Diplomatic corps to have three directors

Senior EEAS officials will report to Ashton, who says board of directors will be ‘political heavyweights’.

The EU’s member states have agreed that the European External Action Service (EEAS) will be led by a three-strong board of directors that reports to Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief

The agreement, which was reached yesterday (21 April) between the member states’ ambassadors to the EU, clears the way for foreign ministers to approve the structure of the diplomatic service at their meeting in Luxembourg on Monday (26 April). Negotiations can then start in earnest with MEPs.

Ashton last month proposed that the EEAS should have a secretary-general with two deputies. She has revised the management structure to meet the concerns of some governments and MEPs that too much power would be concentrated in the hands of the secretary-general.

A source familiar with the negotiations said that the three executives would be “political and institutional heavyweights” who would be roughly equal in status. They could replace Ashton, for example, in appearances before the European Parliament. They will not, however, formally act as Ashton’s deputies because the Lisbon treaty does not provide for deputies.

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An executive secretary-general will deal with inter-institutional matters and chair the group in Ashton’s absence. A political director will deal with questions of policy and strategy. A director of operations will lead on administrative and personnel matters.

Frontrunners

Pierre Vimont, France’s ambassador to the US, is the frontrunner to become the executive secretary-general. Christoph Heusgen, diplomatic adviser to Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, and a former adviser to Javier Solana, Ashton’s predecessor as high representative, is a strong candidate for the post of political director. EU sources say that the third post could go to a senior European Commission official.

A fourth senior post is that of permanent chairman of the Political and Security Committee (PSC), the EU’s main decision-making body on foreign and security policy. Poland has a strong candidate for this post: Maciej Popowski, currently head of the private office of European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, and formerly Poland’s representative on the PSC.

Ashton will not be able to recruit for these senior positions before the legal basis for the EEAS is in place, which entails revising the EU’s financial and staff rules. She would like negotiations with MEPs to be completed before a summit of EU leaders in June, which could then take a formal decision to launch the EEAS so that it could begin work around September.

Criticism

MEPs are frustrated that many of their demands for the EEAS have not been met and have threatened to hold up agreement on parts of the service over which they hold co-decision powers: the service’s budget and changes to financial and staff regulations.

The leaders of the three largest political groups in the Parliament this week criticised Ashton’s plans, saying that they reflect the “intergovernmentalist” view of member states. A joint statement issued on Tuesday (20 April) by Joseph Daul, leader of the centre-right European People’s Party, Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialists and Democrats, and Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, warned that the EU was “in danger of moving backwards” and “turning its back” on the promotion of a “real common interest”.

They warned that unless the Council of Ministers and the Commission were prepared to enter “real negotiations” with the Parliament, it would use its powers of co-decision to the full.

As part of the revised plan, the Commission has won a concession whereby it will be able to instruct directly its staff working in EU delegations abroad and need not go through the head of delegation, who will be a senior member of the EEAS.

There are fears that having separate lines of command could lead to confusion and undermine one of the main aims of the new service, to improve the EU’s coherence in foreign policy.