Backtracking? Nothing will ever be sorted out if we try and do everything at the same time. Getting the European diplomatic service up and running (the official name of which is, unfortunately, the European External Action Service the EEAS, an acronym that means absolutely nothing to the public and which undermines any attempt to understand what it represents and what its real importance is) will still need to overcome a lot of obstacles if we attempt to find an answer to all the questions it raises. Ambiguity still persists with regard to the triple role of Ms Ashton: Vice President of the Commission, President of the Foreign Affairs Council and High Representative for foreign policy. In this third role, she is directly accountable to the Council and it is in this capacity that she will head the EEAS. It is also quite apparent that the EEAS will prepare European positions on subjects covered by the Community remit and subjects that still have an intergovernmental character. Member states cannot therefore envisage the EEAS being incorporated into the Commission's services. Nonetheless, it must be clear that Community procedure for making decisions must be entirely protected in all areas where it currently is applicable. The Commission agrees with the results obtained by the Council but Parliament is critical of the risk of backtracking on Community principles.
Undeniable progress. It should never be forgotten that the EEAS represents a significant element in the progress of the European construction resulting from the Lisbon Treaty. Foreign policy is one of the areas where institutional change has been enormous. A vice president of the Commission presides over the Foreign Affairs Council and heads the service that will prepare common positions. Parliament has become an essential player in relations with third countries, when just a short time ago it could go no further than voting on resolutions. Even trade policy was a totally no-go area for Parliament. The latter is right to defend its new role and ensure that the Community character of several aspects of foreign policy is protected and even expanded but claiming that Ms Ashton's draft is devoted to the “return to the intergovernmental method” is, quite frankly, too much. Let's consider this wording as a dialectical argument and look at the improvements introduced by the Council itself to the draft, following the positions taken by rapporteurs Elmar Brok and Guy Verhofstadt, particularly with regard to: - the role of the European commissioners responsible for relations with developing countries, neighbourhood policy and humanitarian aid;- the collegial nature of EEAS management at a senior official level; - the balance within the service's make-up (see our publication yesterday).
The objective. One essential element on which Parliament is right to remain vigilant is safeguarding the competencies and powers of the Commission, together with the Community procedures that derive from this institution, in the context of development aid, humanitarian aid, EU enlargement (including managing the pre-accession financial instrument) and trade policy. I am not placing too much importance on the sudden agitation affecting several Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the development field, which are demanding a “radical revision of the Ashton proposal”. They also criticised her for giving the EEAS “unprecedented control” of the development cooperation budgets and holding the poverty reduction objective hostage to the interests of foreign policy. Moreover, it is evident that the EEAS is not in control of anything and that development policies remain unchanged, as does the poverty reduction objective. We have to ask ourselves if the concern of some of the signatory parties to this thundering document was not motivated out of fear of losing funding or having to account more for their spending...
The Council will now hold discussions with the Parliament on all aspects, with the goal of making the EEAS operational as soon as possible. In the Conclusions approved on Monday, the Council affirmed that the EEAS “will make an essential contribution to greater political coherency” in the EU's external relations global approach. This is one objective that we cannot afford to fail.
Subsequently, it will not be possible to avoid having to confront certain practical aspects in its implementation: - balances that need respecting when designating delegation heads in major non-EU countries; - ensuring that the wishes of the small member states are not ignored; - rivalries between Community officials and national diplomats and so on and so forth. Budgetary aspects must also be defined by Parliament and the Council by way of a common agreement - this is essential. Yet there is also an urgent need for the EEAS to exist and be able to begin preparing future European foreign policy in an efficient and balanced way.
(F.R./transl.fl)