Brussels, 22/02/2010 (Agence Europe) - Carl Bildt, Sweden's Foreign Minister, has written to Catherine Ashton to complain of the way Joao Vale de Almeida, the current director general at DG External Relations at the Commission, was appointed as the new head of the EU delegation in Washington (EUROPE 10080). Bildt wonders at the fact that the Commission took this important decision just a few months before establishment of the new European External Action Service, without really consulting member states. “One or two member states” in fact criticised the fact that they had not been involved in the decision to send the former chef de cabinet of José Manuel Barroso to such an important post in Washington, but “this nomination is part of the 2009 rotation which is a Commission rotation. It is not the 2010 rotation which is the one that I have opened to all member states”, Ashton said defensively on Monday 22 February after the Foreign Affairs Council. It was in fact on the basis of her proposal that Vale de Almeida was designated by the Commission on 17 February. The Washington post, which has been vacant since John Bruton left in October, needed to be filled urgently “and the procedure I followed is precisely the right procedure”, Ashton argued. (H.B./transl.jl)