC-EP, which concluded in 2002.

The failure of the negotiations facilitated the election of Álvaro Uribe as president in 2002, opening a new period with a considerable change in the relations between Colombia and the EU, and a division in the positions of the international community. Uribe renounced all negotiations, denying the existence of an armed conflict and describing the guerrilla organizations as terrorists; he launched a harsh military offensive against them, which succeeded in weakening them but at the cost of serious human rights violations. This policy, called Democratic Peace, was supported by the US in the framework of its global fight against terror; but it was rejected by the EU and most of its member states, which continued to favour a negotiated peace.

In this context, a decisive milestone was the European rejection of the Plan Colombia, a program initiated in 1999 by the Pastrana government to reduce illicit crops and increase state presence in parts of the territory. This was strongly supported by the US, for which bilateral relations with Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking, with an essentially military approach, had become a priority. Not without reason, since 90% of the cocaine it consumed was produced or arrived via Colombia (Murillo, 2011). President Clinton supported the Plan between 1999 and 2001, providing military capabilities in the fight against drugs, as well as funds for human rights, humanitarian aid and development. However, from 2002 onwards, President Bush redirected its funding towards two objectives: counter-drug operations and, in addition, counter-insurgency. It thus became a mechanism for fighting guerrilla organizations and consolidating US power in Latin America (Ioannides, 2019: 4). Part of the Plan was intended to support the destruction of illicit crops through aerial spraying with glyphosate, a practice criticized for affecting human health and other crops, which is why it was abandoned by the Santos government in 2016.

The European Union, however, opposed Plan Colombia, due to its military strategy, its human rights implications and the consequences of forced eradication and fumigation of illicit crops. It understood that a conflict did exist, with structural causes that could not be reduced, as the US was doing, to a drug trafficking and security problem, and that there was no military solution. On the contrary, the EU defended negotiation between the different parties to the conflict and a “peace process”, a key concept in its discourse, which required time and the participation of civil society. Thus, with these arguments, the European Parliament approved in 2001 an almost unanimous resolution rejecting the Plan, a position also expressed by the EU Council in 2004 and the majority of European governments (except Spain and the United Kingdom). This European positioning resulted from the intense lobbying carried out jointly by Colombian and European civil society organizations (Kurtenbach, 2014: 496). Furthermore, it has been pointed out that European cohesion on the issue was stimulated as a reaction to the North American position, which provided the opportunity to demonstrate an independent vision through disagreement “at little cost”, since it was not an issue that posed a great threat to Europe or to the national interests of its states (Roy, 2001: 3).

After rejecting Plan Colombia, the EU embarked on its own strategy of addressing the root causes of the conflict and promoting peace through its development cooperation. This exclusively civilian strategy had several advantages. In the first place, it allowed the European Commission to circumvent the discrepancies between member states on issues of hard security in the Colombian conflict and relations with the US (Castañeda, 2012: 62). In addition, European policy makers saw that it gave the EU the opportunity to become an international actor with its own profile, which was helped by the fact that different sectors, including Colombian civil society and part of the government, sought its political support as a counterweight to the US (Castañeda, 2012: 14–15). Finally, it helped it to put into practice the international debates, in vogue at the time, on how to use development cooperation for peacebuilding, as well as to gradually shape the common policy on development, including development cooperation and conflict prevention, whose principles would be established with the European Consensus on Development of 2005 (Castañeda, 2012: 13–4). In conclusion, the involvement in Colombia has been useful for the EU to advance in the process of formulating its common foreign policy, designing through practice a model of civilian policy, based on development cooperation, to build peace at the local level in a context of conflict (Castañeda, 2009, 2012: 6).

This strategy was mainly reflected in the support given to the so-called “Peace Laboratories”, implemented between 2002 and 2010. These are the most emblematic instrument of European support for peace prior to the Havana Agreement, because more than being mere development programs, they revealed a European political position on how to resolve the conflict (Castañeda, 2012: 5). They were allocated 160 million euros from EU development cooperation funds, covering 1,108 projects in 249 municipalities hard hit by violence (Castañed, 2009: 169–179). Specifically, three successive laboratories were implemented, which represented different strategies of action by the EU, depending on the changes in the conditions of the country and its relations with the government.

The first of these, the Magdalena Medio Laboratory (2002–2009), was designed to support the process initiated as early as 1995 by the Development and Peace Program of Magdalena Medio (PDPMM), promoted by the Catholic Church and different local actors. This process involved various initiatives of civil resistance and humanitarian agreements with armed actors, community dialogue and addressing structural problems. Through the laboratory, European development cooperation supported different projects proposed through a participatory process by local grassroots organizations to build peace in their territory, with an attitude of neutrality towards armed actors. The projects focused on sustainable economic development, dialogue and citizen coexistence, human rights and culture of peace, and strengthening local institutions (Rivera, 2013: 352). Its purpose was to create zones of peaceful coexistence through socioeconomic development and the implementation of specific agreements between conflict actors (Kurtenbach, 2014: 502), with the intention of replicating the experience in other regions and thus achieving results on a national scale (Castañeda, 2012: 42). In short, it meant an endorsement by the EU of the demands of civil society to seek novel alternatives to the conflict (Rivera, 2013: 341).

The second laboratory (2003–2009) and the third (2006–2011) were implemented in different regions and involved a change of strategy and orientation. The peacebuilding philosophy of the first laboratory clashed with the Uribe government's focus on the conflict, so the government tried to instrumentalise the laboratories, with increasing centralization and control over them (Barreto et al., 2015: 12). In turn, the EU saw that its action required a link between the regions and the central state. In fact, the national government became the main interlocutor of the EU and came to control the resources and performance of the regional organizations. Thus, these laboratories experienced a lowering of their political profile and message concerning peace, human rights and participation, emphasizing instead productive activities and technical aspects. Moreover, as numerous social organizations warned, since the laboratories were linked to the National Development Plan, they ended up becoming a social program implemented in areas that the army had managed to control, thus contributing to President Uribe's counterinsurgency strategy (Castañeda, 2012: 44, 48, 54).

Although due to their small size they have probably had an “unnoticed impact” on the overall resolution of the conflict (Barreto, 2007: 12), the laboratories did have an appreciable impact at the local and, to some extent, national level. They served to strengthen social and civil resistance initiatives in the territories, providing grassroots organizations with a certain shield and “political umbrella” in the face of armed actors (Barreto et al., 2015: 16). In addition, they opened spaces for dialogue between antagonistic sectors in the midst of the conflict, making possible the discussion of sensitive issues related to violence; and, moreover, they established channels of communication between civil society and local, departmental and national public institutions, despite their mutual distrust. In general, they kept the need for a peace policy alive on the political agenda, something of particular importance given that the Uribe government denied the need for this (Castañeda, 2009: 38, 49–50, 62; Rivera, 2013: 347).

However, some analyses also note several limitations and criticisms. Their implementation was hindered by the persistence of insecurity and the difficulty of building peace during the conflict (Castañeda, 2012: 54); and also because their peacebuilding approach clashed with the Uribe government's objective of military victory against the insurgencies. Likewise, the EU found it difficult to maintain its relations with the government without abandoning its support for civil society, in a context of strong polarization in the country (Castañeda, 2012: 62–63). In this sense, Molano criticizes the fact that the second and third laboratories implemented alternative development programs against illicit crops (voluntary eradication, alternative development, participation of the local population) that provided the Uribe government with resources and political capital to reinforce its anti-terrorist policy, cutting off the financing of insurgent organizations (Molano, 2009: 121–122).

But perhaps the main limitation of the laboratories lay in their micro and local scope, which made it difficult to promote a national solution to address the structural causes of the conflict in strategic and political terms (Barreto, 2016: 508; Castañeda, 2012: 43). Added to this, according to some authors, the EU did not have a comprehensive peace strategy: it limited itself to providing economic cooperation resources to address the causes of the conflict, but did not invest political energy in presenting ambitious alternatives, different from the US-led strategy in Colombia, to try to bring the conflicting sides closer together. The contribution of EU foreign policy to the search for a negotiated solution was minimal at that time (Bocchi, 2009: 198). In any case, it should be noted that a greater political involvement of this type was not easy in a historical context in which the Colombian government was closed to peace negotiations and in which, therefore, the European countries themselves were divided on the matter.

In any case, the laboratories were an emblematic and also important experience for the EU, both in terms of its presence in Colombia and even for the formulation of its development cooperation policies. The laboratories were built through a learning process, with quite specific and original features with respect to EU cooperation policies, and became an example of the European model of development cooperation at the service of peacebuilding (Castañeda, 2009). Moreover, the first of them, above all, has been attributed a political significance of great importance, as a political commitment by the EU to building peace during the conflict, in an area hard hit by this. It should be added that the laboratories allowed the EU to be in contact with the reality of Colombia and carry out a learning process through its interaction with local actors. They allowed it to establish a bond of trust with Colombian civil society that has continued to this day and strengthens the European role in the implementation of the Havana Agreement. Moreover, as Bodemer (2019: 314) says, the laboratories gave the EU moral prestige, which has facilitated its participation in the process of reincorporating ex-combatants. In short, they have helped to establish the basic characteristics of the cooperation and peace policies subsequently implemented by the EU in Colombia.

The laboratories formally ended in 2010, but the peace strategy of European cooperation continued through the Regional Development, Peace and Stability program (2009–2014) and the New Territories of Peace program (2011–2017), in support of local civil society initiatives for peacebuilding starting from the specificities of the territories. These programs corresponded to the guidelines established by the EU Country Strategy for Colombia 2007–2013, focused in the short term on helping victims, in the medium term on promoting local and national peace, and in the long term on a lasting resolution of the conflict by addressing its structural roots. Since 2015, that document has been replaced by a Multiannual Indicative Program (Bodemer, 2019: 304).

The period following the laboratories was characterized by a very different political environment from the previous one, as President Santos (2010–2018) renounced the strategy of a military solution to the conflict and returned to the goal of a negotiated peace. This coincided with a new Colombian foreign policy, aimed at overcoming its close alignment with the US, improving its regional insertion and expanding its international alliances with actors such as the EU. Thus, Colombia sought to tighten its relationship with the EU, seeing it no longer only as a donor, but as a political ally on the international scene and as an important trade partner, which was embodied in its 2013 Trade Agreement (Bodemer, 2019: 303–304).

In sum, in this new scenario, the political interlocution with the government improved, which was much more receptive to European recommendations in matters such as human rights and civil society. It was not in vain that the approach advocated by the EU for a solution to the armed conflict through dialogue had prevailed. Moreover, its peacebuilding approach based on local civil society initiatives gained prominence, visibility and influence at the national level, as the concept of “territorial peace” was incorporated into the political agenda of the new government.

5 EU Support for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement

The launch of the Havana negotiation process in 2012 mobilized political and financial support from the EU and other international actors. This was decisive for the achievement of the Agreement in 2016 and, even more, for materializing its implementation, compensating in some way for the internal legitimacy problem derived from its rejection in the plebiscite held in October 2016, as well as the reluctance to implement it by President Duque, elected in June 2018.

The EU assumed the role of observer and guarantor of the Agreement, which specifies that the EU will support three components of the Agreement, namely:

  1. (a)

    Comprehensive rural reform (point 1). In fact, the European Commission and the EU member states have financed projects in 51 municipalities. These include 25 municipalities where there are Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET), in the areas hardest hit by the armed conflict; as well as 26 municipalities with Territorial Training and Reincorporation Spaces (ETCR), or settlements dedicated to the socioeconomic reincorporation of ex-guerrillas (European Commission, 2018).

  2. (b)

    Reintegration of former guerrillas (point 3.2). The EU has been particularly active in this field, financing multiple projects, for example, through its Trust Fund for Peace in Colombia. It is noteworthy that the EU maintained its support for the original collective reincorporation scheme contemplated in the Agreement, despite the fact that the Duque government hindered it in favour of an individual model. The European support for the constitution and development of Ecomun, the association of cooperatives created by the ex-combatants, stands out in this respect.

  3. (c)

    The formation of a Special Investigation Unit in the Attorney General’s Office (point 3.4). The EU is providing technical support to this unit to dismantle organized crime and protect human rights defenders. In addition, in the field of transitional justice, the EU has provided assistance to the Truth Commission and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).

5.1 EU Instruments in Support of the Agreement

In support of the implementation of the Peace Agreement, the EU has used a wide range of civilian instruments, which we could call soft, compared to the military resources used in other contexts. These are mainly instruments focused on political and diplomatic dialogue, both at the international level and with the Colombian government, as well as with various actors in the country; economic and financial mechanisms, especially development cooperation and humanitarian aid; as well as trade relations. Let us consider these in more detail.

  1. (a)

    Support through political and diplomatic dialogue

It should be noted that the EU has performed an important leadership role in its permanent public support for the Agreement, which has its antecedents in the years when it stood out for its defence of a negotiated peace, and which found continuity during the negotiation process, as well as in the implementation period. Through political and diplomatic dialogue it has tried to exert a normative influence on the government and other Colombian actors, promoting the expansion of the values it assumes for its foreign policy, and an effective multilateralism, coordinating with the rest of the international community to support the Agreement.

In this way, the EU has maintained a constant dialogue, based on coherent postulates, during the different phases of the conflict. This dialogue has taken place at different levels.

Firstly, it has pursued “effective multilateralism” at the regional and global levels. The EU has sought to strengthen its relations with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), forums in which it has promoted debates on poverty, drugs, socio-economic development, gender equality and human rights, and has expressed its support for civil society and human rights defenders. These forums have helped the EU to strengthen its cooperation with Colombia, as well as participate in multilateral bodies that support the peace process, such as the Colombia Support Group, G24 (Ioannides, 2019: 11). Likewise, the EU has been active in relation to the peace process in the UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council, while supporting the Organization of American States (OAS) Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP/OAS) since 2004; as well as the Inter-American Human Rights System, around issues such as the protection of human rights defenders and civil society (Beaumont et al., 2019: 20).

Secondly, the political dialogue in the framework of bilateral relations between Colombia and the EU stands out; this has taken the form of presidential summits and ministerial meetings. These meetings served to raise issues such as governance, rule of law and the fight against corruption (European Commission, 2019), as well as to exert political pressure on the Duque government, to which the EU expressed both support for, and disapproval of different policies. High-level political dialogue was used to support the Havana negotiations, as well as the subsequent implementation of the Agreement. In this regard, relations with the Duque government faced challenges stemming from the reticence it showed towards the Agreement. Despite that, European statements usually expressed with diplomatic language that the Duque government transmitted “generally positive messages about the continuity of the peace process” and maintained a “very good engagement with the international community”, and therefore the EU ratified its commitment to it (European Commission, 2019).

Third, the EU maintains a permanent dialogue with local authorities, as well as with different actors of Colombian civil society, with which it has built a strong mutual relationship. In multiple joint activities and forums, the EU together with civil society have addressed various topics (human rights, environment, land restitution, etc.), while keeping the latter informed on the issues discussed with the government. It should be noted that, according to our interviews with staff of the EU Delegation in Bogotá, the EU has played the role of promoting meeting spaces between the Colombian government and civil society, fostering dialogue on the implementation of the Agreement. Indeed, the Delegation coordinates public diplomacy activities, in order to raise specific issues or cases of concern with the authorities, such as those related to respect for human rights, crimes against human rights defenders and their protection, and the land restitution process (European Commission, 2015).

Particularly important was the performance of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Affairs and Vice-President of the Commission, Federica Mogherini (2014–2019). She played a leading role in the EU's relations with Colombia, expressing the EU’s support for the negotiations and its readiness to provide strong support for the implementation of the Agreement. She visited the country and met with its leaders several times; issued regular statements and convened relevant events. In addition, in November 2015, she appointed Irish diplomat Eamon Gilmore as EU Special Envoy for the Colombian Peace Process, thus launching a powerful message about the importance the process had for the EU. Gilmore has travelled to Colombia regularly to promote the EU’s political support for the implementation of the Agreement, holding meetings with the government and ex-combatants, opposition parties and civil society, and visiting the regions to observe the situation on the ground (Ioannides, 2019: 13).

An equally important role has been played by the European Parliament, which has been very active in advocating a negotiated solution to the conflict and supporting the Havana Agreement, through a multitude of official resolutions, press releases, organization of activities, etc. Already in January 2001, it overwhelmingly approved a resolution against Plan Colombia and in favour of a peace process. In January 2016, another resolution expressed its commitment to the peace process and to supporting the implementation of the Agreement, stressing the need to address poverty and inequality, and to involve women's organizations in the talks. Similarly, another resolution in September 2017 reiterated its support for the peace process, underlining the need to ensure the protection of community leaders and human rights activists. In addition, the Parliament has maintained a permanent relationship, dating back to the 1990s, with human rights networks both in Colombia and formed by Colombians living in European countries. It has collaborated with them in the organization of different meetings and supporting their advocacy activities (Castañeda, 2014: 81–115). It has organized numerous visits of parliamentarians to Colombia to accompany the peace process, while Presidents Santos and Duque have visited the Parliament in Brussels.

  1. (b)

    Economic support through cooperation and other means

The EU has channelled substantial financial resources in support of the implementation of the Agreement, through credits from the European Investment Bank, direct budgetary support to the government and, above all, humanitarian aid and development cooperation.

Development cooperation, in particular, finances a multitude of projects with a local scope, through various instruments available to the EU: the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP) and, particularly, the Trust Fund for Peace. It should be noted that Colombia, as a middle-income country, would not be eligible for bilateral financial assistance under the Development Cooperation Instrument, but an exception has been made in order to support the peace process. Indeed, peacebuilding is the main motivation and raison d'être of European cooperation with Colombia, rather than the fight against poverty or any other goal. In turn, development cooperation is the main tool used by the EU in its political commitment to a peaceful end to the conflict. Its civilian nature facilitates consensus among member states.

The Trust Fund for Peace, created in 2016, is one of the most innovative and important elements of European support for the Agreement. It is a joint fund that brings together resources from the EU itself, 21 of its member states, and the United Kingdom and Chile, with which to support local projects mostly managed by local or European NGOs, around several issues: reconciliation, reincorporation of ex-guerrillas, social inclusion, sustainable productivity and institutional development. With a budget of 130 million euros, among other contributions, the Fund has increased the speed of fundraising and spending, improved donor efficiency and coordination, provided more flexibility to adjust to changing situations, and provided more visibility to EU action (Beaumont et al., 2019: 27; Ioannides, 2019: 42). The Fund has provided continuity to the perspective maintained by the EU over the last decades, aimed at addressing the roots of the conflict, promoting dialogue and rebuilding the local socio-economic fabric.

  1. (c)

    Trade relations

Trade relations are seen by the EU as a factor that can contribute to development and peace in Colombia, a perspective characteristic of the liberal peace framework. In this sense, the EU has sought to improve its trade ties with Colombia, which are embodied in the 2013 Trade Agreement between the two parties. The Agreement was opposed by numerous social organizations and trade unions in Europe and Latin America, because of its foreseeable negative socio-economic impact and due to human rights violations in Colombia. For this reason, the European Parliament made it a condition for signing it that the Colombian government present an action plan on human rights, labour and trade union rights, and sustainable development (Ioannides, 2019: 21). Some studies, indeed, have shown the negative impacts that the Agreement has had on the living conditions and rights of the most vulnerable populations in the country (Saura, 2013).

An issue worthy of consideration is that the Trade Agreement itself includes several provisions that may be useful as an instrument to support the peace process. Thus, it has provisions relating to two areas on which the Trade Agreement could have a negative impact, namely labour rights and the relationship between trade and sustainable development, while it establishes mechanisms for dialogue and monitoring with the participation of civil society. More importantly, Article 1 includes a “democratic and human rights clause”, according to which an essential element of the Agreement is respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights: failure to respect these would constitute a “material breach” of the Agreement. However, this clause has never been activated, as the EU argues that the most useful way to push for the improvement of the human rights situation is to continue dialogue and cooperation with Colombian actors (Ioannides, 2019: 20).

In sum, there are tensions around the Agreement’s implementation in a country plagued by serious violations of labour and environmental rights and illegal employment, by both Colombian and foreign companies (TNI, 2016; Zyrgierewicz, 2018).

6 EU Support for Peace in Colombia: Going Beyond Liberal Peace?

6.1 Liberal Peace and Its Critics

Surely the main axis of the current theoretical and political discussion around peacebuilding is the one that revolves around the confrontation between liberal peace and those visions that are critical of it. In light of this debate, it is of great interest to investigate where the EU’s peacebuilding discourse and practice are situated, and then to reflect on whether its experience in Colombia is making innovative contributions that could broaden its normative framework and its repertoire of instruments for action.

Since the early 1990s, the hegemonic vision in both the theoretical formulations and the practice of peacebuilding has been so-called “liberal peace”, which inspires the security and development policies of the main international actors. Liberal peace, which has evolved over time and contains some variants within it, is based on ideas and objectives derived from realist and liberal thinking, to which have been added some aspects that are more transformative (social participation, sensitivity to local culture, etc.) (Richmond, 2006: 293–294). But, in short, it is characterized by the assumption that the most effective ways to prevent conflicts and build peace are: the (re)construction of the state (particularly in fragile states); the promotion of democracy and liberal values; and the establishment of a free market economy, inserted in the neoliberal global economic system.

However, this dominant theoretical framework, as well as the international policies it promotes, have been questioned in recent decades by numerous authors from different critical currents. To begin with, they argue that the values that liberal peace proclaims are not universal, as claimed, but are instead Western and neoliberal ideological postulates (individualism, secularism, private property, etc.), which are imposed on many cultures of the Global South from the assumption of a “historical ‘natural’ progressivity that places the North/West at the top of the current international epistemic hierarchy” (Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013: 772). As a consequence, its promotion of the sovereign state responds to a Western and liberal statocentric imaginary, which ignores that the socio-political organization of many societies rests on other types of institutionality, on decentralized and informal social systems (Roberts, 2011: 11). Liberal peace policies have a top-down character; they are imposed by international institutions located in the North on local actors, with the participation at most of national elites of dubious representativeness. In this way, they tend to ignore the identity, norms, leadership, legitimacy, needs and interests of local societies. All this hinders the construction of a genuine viable social contract and a locally sustainable everyday peace, as Richmond (2008: 295–300) puts it.

Similarly, its imposition of the free market economy serves to expand neoliberal globalization and Western hegemony, at the cost of generating social and economic changes detrimental to the population. Added to this is the fact that liberal peace privileges individual civil and political rights, to the detriment of collective social, economic and cultural rights, and often promotes the elimination of existing and culturally embedded welfare rights and social safety nets (Richmond, 2008: 287–288), contributing to increasing power asymmetries and poverty.

Moreover, due to its standardized pattern and its scant attention to local peculiarities and historical context, liberal peace tends to ignore the structural causes of conflicts, historical injustices and global imbalances. In doing so, it exempts the international community from responsibility, while shoring up the existing international order and power hierarchies (Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013: 768, 779).

These challenges to liberal peace have given shape to some critical and post-liberal approaches in Peace Studies, based on different post-positivist currents in the social sciences. They conceive peacebuilding as a process of social transformation to build a positive, just and emancipatory peace by addressing the structural causes of conflict. They understand that each process must be adjusted to the conditions of the specific context and be defined and led by local actors based on their own needs and interests, particularly those of the most vulnerable sectors. Thus, they advocate genuine local ownership, centred on the mobilization of civil society and the empowerment of marginalized sectors. In this respect, they pay great attention to local culture and identities, as well as to local initiatives for building resistance to conflict and in favour of peacebuilding. Similarly, they prioritize the defence of social, economic and cultural rights, welfare policies and gender equity (Landaluze & Pérez de Armiño, 2019).

As we have said, the EU has been progressively shaping a peacebuilding framework since the 1990s, endowed with a discourse with certain values and objectives, as well as various operational instruments. It is a framework that does not respond to a single, coherent model, but is fragmented, largely due to the complexity of the EU as an institution, with its complex decision-making system and diverse objectives.

As pointed out by Richmond et al. (2011), the EU’s peacebuilding actions in post-conflict countries have basically followed the liberal peace framework: building stable institutions, the rule of law, a market economy, disarmament, security sector reform, etc. The policies implemented have prioritized institution building, rather than the strengthening of civil society, through the collaboration and empowerment of those national elites that have accepted the political, economic and social model of liberal peace. Thus, they have paid scant attention to people's social, cultural and material needs and rights, or to factors of socio-economic vulnerability, and, in contexts such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, it has failed to achieve reconciliation (Richmond et al., 2011: 457–463). Moreover, it is a model based on European-conceived objectives (on security, rights, democratization, liberalization, etc.) that sometimes do not reflect the identities, interests and needs of the societies concerned (Pogodda et al., 2014: 230–231).

Although it is now increasingly doing so, the EU has provided little support to local or traditional peace initiatives and civil society, with which it has limited involvement beyond large urban or international NGOs (Pogodda et al., 2014: 233, 237). Similarly, despite documents alluding to the goal of conflict prevention by addressing structural “root causes”, the EU does not make a clear commitment to long-term prevention, but rather prioritizes short-term, rapid response actions to conflicts that have already erupted; it promotes political and economic governance reforms that support stabilization, but do not directly address the political context or power asymmetries that function as underlying causes (Pogodda et al., 2014: 227).

Certainly, the EU has increasingly implemented some successful long-term peacebuilding and reconciliation activities by supporting local initiatives and strengthening civil society (in Georgia, Palestine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Colombia itself). However, while these initiatives are interesting and examples to follow, they seem somewhat isolated, not part of broader conflict resolution strategies, as the EU seems to consistently avoid using its full political and diplomatic weight to promote concerted strategies with which to overcome the stalemate of protracted geopolitical conflicts (Pogodda et al., 2014: 242–3).

However, the EU’s peacebuilding rhetoric is much more ambitious than its practice, as it includes some elements characteristic of fourth generation peacebuilding, of a post-liberal, just and emancipatory peace (Richmond et al., 2011: 452, 463). The EU’s formulation of peace is more complex and sophisticated than that of other international actors, based on hard power strategic approaches and traditional conceptions of security, as well as on an institutional vision centred on state sovereignty.

Such European rhetoric has hardly been put into practice. However, the EU has a potential, as yet barely materialized, to develop a more emancipatory version of peacebuilding. Such potential lies in its ambition as a civilian “normative power”; in its normative dimension that goes beyond the framework of state sovereignty and military security and hard power, aspiring to facilitate local peace processes, needs fulfilment, rights provision, justice and, finally, reconciliation (Richmond et al., 2011: 458); in several elements that characterize its normative discourse, such as the notions of sustainable peace, human security, effective multilateralism, partnership and local ownership; as well as in the emphasis it places on the promotion of democracy, human rights and the strengthening of civil society (Ibid., 451). The framework it has been building differs from the state building practice implemented by other actors, as it is less able to address “hard power” issues and, in contrast, “emphasizes rights and needs of people in a social and cultural context” (Ibid., 458). It reflects a concern for social justice, equality and civil society, which goes beyond the security and institutional concerns of liberal peace, and which it has applied in certain local contexts (Ibid., 459). It may also include its objective of addressing the structural causes of conflict, socio-economic welfare, local participation or gender equity.

However, in order to develop such a fourth generation framework, the EU would have to: focus its concern on needs, rights, social welfare, social justice and, finally, reconciliation; implement a bottom-up approach led by social actors rather than the state; formulate peace frameworks that transcend the territorial sovereignty of the state and focus on the rights and needs of individuals and communities in local contexts; overcome blueprint solutions and achieve stronger “localized engagement” by building contextually sensitized programs that facilitate local peace processes; acquire greater capacity to address identity and cultural issues; and achieve greater legitimacy of actors on the ground (Richmond et al., 2011: 454, 458, 460–1).

6.2 EU Peacebuilding Approaches in Colombia

In the context of the aforementioned debates between liberal approaches to peace and those and critical of it, as well as analyses of the gap between EU discourse and practice in the field of peacebuilding, it is worth asking to what extent EU policies in support of the Colombian peace process present innovative elements that go beyond the conventional model. In our opinion, the EU's support for the Colombian peace process includes some features that go beyond the dominant model of liberal peace and that can be seen as useful lessons for other contexts. Among others, we consider particularly relevant three elements on which we would like to focus and which are present transversally throughout the chapters of this book. These are the strengthening of civil society, based on a bottom-up approach to peace; the defence and promotion of human rights; and the development of a territorial approach. In the last chapter of the book we will draw some conclusions about the implementation of these approaches in practice.

6.2.1 Strengthening Civil Society

In Peace Studies there is extensive literature on the important role that civil society can play in peace processes (Fischer, 2006; Marchetti & Tocci, 2009), which can be translated into functions such as protecting civilians from violence, monitoring human rights violations, advocacy for peace and human rights, socialization in values of peace and democracy, facilitating dialogue, inter-group social cohesion, etc. (Paffenholz, 2009).

The role of civil society has been highlighted, in particular by “peacebuilding from below” approaches, which underline the importance of grass-roots initiatives for promoting negotiations and materializing processes of conflict transformation and social reconciliation as prerequisites for sustainable peace (Lederach, 1997: 26–31). Likewise, by studies that connect nonviolent resistance initiatives with the building of positive peace (Dudouet, 2017). Moreover, the weight of local civil society agency has been emphasized in the context of debates on the concept of “hybrid peace”, which seeks to explain the fact that the peace actually built in each context is a specific form of hybridization resulting from the complex interaction, ranging from collaborative to confrontational, between local and international actors, agendas and strategies (Mac Ginty, 2014: 9; Richmond & Mitchell, 2012: 8, 26).

As mentioned above, the EU’s overall experience in strengthening civil society in these contexts is diverse. Over time it has intensified its efforts in this area and has implemented some successful initiatives. However, several country-focused studies note that the support it has provided to civil society has often been insufficient and lacked a coherent approach (Ejdus & Juncos, 2018; Pogodda et al., 2014). Often its interventions have prioritized government institutions and have struggled to engage civil society, even in countries where civil society is comparatively strong, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina (Kappler & Richmond, 2011). As causes, it is argued that programs tend to be planned from Brussels, with little knowledge of the context, little or no participation of local actors and a lack of coincidence with local priorities (Edmunds et al., 2018: 233–4).

With regard to Colombia, it should be emphasized that this country, despite the destructive impact of violence, has a very varied and active civil society, with a host of organizations and networks of all kinds. Since the early 1980s, for more than three decades, there has been an intense mobilization in favour of a negotiated peace with the guerrilla organizations, thus confronting President Uribe’s anti-terrorist discourse aimed at achieving a military victory. In addition, they have implemented a wide repertoire of local peace activities that, depending on their objectives, are located on a continuum ranging from negative peace, focused on mitigation of violence, to positive peace or conflict transformation (Idler, 2021: 49). Indeed, some have pursued mere resistance to violence, as is the case of the humanitarian ceasefire pacts signed between local mayors and guerrilla organizations, or the “peace communities”, declared as neutral territories in the conflict, such as the famous one of San José de Apartadó. Other more ambitious initiatives have promoted processes of social transformation and positive peacebuilding, such as the peace laboratories, as well as countless activities in the areas of human rights, victims, historical memory, etc. Most of the social initiatives have been local, arising from the grassroots, but some have managed to articulate themselves in networks and processes on a national scale, such as REDEPAZ, National Network of Initiatives for Peace and against War; and have even connected with networks and platforms in other countries, such as the International Office for Human Rights Action on Colombia (OIDHACO) in Europe.

This set of organizations and initiatives make up a “social infrastructure for peace” that articulates different sectors and has the capacity to enter into dialogue with various actors; its three decades of organization, political participation, educational strategies, social protest and nonviolent civil resistance are a key factor in being able to implement peace at the territorial and national level following the Agreement (CINEP, 2016: 5, 6). One of the main contributions of these social and community organizations was that they had already generated a discourse in favour of a peace based on political dialogue and social transformations prior to the start of the Havana negotiations, even when such negotiations were ruled out by the Uribe government. They made a decisive contribution to creating the conditions for, and giving impetus to, the Havana negotiations, during which their demands were set out (agrarian reform, respect for ethnic identities, gender, opposition to the fumigation of coca plantations, etc.), thus contributing to the inclusion of several transformative contents in the Agreement. After its signing, civil society has been pressuring the state for its full implementation.

6.2.2 Defence of Human Rights

A growing literature has been underlining the synergies between human rights advocacy and peacebuilding. These are two traditionally separate fields, having different principles, objectives and tools: practitioners and activists focused on human rights, based on a normative approach and a “moral imperative”, have tended to defend them as a requirement to ensure long-term peace; while those engaged in peacebuilding with a more pragmatic approach prioritize the short-term goal of promoting agreements that put an end to violence (Babbitt, 2009: 617; Parlevliet, 2010: 17–18). Even the idea that justice and human rights oriented initiatives could be detrimental to the achievement of peace, and vice versa, has prevailed, as witnessed by the debate on “peace versus justice” in post-conflict contexts.

On the contrary, in recent years there has been growing awareness of their synergies and potential for mutual reinforcement, and important steps have been taken towards their theoretical and operational interrelation. At the theoretical level, recent literature has studied the multiple cause-effect interrelationships between conflict and human rights: the violation of human rights is both one of the main consequences and one of the main causes of armed conflicts (Parlevliet, 2010: 18, 2017: 348). Thus, the idea that human rights are a crucial component of conflict prevention and of building a positive peace has increasingly taken hold, as well as the idea that peacebuilding actions can contribute to greater protection and enjoyment of human rights. For this reason, the “productive tensions” between the two fields of work, their analytical complementarities and operational synergies have recently been explored (Fuentes & Drumond, 2018: 10).

In this sense, Parlevliet has proposed a holistic and integrative conceptual framework of human rights and conflict transformation, including objectives and tools from both fields, so that all their actions address human rights violations, both in the short term those that are symptoms of conflict, and in the long term those that are structural causes of conflict (Parlevliet, 2010: 24, 2017: 349 et seq.). This holistic framework understands human rights not as a framework of norms, but as elements that contribute to shaping social relations, structures and institutions in dynamic processes (Parlevliet, 2010: 23). Similarly, Simpson proposes a “peacebuilding and justice continuum”, an approach to coherently program analyses and actions concerning human rights and justice, peacebuilding and development, adjusted to the different contexts and phases of peacebuilding (Simpson, 2017: 380, 386). In sum, these and other proposals are extremely useful for processes of building positive peace with justice, which guarantee the enjoyment of rights, including socioeconomic and cultural rights, and serve to empower vulnerable sectors, support their demands and open the doors to emancipatory processes.

In practice, human rights have gained weight as a transversal approach in the peace and development work of numerous social organizations and cooperation actors. Likewise, they are increasingly integrated as a component of the international “peace architecture” shaped by national, regional and international institutions focused on peace and security (Richmond, 2018: 41–60).

The EU, as reflected in its main documents, includes the defence and promotion of human rights as an essential component of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and also of its development cooperation and conflict prevention policies. Many of these documents emphasize the promotion of human rights and democracy through dialogue with civil society in third countries and the strengthening of its organizations. The assumption is that advocacy, together with various democratization measures, will help to alleviate political grievances between different social and ethnic groups (Wetzel & Orbie, 2011). In addition, the EU has developed various institutional and normative tools to mainstream human rights in its foreign policy. Among the financial instruments, the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), created in 2005 and aimed at supporting initiatives, many by civil society, in the areas of democratization, defence of human rights, trust building and reconciliation, stands out. In addition, there are various CFSP guideline documents on human rights, which are not legally binding but express an important political commitment to action in this area. These include the EU Guidelines on the conduct of Human Rights Dialogues, 2001, revised in 2009; and the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders, 2005, revised in 2008.

However, different sources warn that there is a gap between the EU's human rights discourse and its practice on the ground (Hazelzet, 2010: 342). In peacebuilding and security actions, human rights receive insufficient resources, less than counter-terrorism or security sector reform (Hadden, 2009). Likewise, different human rights organizations have criticized the fact that the guidelines in this area are not systematically applied, and have expressed doubt whether member states prioritize human rights and the protection of their defenders (EEAS, 2016). This gap between discourse and practice would be undermining the effectiveness of the EU in its goal of a more just and inclusive peace, as well as its credibility with post-conflict societies (Hadden, 2009). This loss of legitimacy has been recognized by the European External Action Service (EEAS) itself, in response to which it proposes the mainstreaming of human rights in different dimensions of European peacebuilding policy (EEAS, 2016).

6.2.3 Territorial Peace Approach

The concept of territorial peace is probably the most novel and important concept in the Peace Agreement (Cairo & Ríos, 2019: 96); it is an innovative contribution to the peace processes that have taken place worldwide and may be of interest beyond Colombia (Cairo et al., 2018: 464). However, it is inspired by the territorial perspective that is present de facto in other previous territorial initiatives and policies, including the peace laboratories (Rodríguez, 2020: 107), as well as in numerous local and community experiences of everyday peace (Courtheyn, 2018).

Its essential contribution consists in assuming that the peace process and the implementation of the Agreement have to be carried out with differentiated perspectives and adjusted to the conditions and needs of each of the country’s territories, focusing in particular on the areas most affected by the conflict, with worse socioeconomic conditions and fewer state services. It implies recognizing that the territory is the fundamental scenario for addressing the specific problems of the peace process. It must be kept in mind that Colombia has very diverse regions, that the armed conflict has affected them in very different ways, and that it is associated with various territorial problems, such as spatial tensions and the appropriation of territory, as has been analysed by numerous authors, for example González (2008).

The term territorial peace was initially formulated by Sergio Jaramillo (2013), the government's High Commissioner for Peace, but has subsequently been widely adopted. According to its formulation, it should fulfil three objectives: (a) address the roots of the conflict, through rural development and guarantee the rights of all people in all territories; (b) consolidate an inclusive democracy, promoting a broad participation of citizens, especially in rural communities, in the bottom-up planning of public policies; (c) build institutions based in the territories, establishing a new alliance between communities and the state in territories where the state has been absent, contributing to its democratic legitimacy, civic trust, reconciliation and transformation processes prevented by the war.

Therefore, this approach assumes that for peace to be viable and sustainable, it must be: local, built from the territories according to their socioeconomic conditions and degree of state presence; bottom-up, with citizen participation; networked, through alliances between grassroots organizations and state institutions; and transformative, promoting development and rights. Furthermore, as Paladini (2020: 79) says, other contributions of the territorial peace approach are that it focuses on developing the legitimacy of the state through the provision of services in alliance with civil society and the effective guarantee of human rights; and that it focuses not only on the ends, but also on the means of peacebuilding, that is, on a participatory and inclusive process that incorporates the proposals of communities and social organizations. For all these reasons, it is a case that can contribute to the perspective on “hybrid legitimacy”, on which Richmond and Mac Ginty reflect (2020).

The term territorial peace has been incorporated into the vocabulary of most of the country's actors, but it is nevertheless diffuse and polysemic, as it is interpreted in different and even antithetical ways, depending on the political and development model that each one defends. As we have noted, Jaramillo's governmental formulation aspires to consolidate the democratic presence of the state in the territories, which fits into a liberal peace perspective, but at the same time includes transformative elements (Cairo et al., 2018: 467). Part of the economic elites sees it as a new governance of the territory that allows access to resources in regions inaccessible during war (Jiménez-Martín, 2016: 65). Former FARC-EP guerrillas have seen it as a means for consolidating their relations with the rural communities, securing social struggles and promoting a model of peasant economy and good living (sumac kwasay) as an alternative to the capitalist model (Cairo & Ríos, 2019: 101, 108). In turn, different peasant, indigenous or Afro-Colombian organizations formulate a territorial approach based on the needs and rights of their communities, advocating an alternative and community-based economic model (Rodríguez, 2020: 113).

In operational terms, the territorial peace approach posed the need for programs and policies specifically oriented towards the territories most affected by the conflict, in order to overcome their marginalization and structural problems. This, however, has been criticized as an excuse for avoiding economic and political transformations at the national level and to limit the peace agenda to peripheral and marginal rural areas (Harto de Vera, 2018: 360–1). In any case, the main policy instrument for materializing the approach are the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET), aimed at promoting structural transformations and meeting needs in various municipalities in terms of strengthening local institutions, infrastructure, social services, productive projects, land for peasants, etc. (Sánchez & Sánchez, 2019: 76–77).

However, the implementation of territorial peace policies following the Agreement has been slow and scarce, due to several problems, such as: the lack of political will of the Duque government to implement the rural reform and other components of the Agreement; the recent increase in insecurity; and the structural lack of infrastructures and institutional capacities in many municipalities. The latter has to do with a historical territorial fragmentation of state power, which has a limited presence in large territories controlled by local elites, who enjoy considerable autonomy and have traditionally opposed democratizing reforms that affect their interests, often violently (González et al., 2003). Added to this is another problem rooted in the country's policies, characterized by an “anti-peasant bias” (Uribe, 2013) that has promoted a development model that has turned its back on rural society.

Despite its insufficient materialization to date, the territorial peace approach in Colombia deserves to be analysed as a case that can make significant contributions to two currents that have recently gained weight in Peace Studies.

The first of these is the so-called “local turn” in peacebuilding studies and policies, consisting of the greater attention paid since the beginning of the century to local dimensions: actors’ agency, needs, identities, values, etc. (Donais, 2012; Mitchell & Hancock, 2012). This trend is due, among other factors, to the growing recognition of the weight of local actors and civil society in conflict contexts; the crisis of the liberal peace paradigm and the assumption that sustainable peace has to be based on local visions; and the emergence of new epistemological perspectives that contribute to analysing social dimensions beyond formal state policy (Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013). The local turn has mainly been undertaken by critical approaches, which see the local as “a means of emancipation expressed through the emphasis on voices from below” (Leonardsson & Rudd, 2015: 826), highlighting the existence of a local agency, that of local actors resisting violence from their own vision of peace (Mac Ginty, 2008:139–163).

The second current corresponds to an emerging sub-discipline, Critical Geography of Peace. This is based on the premise that space is socially constructed, while at the same time it conditions the construction of society, as it is a reflection of social relations of power and of certain visions of the territory. Consequently, just as war shapes certain territorial structures of power, aimed at controlling resources or population, the processes of building sustainable peace must be translated into dismantling the geographies of war and building “geographies of peace”, that is, a reorganization of space based on fairer and more equitable social relations, overcoming social inequalities and inequalities between territories, for example, between countryside and city (Jiménez-Martin, 2016: 61).

According to this current, peace processes must be understood in concrete, situated terms, and in relation to their reciprocal conditioning with space (Björkdahl & Kappler, 2017: 10). Thus, it has analysed numerous local peacebuilding initiatives and “peace spaces” where subaltern actors promote alternative discourses to violence (Vogel, 2018), and also how peace is socially and culturally constructed, and therefore interpreted and experienced in diverse ways according to people and places (Megoran et al., 2016: 128).

These analyses that focus on specific contexts also help to understand how power relations have an impact on a particular space, which is also affected by the multiple forms of violence and the struggle for peace taking place there. This has helped to challenge romantic and utopian notions of peace, and to understand that peacebuilding processes are marked by “agonism”, by the rivalry and conflict of power relations (Björkdahl & Selimovic, 2016: 322). By inquiring into the power inequalities that shape peace, this current seeks to explain “who gets what kind of peace, where peace is (re)produced, and how peace is realized” (Megoran et al., 2016: 129–130).

7 Structure of the Book

The book addresses the main aspects of the EU’s contribution to the implementation of the Havana Peace Agreement of 2016. However, many of the chapters adopt a broader perspective in order to understand the EU’s actions in recent years resulting from its trajectory of two decades in Colombia. Furthermore, some chapters do not focus on specific dimensions of the European contribution, but instead undertake an analysis of the context, in particular the causes, evolution and impact of the conflict in the country, as well as the structural factors that condition and hinder the process of peacebuilding.

In the first chapter, as an introduction to the book, we have provided a general approach to the Havana Agreement and the context of its implementation, as well as the motivations and main axes of the EU’s activity in the country. In particular, we have defined three transversal axes around which the book is articulated. These refer to the three fields in which we consider that the EU has been making innovative contributions: the strengthening of civil society, human rights and the adoption of a territorial approach. Similarly, as a brief theoretical framework, we have outlined the theoretical debates in Peace Studies that might benefit from the European experience in the country.

The second chapter, written by Jerónimo Ríos, offers a historical contextualization of the Colombian armed conflict, placing emphasis on its territorial dimension. After exploring its causes, he analyses the impact of President Uribe’s Democratic Security and President Santos’ strategic turn, which resulted in the signing of the Havana Agreement. After providing a breakdown of the points of the Agreement, he analyses the difficulties faced in its implementation during the presidency of Duque, including the reappearance of the violence of the different actors.

In the third chapter, Borja Paladini reflects on the paths and obstacles for achieving peace in Colombia. In the first place, he analyses the history of political violence in the country, as well as the main obstacles to overcoming it, underscoring the absence of the state in parts of the territory, the usufruct of power by minority elites that resist losing their spaces of power, and the enormous degrees of inequality. In the second place, he studies the different social and institutional dynamics in pursuit of peace that have taken place since the 1980s, from social mobilizations to institutional and legal changes. According to the author, the social and political aspiration of peace “has become one of the driving forces of political change in Colombia”, as well as for consolidating the nation-state.

The fourth chapter was prepared by Eduardo Bidaurratzaga and Ángeles Sánchez, and focuses on another dimension of the context in which the Peace Agreement was reached and is being implemented: that of the trade relations between the EU and Colombia. Concretely, it analyses the characteristics of the Trade Agreement signed between both parties in 2012, as well as its impact on the economy and living conditions of the Colombian population. In this way, it questions the degree to which this impact is coherent with the other EU policies in the country, aimed at addressing the root causes of the armed conflict and peacebuilding.

The fifth chapter, written by Juana García, describes the historical trajectory of two decades of the EU’s development cooperation in Colombia, and more specifically its contribution to peacebuilding. The text studies the characteristics and central milestones of this cooperation up until the signing of the Peace Agreement, under three presidents. Thus, in the period of Pastrana, with his Diplomacy for Peace, the EU timidly involved itself in the dialogues for peace in Caguán. Afterwards, during the presidency of Uribe, the EU’s rejection of the Plan Colombia was translated into its innovative initiative of peacebuilding at the local level, the Peace Laboratories. Finally, in the period of Santos, the EU acted as one of the main sponsors of the negotiations in Havana.

The sixth chapter, whose author is Mario López, also employs a historical perspective to analyse the EU’s support for peace in Colombia, but does so from a specific perspective: that of its support for reconciliation. The author starts with a discussion of the existing theoretical debates on this concept and its relevance in peace processes. He then studies the EU’s contribution to a just and lasting peace that makes possible reconciliation processes, mainly at the local level, through its support for three initiatives: the Peace Laboratories, the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (CNRR) and the European Trust Fund for Peace.

The seventh chapter, by Carlos Madridejos, focuses on one the most important points of the Agreement: the reincorporation of the ex-combatants of the FARC-EP, conceived in the innovative form of a collective process. Specifically, he analyses the contribution made to this by one of the most relevant instruments of those employed by the EU to support the implementation of the Agreement: the Trust Fund for Peace. This support has taken concrete form in the financing of different local projects, strengthening two organizations of ex-combatants, and budgetary support for public policies on this issue. As the author concludes, the Fund has weaknesses, but also strengths and innovative elements that provide lessons that are potentially useful for other conflicts.

The eighth chapter, prepared by Irantzu Mendia, analyses the inclusion of the gender approach in the EU’s cooperation in support of the peace process in Colombia, both in its programmatic documents and in several of its initiatives and projects. One of the novel features of the Havana Agreement lies in its incorporation of the gender approach as an essential part of its transversal “differential approach”. The inclusion of provisions on gender in the Agreement was the result of the vigorous mobilization of Colombian organizations of women and feminists in favour of a peace that would include gender justice. Nonetheless, as the author underscores, their implementation has encountered serious resistance.

The ninth chapter was written by Alba Linares and analyses how the EU is contributing to materialize the ethnic focus that is present in the Peace Agreement. The ethnic minorities, both indigenous and Afro-descendant, and their territories figure amongst the most affected by the armed conflict and continue to suffer from exclusion, which is why it is essential to address their specific problems to achieve a positive peace with a territorial perspective. According to the author, the EU has supported initiatives that have favoured the conditions and rights of these populations, but the ethnic focus has not been one of its strategic priorities, in part due to a lack of clear orientations on what this means and how to implement it.

The tenth chapter was written by Ana María Ospina, Farid Samir Benavides and Julián Darío Bonilla, and focuses on the public support and funding given by the EU to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP). This is one of the three institutions of the innovative and sophisticated system of transitional justice created by the Agreement to respond to the victims’ demands for truth and justice. After analysing the Colombian model of transitional justice and the SJP’s mechanisms for investigating crimes, the text addresses the obstacles placed in the way of its functioning by the Duque government and evaluates the role that European support played in that context.

The eleventh chapter was written by Tania Rodríguez and focuses on another of the institutions of the system of transitional justice established by the Agreement, the Truth Commission, which also presents numerous innovative elements with respect to other such commissions created around the world. This Commission, like the SJP, has had to confront obstacles put in place by the Duque government and different political actors. In that context, the political, economic and technical support provided by the EU proved to be of strategic importance in guaranteeing its functioning, for example, by facilitating its deployment in the territories as well as its policy of communication.

The twelfth chapter, prepared by Diana Gómez and Ainhoa Zugadi, studies the way in which the EU has contributed over two decades to guaranteeing the rights of the victims, from a broad conception of transitional justice, linked to contexts and political processes. The authors observe that the EU’s cooperation has contributed to such rights in different ways. Nonetheless, they consider that it has difficulties as well as “structural limitations” that hinder a transitional justice with structural changes that would eliminate the conditions that generate the conflict. These limitations include: not questioning the fact that poverty in Latin America proceeds from colonialism and capitalism, or maintaining a liberal political and economic order that favours the interests of the Global North.

The thirteenth and final chapter takes up some of the transversal ideas addressed throughout the book. In the first place, we formulate some conclusions on the contribution made by the EU to the peace process. We consider that its policy of peacebuilding in Colombia has shaped a hybrid model, with objectives and principles that are consistent with liberal peace, but with some innovative elements that go beyond the latter, above all in three areas: the commitment to strengthening civil society, the defence of human rights and the adoption of a territorial focus. In the second place, from the accumulation of experiences and activities, we extract some lessons learned that might enrich the EU’s normative framework and repertoire of peacebuilding instruments in other countries. Finally, we reflect on the growing space and the opportunities that the election of Gustavo Petro as president in August 2022 has opened up for the EU to continue providing strong support for the implementation of the Peace Agreement.