Members of the European Parliament gave their approval to the European External Action Service (EAS), on 8 July, voting with a large majority in favour of a parliamentary report on the new diplomatic corps. By winning over Parliament after months of tense negotiations, High Representative Catherine Ashton cleared a major institutional hurdle on the way to making the EAS a reality.

The vote of 549 in favour, 78 against and 17 abstentions approved the report by rapporteurs Elmar Brok (EPP, Germany), Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, Belgium) and Roberto Gualtieri (S&D, Italy) on the general plan for the service, including its organisational structure and procedures for accountability. MEPs have not yet written and voted on their reports on the two areas on which Parliament has powers of co-decision, namely the staff and financial regulations. While these two remaining reports give Parliament considerable power, their go-ahead on the overall blueprint for the service represents more harmony between MEPs and Ashton than there has been in months.

“We have now reached a consensus and for that I would like to firmly congratulate you all,” said European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, who lauded the compromise between Ashton and MEPs as “an excellent piece of work”.

A “delighted” Ashton issued a statement within minutes of the vote in which she expressed her “gratitude for the constructive engagement and close cooperation of the Parliament and the rapporteurs [...] with whom I have worked intensively to achieve today’s result”. After celebrating the achievement, she urged Parliament to “move rapidly with the amendment to the staff and financial regulations, and an amending budget for 2010 to allow the service formally to come into being”.

Ashton acknowledged one of the remaining concerns over budget neutrality. “While remaining ambitious to deliver on the promises of the Lisbon Treaty, I will do everything possible, especially in the current economic climate, to maximise cost efficiency, avoid duplication and strengthen financial discipline,” she said.

The GUE-NGL group had said it would vote against the EAS because it felt it has not sufficiently separated its civilian and military roles and that the service was too militarised overall. But their objections were not enough to derail the political agreement already made between the three largest groups and Ashton, on 21 June in Madrid, and the approval of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), on 6 July.

The largest share of MEPs, however, had accepted Ashton’s argument that she had ceded as much ground to Parliament’s concerns as she could without endangering the accords also negotiated in April with member states at the General Affairs Council and with the European Commission. The most loudly voiced objection to the plans which Ashton failed to move on was the geographic balance of staff. Despite continued pressure from MEPs from new member states they signed the deal without a promise of quotas for under-represented nationalities and settled for a guarantee that the distribution of posts across nationalities would be analysed and potentially acted upon in the 2013 review of the EAS. Another failed long-shot was Parliament’s demand for US Senate-style hearings to be held in Parliament for top jobs in the EAS. While Ashton had no intention of giving MEPs and effective veto over the hiring process for heads of delegation and special representatives, she did offer to send each new candidate to Parliament for a consultation hearing.

Successes for Parliament in the negotiations included a promise in the text of the ‘decision’ document that there would be a director-general tasked with administrative and budgetary matters to placate their worries about accountability. They were also pleased that the EAS’ operational budget would be housed in the Commission, although Ashton’s cabinet in turn lauded as a success the fact that their administrative budget would be independent. Each side said they were satisfied about the level of accountability.

The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, said the “constructive engagement” of the institutions together had led to this “good day for Europe”.