Keywords

1 Introduction

Despite being a middle-income country and despite the fact that international aid represents less than 1% of the country's Gross Domestic Product, Colombia has been one of Latin America's main recipients of Official Development Assistance (ODA) from various donors (Bergamaschi et al., 2017). This chapter presents a historical exploration of the international cooperation relationship between the European Union and Colombia.

Colombia's internal armed conflict dating back to the 1960s placed it on the international agenda and became a priority for many donor countries. In particular, the resurgence of violence in the 1990s, together with the entry of drug trafficking money and the consolidation of new illegal actors, led to new humanitarian emergencies and human rights violations. Meanwhile, the internationalisation of the armed conflict, a process led by the government of Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002) through the Diplomacy for Peace policy, brought an approach of co-responsibility in the fight against drugs to the international stage.

This is the context in which the European Union's international cooperation with Colombia originated. It started with some unfruitful approaches in 1996, in the context of the end of the Cold War, the opening up of international markets, and the EU's efforts to define its foreign policy and its position in unipolar international relations after the fall of the Berlin Wall. These efforts were not formalised in a cooperation strategy and a clear road map until 1998, with the government of Andrés Pastrana and especially after the failure of the Caguán peace talks with the FARC-EP in 2002. The moment coincided with the European Union's interest in playing a more prominent role in peacebuilding in Latin America and Colombia. Therefore, the end of peace talks did not prevent the EU from continuing its cooperation with Colombia. The EU adapted to a new discourse and formulated a commitment to peacebuilding in the midst of the armed conflict through the Peace Laboratories, its flagship programme in the country. This way, the EU distanced itself from the new international cooperation strategy defined by the Colombian government through the Plan Colombia, and found an alternative way of working through the Peace Laboratories, a Colombian civil society-driven programme.

From the Peace Laboratories to the creation of the European Peace Fund to support the implementation of the Havana Peace Agreement between the government and the FARC-EP, the European Union's international cooperation in Colombia has always been concerned with peacebuilding and has been marked by the promotion of democracy, human rights, and the active presence of civil society in development processes.

Despite Uribe administration’s change of perspective on the conflict and the impossibility of talks with the FARC-EP and other armed groups during that time, the EU continued to support the Peace Laboratories, designed to build peace even in times of conflict by strengthening local capacities to prepare the ground for future negotiations. Subsequently, during the Santos government's negotiations with the FARC-EP held in Havana, the EU ratified its commitment to peace. In 2015, the EU appointed Eamon Gilmore as its special envoy for the peace process in Colombia and created the European Peace Fund to support the implementation of the Agreement.

This chapter presents a “process tracing” of the EU's international cooperation with Colombia. To this end, we searched the literature, using academic and primary sources, and traced both the most relevant events on the subject and the academic analyses of the relationship between the European Union and Colombia, the European Union's regional international cooperation, the peacebuilding activities it has implemented in the country, and its relationship with different Colombian administrations. This analysis was completed, in a second stage, with eight semi-structured interviews with actors involved in the European Union's cooperation with Colombia. The chapter is structured in sections related to each of the three presidential periods from 1998 to the beginning of the negotiations leading up to the Havana agreements: those of Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002), Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2002–2010) and Juan Manuel Santos (2010–2018), although only the first years and the Havana negotiations are analysed for the latter.

2 General Guidelines for EU International Cooperation in Colombia

The EU formalised its policy of international cooperation for peace with the entry into force of the 1992 Treaty on European Union (TEU), and the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 is the most important milestone in the consolidation of the EU's international cooperation, as one of the main instruments of the EU's foreign policy.

In the late 1990s, the EU adopted five international cooperation goals: “(i) to strengthen regional cooperation and integration, (ii) to promote human rights, (iii) to promote democracy, (iv) to prevent armed conflicts, and (v) to fight organised crime” (Castañeda, 2009: 169). These goals have been adjusted over the years in order to contribute to other global cooperation agendas, such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015) and, more recently, the 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Besides these priorities, the EU has a cross-cutting objective; that of respect for and promotion of human rights. Even lines of work such as trade, aid, and cooperation have been based on a political dialogue that demands respect for human rights as a legitimising condition for the counterpart (Gómez-Quintero, 2007). This is a basic condition set by the EU and, for Colombia, has been one of its constant demands, mainly on issues related to respect for human rights defenders and movements, NGOs, and even agencies of the United Nations System such as the UNHCR and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The EU has had a clear global cooperation strategy, which includes a regional strategy for Latin America and cooperation with Colombia. This cooperation began in the mid-1990s, in the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. With the changes in global dynamics and the emergence of the European Union as an increasingly important actor in a world reorganised in the unipolar shadow of the United States, the rapprochement with Latin America became significant as a new commercial opportunity for the EU and a new region where the EU could fulfil its cooperation objectives (Gómez-Quintero, 2007). Moreover, it was in the 1990s that the European Union began to include the dimension of conflict prevention and peacebuilding in its foreign policy, which could be considered a commitment to an aid-for-peace strategy (Woodward, 2013).

In this new global context, the EU saw opportunities in Colombia in three areas to strengthen its cooperation policies: (i) peacebuilding, (ii) the fight against drugs, and (iii) the environment, while respecting human rights as a cross-cutting issue. The first specific lines for Colombia emerged consecutively over time, starting with efforts to support the Pastrana government in peacebuilding, and then prioritising the fight against drugs from its development programmes with the Uribe government, although this did not mean that they were mutually exclusive. Also, in relation to the European Union's policies on environmental protection, the European Union saw in Colombia—a country with one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world—the opportunity to integrate components of environmental protection into the other two agendas and to simultaneously create specific programmes for this line of action (Molano, 2009).

The EU has implemented various international cooperation mechanisms for over 20 years, focusing its actions on three thematic axes: human rights; institutional strengthening and governance; and, finally, the sustainable socioeconomic development of the regions most severely affected by the armed conflict. Dorly Castañeda (2017) aptly draws the formation of these three axes of European action when she recalls that the EU began to work on peace in Colombia after its experiences in Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, where it had already worked on human rights, the reduction of economic inequalities, and institutional strengthening, particularly at local level.

Below, we present the evolution of European cooperation in Colombia through the main initiatives of the European Commission's Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI), from the 2000s until the signing of the peace agreement in 2016.

Despite not being the European Union's first programme in Colombia, the Peace Laboratories (2002–2009) programme was the one that most strongly marked the cooperation relationship between the two countries, as well as the programme with which the EU became directly involved in the resolution of the Colombian conflict. This EU programme in Colombia centred on the fight against poverty, strengthening the rule of law, sustainable economic development, the promotion of human rights, and the strengthening of civil society.

The Laboratories, initially of Colombian origin, offered the advantage that they were perfectly aligned with the values of the European Union. At the same time, they coincided with a time when the European Union wanted to distance itself from Plan Colombia, after the end of the negotiation talks held by the government of Andres Pastrana in 2000.

The EU joined a process of social mobilisation undertaken by different civil society actors in the Magdalena Medio region, under the Peace and Development Programme (PDP) in force since 1995. Under the structure and experience of the Magdalena Medio PDP, in 2002, the EU became involved in the process, in the context of peace negotiations with the Pastrana government and the possibility of establishing disarmament and reincorporation zones in the region (Restrepo & Aponte, 2009).

The EU became the main political and financial supporter of these initiatives. From the beginning of the Peace Laboratories, their work focused on three thematic axes: peace and human rights; democratic governance; and, finally, sustainable socioeconomic development (Baribbi & Arboleda, 2013). With this multisectoral programme, between 2002–2005, the Laboratories were operating in 11 of Colombia's departments and 220 of its municipalities. Subsequently, between 2003–2009, a second Peace Laboratory was established in several municipalities in Norte de Santander, Oriente Antioqueño and Macizo colombiano/Alto Patía (Cauca and Nariño). Later, between 2006–2010, a third Peace Laboratory was structured in the department of Meta and in Montes de María (Guerrero, 2016).

At the end of 2007, the European Commission published the Colombia Country Strategy, following a programming instrument it had adopted in the early 2000s as part of the reform of the Commission's external aid management. Under this umbrella, the EU's bilateral development cooperation instrument (DCI) with Colombia was operationalised practically up to the signing of the peace agreement, establishing the following three sectors of intervention with which cooperation projects in the country were to be aligned:

  1. 1.

    Peace and stability, including alternative development to illicit crops: the Commission’s goals were to promote sustainable human development, help reduce illicit activities (particularly drug production and trafficking), create spaces for peaceful coexistence by promoting peace and dialogue, and work towards sustainable socioeconomic development as a means to resolve the conflict. Nearly 70% of the overall allocation of the bilateral cooperation instrument, i.e., almost 112 million euros, was earmarked for this area.

  2. 2.

    Rule of law, justice and human rights: the European Union sought to strengthen the rule of law through a more effective legal system, safeguarding human rights and promoting good governance. Two-thirds of the planned budget allocation of 32 million euros was committed to this area. The programmes focused on legal assistance to victims of the internal conflict, particularly in relation to their access to justice, promotion of their rights, truth, and comprehensive reparation, including land restitution.

  3. 3.

    Competitiveness and trade: the purpose of cooperation in this priority area was to increase the capacity of the country's regions to integrate and become part of the global economy. It also sought to support local economic development by inserting small producers into local and regional markets, as well as through civil society networks’ active participation in the design of local development policies.

Plans and programmes were developed under these guidelines, covering broad areas of action of the European Union's international cooperation in Colombia.

Following the end of the Peace Labs in 2010, the EU's peace strategy continued with the Regional Development, Peace and Stability (RDPS) programmes between 2009 and 2016, and New Territories of Peace, from 2011 to 2016. The RDPS supported several initiatives that had started in the Peace Laboratories and sought to ensure their continuity and sustainability. With the New Territories of Peace, a new stage in EU cooperation in Colombia began, articulating it with the State and civil society organisations, which would have been its main ally. The focus of these programmes was to support local processes where social organisations played a leading role and where regional specificities were prioritised for peacebuilding.

With these programmes, the EU expanded the regions of intervention in Colombia, while maintaining the main axes of its cooperation in the country, including institutional strengthening, the promotion of human rights, and support for local participatory processes.

Aiming to further the consolidation of its vision of cooperation and gathering the lessons learned from the Peace Laboratories, in 2016, the EU opted to work together with the GIZ (German Agency for International Cooperation) in delegated cooperation. Delegated cooperation is a cooperation modality whereby the EU entrusts the GIZ with the implementation of its action. This mechanism was embodied in a new project, Forpaz, which became the fourth component of Propaz (Support for Peacebuilding in Colombia), the leading German cooperation programme for peacebuilding with a territorial approach, transitional justice, and historical memory, and reparations for victims and land restitution (GIZ, 2016). This programme was intended to articulate the efforts of both Germany and the EU in the implementation of the Peace Agreement. Along the same lines, and following the signing of the Peace Agreement with the FARC-EP, the EU announced the creation of the Colombia Trust Fund, another international cooperation tool that, in post-conflict armed stages, serves to channel resources from various donors and guarantee speedy disbursements.

The EU has thus become one of the most important cooperation actors in Colombia, while taking advantage of the opportunity to test different tools to complement and continue its peacebuilding efforts here.

3 Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002): Diplomacy for Peace and the EU's Modest Involvement in the Caguán Peace Talks

Towards the end of the 1990s, the EU was consolidating what would become its global peacebuilding policy. This was one of the main priorities of its foreign policy, defined as a counterweight to the often described as militaristic policies implemented by the United States. This was the framework for EU cooperation with Colombia during the government of Andres Pastrana (1998–2002).

Support from the international community allowed the Pastrana government to recover its legitimacy following the diplomatic problems between the Samper government and the United States, earning the country a new image among donors. For Pastrana, the official invitation of the President of the United States to the White House days before his inauguration on August 7, 1998, was an opportunity to change Colombia's image not only before the United States but also before the international community in general. Once formed, the new government improved relations with the United States, while the beginning of talks with the FARC-EP guerrillas and the promotion of good diplomatic relations with other countries allowed it to approach donor countries and cooperation actors that had not been particularly close to Colombia, as is the case of the EU.

For their part, donors, particularly the EU, saw the possibility of cooperating with a stable country, with institutional solidity and economic capacity, allowing them to implement the new cooperation instruments that were being formulated at the time, at a lower cost than in other parts of the world. This is what brought international cooperation to Colombia, despite it being a middle-income country. This offered the EU the opportunity to test its cooperation strategies in a controlled manner, the implementation of which had been problematic in regions such as Africa or Eastern Europe, which were less politically, economically, and socially stable than Colombia.

The Pastrana government had two main cooperation mechanisms during his term: Diplomacy for Peace and Plan Colombia. The EU assumed opposing positions for each of these strategies, as discussed below. Finally, towards the end of the government's term, with the end of the talks and the imminent arrival of a new government, the EU reoriented its efforts to increase cooperation with Civil Society Organisations in the territories and began to formulate what would become its main tools for international cooperation in the country: the Peace Laboratories.

In an interview with President Andrés Pastrana, he reiterated that his government used three main strategies that attracted the attention of the European Union and were in line with its cooperation priorities. These were: (i) to explain the conflict as a humanitarian emergency, which required reaching a negotiated solution, correctly applying IHL and promoting human rights; (ii) to make an effort to make the countries with the highest consumption of narcotics in the world to accept a shared responsibility in the fight against drug trafficking, specifically their responsibility in the chain of supply of inputs for cocaine processing, and to see the solution to the problem in Colombia as a solution to their own problems linked to consumption; and (iii) to address the effects on the environment resulting from the illicit activities of drug trafficking and the armed conflict. These three strategies were clearly in line with the objectives of the European Union.

3.1 Diplomacy for Peace and Internationalisation of the Conflict

Diplomacy for Peace was the government's strategy to position the peace goal abroad. It constituted three donor roundtables to obtain international cooperation resources to finance peace initiatives and it assumed the objective of inviting countries and multilateral organisations to approach the talks with the guerrillas, support them, and thus legitimize them. The Pastrana government's approaches to the European Union and its member states began in October 1998, a little more than a month after taking office (Borda, 2012). In seeking the EU's initial support for the peace talks, two main objectives were pursued: the internationalisation of the conflict and the legitimisation of the government as the country's sole representative. Both objectives were interconnected and were the highest foreign policy priority of the Pastrana government.

Importantly, it is only since the Pastrana administration that different States and multilateral organisations (such as the Organisation of American States and the United Nations) began to show an interest and become involved in activities aimed at a negotiated solution to the armed conflict (Cujabante, 2016). This process led to what has been called the internationalisation of the Colombian armed conflict, and has been extensively addressed by authors such as Borda (2012) and Barreto (2016).

Diplomacy for Peace highlighted the connection between the government's domestic peace policy and the need to strengthen a foreign policy that would at least restore relations with the United States, damaged during the Samper administration, and also seek to strengthen relations with the nascent diplomacy of the European Union and its member states. Taking into account the importance of cooperation as a political rather than economic instrument, the government found in the support of European countries for a peace process to end the conflict with the FARC and the ELN, the possibility to legitimize both the process and the government itself. In addition, the Diplomacy for Peace policy managed to centralize any act of diplomacy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and limit the possibilities of parallel diplomacy on the part of the armed groups. Thus, the Pastrana government managed to consolidate itself as the country's sole representative internationally, an achievement that lasted over time. This also gave the government the possibility to internationalize and de-internationalize the conflict and the peace process as necessary, as it demonstrated that despite being grateful for its participation, it was not willing to depend on the international community for its continuity (Borda, 2012).

As of the Diplomacy for Peace project, the EU actively participated in the donor roundtables and encouraged the involvement of its member states (Spain and Germany, among others) in the Caguán negotiations, in the final phase of which, the EU would itself become involved. As Pastrana pointed out, the EU considered these talks an opportunity to influence peacebuilding, although it did not commit its cooperation resources to the extent the government expected. Moreover, when the talks began to break down at the end of 2001, the EU asked the national government to make a last attempt to safeguard the negotiating table. The government agreed to the EU's request, but set very clear limits on the EU's participation in the negotiation, in order to defend the political legitimacy it had gained. These kinds of tensions would become even more evident in the Plan Colombia negotiations.

During the peace process in Caguán, different countries’ embassies in Colombia had the opportunity to visit the demilitarised zone where the negotiations were taking place. These visits conferred legitimacy to the process, brought it closer to the public and reassured the parties, especially the FARC, that the international community was aware of the issues being negotiated and would support their eventual fulfilment. Nevertheless, international participation was limited. It played a role as a mere observer and, if necessary, guarantor of compliance with the agreement. In 1999, the Pastrana government decided to increase the presence and participation of the international community, which helped to dispel doubts about FARC abuses in the demilitarised zone, calm internal tensions from political sectors critical to the process, and show the international community that the State maintained control over the demilitarised zone (Borda, 2012).

3.2 Plan Colombia

Towards the end of 1999, the government decided to take on a second dimension of its foreign policy. While strengthening the process and international support for the talks remained a priority, it formulated a second priority line. The latter was intended to strengthen state institutions and the greatest possible social investment, in order to remedy the inequities in the territories most severely affected by the conflict, as an effort to prepare the communities for possible peace, under the principle that without this, it would not be possible to fulfil what had been agreed and the initial causes of the conflict would be reactivated.

This policy was called Plan Colombia. It was initially conceived as a Marshall Plan, similar to the post-World War II U.S. programme to promote the development of the territories most severely affected by violence and poverty in Colombia. Pastrana mentions that its initial formulation intended to allocate 75% of the resources for social investment and 25% to strengthen state institutions, mainly security institutions.

In order to meet Plan Colombia’s goals, the government needed to obtain the necessary resources to implement it. These would come from the General Budget of the Nation, but unlike many other items, a majority participation, hopefully from international cooperation resources, would be sought. Pastrana began his search for resources with the United States. The Colombian Embassy in Washington made an enormous effort to obtain the resources from the Clinton administration, which, in turn, were accompanied by credits and cooperation from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

The biggest problem was, as pointed out by some of those interviewed, that the United States did not disburse the funds as planned. When the disbursement was made, the allocation was 75% for institutional strengthening, with an even greater emphasis than originally planned on strengthening the security forces, and, contrary to what had initially been requested, only 25% was for social investment.

In response to this situation, the government sought to increase social investment by seeking resources from other sources, such as the EU, but this did not go as expected. The results were, in Pastrana's own words, one of his greatest frustrations. An active lobby was articulated against Plan Colombia, both inside and outside the country, interpreting it as a US militaristic plan, to which the EU would refuse to contribute. This led the government to change its strategy with the EU and concentrate its relationship with it on two aspects: territorial social development projects, which would become the Peace Laboratories, and environmental protection projects, especially focused on protecting ecosystems affected by drug trafficking, mainly due to deforestation to plant coca and the indiscriminate use of chemicals to process coca paste, which ended up polluting rivers and other water sources and affecting the communities that depend on them.

Even so, the EU was absolutely clear from the outset that, in line with its peacebuilding policies and its commitment to alternative forms of conflict resolution in countries such as Colombia, it would not support Plan Colombia's military resources in any way. Despite this, the government managed to overcome this impediment by creating the possibility that the EU would only support development programmes through non-reimbursable cooperation. During the negotiations on this issue, there were internal tensions within the EU with member countries such as Spain and the United Kingdom that did agree to provide military support to Colombia.

In October 2000, the Council adopted conclusions on support for the peace process in Colombia, expressing its desire to actively follow the negotiation process together with the international community. Continuing the efforts it had been making, it undertook to implement “a substantial European programme of socio-economic and institutional support for the peace process in Colombia, intended to promote and safeguard respect for human rights, humanitarian law and fundamental freedoms, improve the living conditions of the local population, promote alternative crops and protect biodiversity, and support the implementation of structural reforms in all areas that fuel the armed conflict”. The document also expresses its distance from Plan Colombia, as it has a different vision from the cooperation strategies and projects pledged by the European Union (European Council, 2000).

The EU thus committed itself not only to the Caguán talks, but also to increase its work with the organisations, NGOs, and people affected by the conflict, in the hope of finding other ways to end it and, above all, to solve the structural causes that started it and have caused it to persist.

3.3 The End of the Caguán Peace Talks and the Planning of the I Peace Laboratory

When the Caguán negotiations between the government and the FARC-EP ended on January 9, 2002, the EU had to decide on its strategy for the country. By this time, the peacebuilding strategies had not met its expectations (Gómez-Quintero, 2007) and the end of the talks marked the failure of the positions in favour of a negotiated solution to the armed conflict in Colombia. In this context, the EU created what would be its main cooperation tool for the rest of the decade in Colombia: the Peace Laboratories.

Faced with the end of these negotiations and the announcement of a military escalation in the framework of Plan Colombia, the EU structured the Peace Laboratories as a project that would allow for peacebuilding even in times of armed conflict. The Laboratories were a tool that allowed the EU to put into practice a new model that would not depend on the willingness of the government and an outlaw actor to engage in negotiations, but would focus on local initiatives, formulated and implemented by grassroots territorial organisations for social change, which would eventually represent a commitment to territorial peace. Castañeda (2009) identifies this project as one of the most important EU initiatives to design a useful mechanism for peacebuilding in times of conflict. The initiative, says the author, recognises that peacebuilding cannot depend on an official agreement between two warring parties, but begins with the reconstruction of the social fabric and dialogue with the communities affected by the conflict, so that when peace eventually materialises they will be truly prepared for its implementation and to meet its goals.

Officially, the specific purpose of the laboratories was to support human rights and a dignified life, to build zones of peaceful coexistence by strengthening local institutions and civil actors that promote peace, and to promote economic and social development, including, as far as possible, alternatives to the drug economy (Castañeda, 2009).

The changes in the EU’s vision of cooperation after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, and as a consequence of the fight against terrorism are important to bear in mind. The Colombian armed conflict, like other cases, entered the radar of the fight against terrorism with the inclusion of the most important guerrilla groups in the lists of terrorist groups in the US and later in Europe. This meant that its solution was no longer addressed only in terms of humanitarian assistance or tackling the drug problem, but now became a security issue for member states as well. This vision resulted in greater support for Peace Laboratories and social programmes that sought an alternative solution to the conflict.

The first Laboratory was implemented in Magdalena Medio between 2002 and 2004, thanks to the efforts of Father Francisco de Roux, as a mechanism to provide both financial and technical support to civil society organisations engaged in peacebuilding and conflict resolution activities. This first Laboratory, with its clear focus on civil society organisations, was distinguished from the other two later ones as the one with the least participation of State entities. This led to the Uribe government's later stigmatisation of some NGOs.

The EU's experiences during this period, following the failure of the Caguán negotiations, marked its future relationship with the Government of Colombia. The EU always maintained the idea (even during Uribe's term) that there was an armed conflict and that a negotiated peace agreement was needed. Indeed, the EU was relevant even during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, when there was again the possibility of peace dialogues and eventually, as it happened, the signing of an agreement for a stable and lasting peace.

4 Alvaro Uribe (2002–2010). Democratic Security Policy and EU Continuity in Peacebuilding

The EU's cooperation strategy during this period was based on development and humanitarian aid interventions to strengthen territories affected by illicit crops and to reduce conflicts that could have direct and indirect consequences for Europe. This was “consistent with the European vision of combating and preventing conflict, attacking the structural causes that generate and energize it” (Pastrana Buelvas & Aponte Castro, 2006: 302).

With the end of the peace talks in Caguán in 2002, and the imminent change of government, the EU had to modify its political and project formulation strategies in order to meet its goals. The main change, which would affect its activities in Colombia from that moment on, was its distancing from the national government and the prioritisation of projects implemented with Civil Society Organisations.

Alvaro Uribe's government came to power in 2002, with a new security policy known as the democratic security policy, a distrust of civil society organisations and territorial peacebuilding projects, and marked by clashes with human rights organisations. In this context, relations between the government and the United Nations, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and some critical NGOs became increasingly strained as never before in the country. The government's discourse on security and stabilisation, which sought to reduce illicit crops and violence, contrasted with the approach of the Peace Laboratories, which became the tools through which the EU could justify its planned interventions, vis-à-vis a government that viewed peacebuilding initiatives with distrust and defended a discourse of fumigation and forced crop eradication over European alternatives.

The Peace Laboratory evolved positively during the Uribe period. The positive experiences of the first laboratory were transformed into the second and third laboratories, along with other parallel initiatives that strengthened local institutions and other peacebuilding processes. Also, thanks to the positive results of the EU initiatives, State institutions began to approach the EU again, allowing the latter to continue its work with civil society organisations while strengthening its relationship with the government.

4.1 Continuity of the Peace Laboratories

As we have seen, the first Laboratory was planned and started to be implemented in the pre-Uribe period, during the Pastrana presidency. During Uribe's term, the implementation of the first laboratory continued, and a second and a third laboratory were launched.

The idea of the Laboratories was to “foster the conditions of social laboratories for dialogue and coexistence, peaceful mechanisms of resistance and protection of the civilian population against the armed conflict” (Castañeda, 2009). As such, these initiatives were intended to strengthen peacebuilding processes in the regions through direct work and financial support to civil society organisations that had already been working on their own processes for some time. The first Peace Laboratory, which covered 30 municipalities, was launched in Magdalena Medio in 2002 with a budget of 42.2 million euros in its first phase (2002–2005) and an extension of 7.4 million euros for its second phase (2005–2009). The second, impacting a total of 62 municipalities, was implemented in Oriente Antioqueño, Norte de Santander, Macizo and Alto Patía. The first phase (2003–2008) had an investment of EUR 33 million and the second (2008–2009), an investment of EUR 8.4 million. Finally, the third laboratory implemented in Montes de María and Meta between 2006 and 2010, covering 33 municipalities, was funded with EUR 24.2 million in its first phase, and a later addition of EUR 6.05 million.

This peacebuilding paradigm, linked to the population's socio-economic development, was widely accepted by the EU and its member states. However, although the Peace Laboratories initiative was financially sound and the first Laboratory had been created before Uribe's inauguration, their political management was difficult once he came to power. First, the Uribe administration created new guidelines for international cooperation projects, including a change in terminology, replacing “internal armed conflict” with “terrorism” (Borda, 2012). These changes forced the EU to adapt to a context in which the armed conflict, which the EU sought to solve, was denied and which created a negative image of its peacebuilding projects.

On the other hand, the EU intervened more than once to support multilateral agencies such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), to ensure their independence and respect from the government, which was particularly critical of them.

Tensions between the Uribe government and the EU continued throughout the period. However, the creation of the third Laboratory presented a novelty: it incorporated a component for the creation of public policy on peacebuilding, strongly supported by the National Planning Department (DNP), which institutionally saw added value in participating in this activity. This inclusion of a national entity was the second major change in the relationship with the government, after the Ministry of Agriculture became involved with the EU in illicit crop substitution and rural development projects. Johnny Ariza, EU cooperation officer from 2004, mentioned in his interview that the public policy component of the third Laboratory, which was born out of the second Laboratory's attempts to do something similar at local level, allowed, among other things, for the State to assume the costs and sustainability of the projects, which guaranteed their installed capacity and their long-term implementation.

This was explicitly evident when, in 2005, prior to the launching of the third and last Laboratory, the DNP issued the CONPES document 3395, “Strategic importance of the Peace Laboratories in Colombia developed with the non-reimbursable financial cooperation of the European Community”. The document included in its recommendations a call to declare the importance of the Laboratories for the country, as well as to advance the necessary procedures for Acción Social, the DNP and the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit to ensure the issuance of future allocations for the co-financing of the Laboratories (Government of Colombia, 2005).

Taking into account the above, both the political difficulties encountered and their final results as expressed in the CONPES document, it is important to highlight several results of the Peace Laboratories for the EU and for Colombia. In the first place, the Laboratories were a learning process; the actions taken in the first one made it possible to identify good practices and correct mistakes for the second and third Laboratories. Furthermore, these practices contributed to strengthening similar EU projects in other parts of the world, since their success had been such that different peacebuilding activities in Africa, Central America, and Eastern Europe were adapted to assimilate lessons from the Laboratories.

According to some of the interviewees, one of the biggest challenges (and, eventually, lessons learned) from the Laboratories was the recognition of a context as complex as the Colombian one, and in particular, of the local contexts for each of the territories in which the Laboratories were implemented. The second and third Laboratories forced the EU to adapt to the needs, processes, and contexts of each region. Indeed, as mentioned by several interviewees, the initial attempt to replicate the first Laboratory exactly had direct negative consequences in the implementation of subsequent Laboratories, so that new strategies had to be designed to suit each context.

4.2 Regional Development Peace and Stability (RDPS)

Once the Laboratories were completed in 2008, and especially after conditional EU support for the implementation of the Justice and Peace Law (which led to the disarmament of paramilitaries), the Uribe government agreed to further formalize EU projects and to greater rapprochement with them by state institutions. This led to a milestone in EU cooperation with Colombia: the signing in 2009 of a formal strategy for cooperation in the country, which included the lessons learned from the Laboratories and formalised the EU's peacebuilding strategies as well as co-financing support from the Colombian state.

RDPS was mainly intended to “support some of the most outstanding, strategic and successful initiatives and projects of the Peace Laboratories in a second phase of financing, with a view to guaranteeing their continuity and stability” (Grandas & Barreto, 2020: 215). This new panorama allowed EU cooperation to grow in Colombia, and to guarantee the continuity of its interventions.

These interventions now directly and coherently included the strengthening of national and territorial State institutions for the implementation of alternative development projects; the substitution of illicit crops; and the development of peacebuilding initiatives led by civil society organisations, public–private partnerships, and local entities. This reinforced the EU's position that international cooperation should under no circumstances replace the functions and obligations of the State. Therefore, the formalisation of this RDPS strategy allowed the EU to transfer good practices and accumulated knowledge to its new activities, thereby enabling its articulation with civil society and guaranteeing an installed capacity, as it was the State and local authorities that had the capacity, willingness, and knowledge with which to continue with the initiatives and programmes.

The success of the Laboratories, the strengthening of the dialogue with the Uribe government in its second term (2006–2010), and the EU's commitment to continue with peacebuilding in the country, led to the signing of this RDPS strategy, whose nature would be taken up for subsequent EU country strategies for Colombia, and whose good practices have been replicated by both public entities and civil society organisations after the end of the Uribe period.

5 Juan Manuel Santos (2010–2018). Ratification of the EU's Support for Peacebuilding

Following his accession to power in 2010, President Santos began talks with the FARC-EP, first in a secret phase in Oslo and then in a public phase in Havana in 2012. In this context, the EU ratified its commitment to peace. In 2013, it made public its support for the peace process in Havana. The EU Ambassador to Colombia, Maria Antonia Van Gool, the European Commission and the European Council made their support public on January 28 of that same year, in the framework of the EU-CELAC Summit. At the same time, that political support was ratified at the highest level, the EU continued to support cooperation programmes through the Peace and Stability Regional Development Project. It also led a donor coordination exercise in the country, seeking to prepare its international cooperation for the future post-agreement stage and the implementation of the Havana Agreements.

In 2014, the European Commission presented a positive report that led to a visa exemption for Colombian citizens, linking it, in part, to the achievements of the peace process. In the same year, the EU studied the possibility of creating a trust fund for peace. And in August 2016, the Irish diplomat Eamon Gilmore was appointed EU Special Representative to support the peace process, representing an important political endorsement of the process.

In 2016, the European Commission announced the approval of the establishment of the European Trust Fund for Peace in March, for an initial amount of €70 million, from the contributions of 9 member countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and United Kingdom), which would become operational after the signing of the formal agreement between the Government and the FARC-EP. In May, a new resource package for the Fund was announced, for €575 million, combining reimbursable and non-reimbursable resources, which would be earmarked for the regions affected by the conflict, the green growth policy and land rights, as well as to support the Colombian Government's Rapid Response Plan for Peace Stabilisation (PRR). These resources were intended to support the implementation of the Havana Agreement and the consolidation of peace.

During this period, coinciding with the dialogues and the subsequent signing of the Agreement, the experience of the EU's work in Colombia was consolidated by transferring the lessons learned from the Peace Laboratories to the RDPS and the New Peace Territories, but also by diversifying cooperation instruments through delegated cooperation, budget support, and the Trust Fund. All this helped the EU consolidate its position as one of the main donors in the country, but also made Colombia an ideal scenario for the EU to apply its peacebuilding policy.

6 Conclusions

Despite being a middle-income country, Colombia is one of the main recipients of Official Development Assistance in Latin America. It has continued to receive cooperation resources because of the conflict and its goal of peacebuilding, having had two high points in terms of receiving aid: the Caguán negotiations that ended in 2002, and, more recently, the Havana Agreement of 2016. However, the percentage of ODA reaching Colombia is less than 1% of its GDP, which is why Borda (2012) and Castañeda (2009) affirm that the support of the international community through cooperation is political more it is economic.

The EU, in particular, is one of Colombia's main donors, and its international cooperation has focused on addressing the causes and consequences of the country's armed conflict. For more than two decades, EU cooperation has focused on peacebuilding, even in the midst of the armed conflict, leading it to implement actions with multiple actors and perspectives. Thus, it has worked hand in hand with civil society organisations, local authorities in order to apply a territorial vision, and different instances of the national government. At the same time, perhaps due to the particularities of the Colombian case, the country has served as a favourable setting in which the EU has been able to apply various international cooperation instruments. In this sense, the Peace Laboratories gave the EU a first opportunity to get to know the regions and their particularities, initiating a learning process for the search and application of new instruments.

In order to maintain its position with respect to peacebuilding, the EU has also managed to adapt to the different visions of successive Colombian governments, some, such as those of Pastrana or Santos, with a commitment to dialogue to overcome the armed conflict, and others, such as Uribe's, opposed to such dialogue and in favour of direct confrontation with the guerrillas. This continued support has allowed the EU to work especially with the civil society, which had already been implementing local peacebuilding processes. The support for ongoing social processes in different territories has been one of the great contributions of European cooperation. The territorial and differential approach has allowed the EU to adapt its peacebuilding efforts, taking into account that the conflict has developed differently in the country and has particularly affected fragile areas with a lack of state presence or environmentally vulnerable.

The search for new cooperation instruments, such as delegated cooperation, budget support and the Trust Fund, reflects the lessons learned by the EU in its peacebuilding work in Colombia. This includes its search to make future cooperation more agile and, at the same time, more sustainable by involving the State as a key actor in the processes it supports. While the EU was initially particularly active in working with civil society, it has subsequently played an important role as a mediator between the different actors in the territory.