It is “highly likely” that MEPs will vote on the European External Action Service (EAS) on 8 July in the Strasbourg plenary, Europoliticssources said ahead of a 1 July conference of presidents at the European Parliament.

A positive vote on rapporteur Elmar Brok’s draft report on High Representative Catherine Ashton’s proposed blueprint for the EAS would confirm the informal political agreement senior MEPs gave to the proposal for the new European diplomatic service in Madrid, on 21June.

The 1 July conference of presidents is “highly likely” to confirm a debate on the EAS with Ashton, on 7 July, and the vote the following day, sources told Europolitics. They indicated that there was already enough political support from the leaders of groups to assume the EAS would be added to the July Strasbourg agenda and that only “procedural” issues, such as scheduling or major MEP absences, would be likely to put this back.

“Things have improved considerably for Parliament,” German EPP leader Elmar Brok told Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) MEPs, on 28 June, explaining that the intensive talks between the rapporteurs and Ashton had resulted in sufficient gains from their perspective. The S&D, ALDE and Greens-EFA groups have also publicly said they back a July plenary vote. Residual resistance remains from the ECR and GUE-NGL groups, but this is unlikely to be enough to scupper the plan. For his part, Charles Tannock, a British ECR MEP, said “we will live with the compromise, although our group wished to have a smaller and more intergovernmental diplomatic service”. German MEP Sabine Lösing said her group, GUE-NGL, would argue the EAS was still too “militarised”.

MEPs, on 28 June, debated the EAS, including 75 amendments tabled by the rapporteur to the proposal for a Council decision. The parliamentarians were largely positive about the addition of a guarantee that “at least 60%” of the service’s staff will be made up of permanent EU officials and the service will be politically and budgetarily accountable to Parliament. Brok said he was disappointed that Parliament’s hearings of foreign policy special representatives would remain “informal,” having pushed for US Senate-style hearings in Parliament. He was, however, content that there will be a human rights structure at headquarters level as well as in delegations.

“Our objective is to get a functioning service that can get on with confidence building,” reiterated Brok. He added that “we got more for the Commission than they could have hoped for” on the subject of the operational budget, which will now be managed by the Commission.

The separate legal procedures for the staff and financial regulations will be put to votes after the vote on this, more general, draft report on the Council’s decision on the EAS. The staff and budget votes will take place “in the autumn,” Brok said. A finalised agreement with Parliament is the last obstacle Ashton has to pass before starting to recruit to the service, having already made agreements with member states and the European Commission.