A vision in line with EU member states
The EU’s foreign policy chief’s visions for the EEAS is more in line with member states than the Commission.
Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has laid out her vision for the EEAS in a paper that is soon to be presented to the member states, most probably next week
The drafting of the paper has been complicated by disagreements between member states and the European Commission. Those disagreements might account for the caution of the draft, which restates generalities about an “effective and responsive service” that is to be set up. “The EEAS must be a foreign service for the 21st century that focuses on achieving specific policy goals,” the paper says, as if anyone had argued in favour of a 17th-century-style diplomacy.
Single political strategy
What is interesting about Ashton’s vision is that it follows the member states’ line in defending the integrity of the service against Commission encroachment. “The EEAS will play an important role in bringing together the many levers of influence that the EU has,” the paper says, listing them as “economic and political instruments, development and humanitarian aid, plus civil and military crisis management tools”. These should be used “in support of a single political strategy”, the paper says.
What makes these apparently innocuous lines controversial is that the Commission has been chipping away at the service’s future remit. In November, José Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, announced that he would hand responsibility for the European neighbourhood policy – the main vehicle for aid to countries on the EU’s fringes that are not in line for eventual membership – to Štefan Füle, the new commissioner for enlargement. This apparently insulated a large chunk of Commission funding from the EEAS’s grasp, where it might more logically belong.
The Commission is now insisting on retaining outside the EEAS country desks that deal with developing nations in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. While the member states support the Commission’s continued management of development aid to these countries, they want the country desks to form part of the EEAS, in line with the principle that the service should include all geographic units. Ashton has now taken sides in that battle. Perhaps surprisingly, she has come down on the side of the member states.