When the Lisbon Treaty came into effect, on 1 December 2009, High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton started work building Europe’s diplomatic corps. The broad nature of the European External Action Service (EAS) was outlined in the treaty, but the details had to be negotiated with the European Council and Commission, whose unanimous consent was needed, and with the European Parliament, which had the right to be consulted. Parliament also had co-decision powers on the EAS’ 2010 budget and the financial and staffing regulations, which needed to be altered for the service to come into being, effectively giving MEPs a veto on the whole EAS package. The result of months of negotiations with the institutions is Ashton’s ‘decision’, the legal document needed to bring the EAS to life.

The ‘decision’ document details how the service will function in delegations around the world and its relationship with the institutions in Brussels. This is Europolitics’ guide to the new EU diplomatic corps.

UNION’S VOICE ABROAD

Most of the work done by the EAS was previously being done elsewhere. The European Commission had 130 delegations overseas, operating as a major international player, particularly in trade and development. The EU has also played a more traditional diplomatic role, for example as part of the Middle East Quartet.

So what changes with the EAS? The somewhat bland buzzword ‘coherence’ provides the answer to this fundamental question.

There will be no new EU foreign policy. The changes are essentially all aimed at making the EU’s existing policies more effective and better understood in the world. Firstly, there is the new ‘foreign minister’ figure, currently in the form of Catherine Ashton, to give the EU’s foreign policy a higher profile and to provide a focus for other countries or organisations in their dealings with the EU.

To date, the day-by-day work of carrying out EU external affairs is performed by staff at the Council Secretariat, the European Commission and the Commission’s delegations abroad. Under the new system, these will largely be harmonised into the EAS. So, DG RELEX, which handled external relations for the Commission, will cease to exist and the development work of DG DEV will mainly be handed over to the EAS. The Commission delegations will become EU delegations and the rotating Presidency’s role to handle, for example, contacts with international organisations, such as the UN ad WTO, will now go to EAS staff.

One notable exception is trade, which will still be run by DG Trade and whose staff, including those based in delegations, will remain employees of the European Commission and not the EAS.

The ‘coherence’ so often cited in EAS documents boils down to a decision that the EAS, and ultimately the high representative, should take overall responsibility for bilateral relations ensuring that there is no doubling up of work in some areas and gaps in others. By having a single EAS desk dealing with, for example, India, the theory is that there will be more logical and coordinated dealings with New Delhi and that policies will be more effective. From the local governments’ perspective, this means the EAS staff will be their first point of contact on subjects where the rotating Presidency would have changed their representatives in the delegation every six months. They will have longer-term relationships with European diplomats. In general, the Indian foreign minister, for example, should be able to rely on less fragmented, more consistent relations with the EU.

The EAS will also be responsible for relations with the entire planet, a change from the previous system, where countries mainly receiving development assistance, such as Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, were largely handled by DG DEV and DG RELEX generally took care of matters with Asia, Latin America and the more industrialised nations.

STAFF

The EAS staff is headed by the high representative. Immediately below her on the hierarchy are three secretaries-general, one executive and two deputies. Directors-general will have portfolios for budget and administration, a number of geographic directorates-general, some multilateral and thematic departments, a policy planning department, a legal department and departments for interinstitutional relations, information and public diplomacy. The high representative will have direct authority for the civil and military crisis management structures.

The EAS’ main staff will come from three sources: the European Commission, the Council Secretariat and member states’ own diplomatic services. After July 2013, staff from other EU institutions, such as Parliament, will also be accepted. By that time, the EAS staff should be made up of a third from each source and represent an “appropriate” geographic balance of member states. The nationality distribution will be reviewed in 2013 and, if it is found to be inadequate, measures will be taken to rectify it.

BUDGET

The EAS aims to be ‘budget neutral’, meaning it will not spend more than would have been spent previously by the Commission, Council and member states on the same tasks. Though few expect the start-up phase to take place without some additional spending, Ashton has emphasised that long-term budget neutrality is a fundamental objective. An ‘amending budget’ of €9.5 million has been requested for 2010 to bridge the gap until the first ‘real’ budget, in 2011. It will mainly fund the initial hiring of staff, including 100 new positions.