There is apparently no love lost between High Representative Catherine Ashton and the European Parliament. EP President Jerzy Buzek thought it would be a good idea to organise a meeting, at 10:00 on 8 July, between Ashton and the political group presidents, similar to meetings held at this level with other leaders. This one was scheduled just ahead of the vote, at 12 noon on 8 July in plenary, on the compromise agreement on the EU’s new External Action Service (EAS). However, due to the limited enthusiasm of certain group leaders, according to their aides, the 8 July meeting ended up being cancelled.

Certain EP groups diplomatically explain that everything had already been said the day before in plenary and that such a meeting will be more necessary in September. Other sources express a fairly widespread discontent ahead of the 8 July vote, expected to be positive but organised under combined pressure from the high representative, the Council, the European capitals and MEPs who signed the compromise of 21 June in Madrid (see Europolitics4003) to keep from delaying the process. Dissension has also emerged within the Parliament.

Among the discontent, German Liberal Alexander Graf Lambsdorff is the most explicit. In his view, this vote is nothing less than a “weakening” of Parliament’s capacity to negotiate substantive issues. He would have preferred a vote next autumn encompassing the technical points not yet agreed. The ALDE member expected important clarifications from the plenary debate, particularly on the matter of who will be the high representative’s real “political representatives” and on the “crisis management directorate”. The still vague form of this service appears to present a risk of the development of a “state within the state,” according to Lambsdorff, particularly because the director’s position will go to a French national.

The German MEP is particularly irate with his country’s foreign minister, who was unable to prevent what he sees as a takeover of the EAS by the United Kingdom and France. He denounces the fact that British and French nationals are found at every level of the pyramid, from top to bottom. In the upper echelons, the United Kingdom obtained four positions: the high representative, her cabinet chief, the head of the Situation Centre or SitCen, the EU’s intelligence agency, and the head of staff, which is obviously not an administrative job. France has the secretary-general, the crisis management director in the high representative’s cabinet, the crisis management and planning director (CMPD) and the head of CSDP missions. Germany, in contrast, is expected to make do with having a single representative in the upper spheres: a deputy secretary-general. The German MEP does not comment on the fact that the other EU member states (there are 24 others) have to share the crumbs.

Lambsdorff also put out a communiqué stating that “the [Madrid] agreement is incompatible with the question of whether posted national diplomats will be authorised to remain officials of the EAS”. “If we succeed in building a real team spirit in the EAS,” he explains, “those who would like to stay should have the opportunity to do so, as the Bundestag and the European Parliament request. We want a European service that offers prospects to its members. We don’t want conflicts of loyalty and control exercised by national capitals.”

If no further complications come up, the member states’ foreign ministers should be able to proceed with their vote of approval of the EAS in July. Next autumn there will be further negotiations on the draft budget and staff rules, two subjects on which the European Parliament has a say along with the member states, since this is a European service that is supposed to implement an EU policy.

“We don’t want conflicts of loyalty and control exercised by national capitals”