House of Commons - Foreign Affairs

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Third Report

6 European External Action Service

178. The Lisbon Treaty would provide for the creation of a European External Action Service (EEAS). The EEAS would be created to assist the new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and would be under his authority. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the EEAS would be constituted from "relevant departments" of the Commission and the Council's General Secretariat, plus staff seconded from the diplomatic services of the Member States.[417] In bringing together personnel from the Commission and the Council, the EEAS would—like the new High Representative—straddle the EU's "Community" and intergovernmental elements. Mr Donnelly called the new Service "the natural administrative expression of the European Union's desire to give greater force and coherence to its external policies."[418]

179. The principle of creating a European External Action Service has been the subject of political controversy, along lines that parallel those in the debate over the new High Representative post. For some, the EEAS is seen as marking the birth of a European foreign service that could foster the development of a more distinctive and coherent EU external policy and international presence. For others, the EEAS will impinge on the intergovernmental CFSP and represents a threat to national foreign ministries and policies. Mr Donnelly told us that the development of the EEAS "may well enable the Representative to make a more regular and cogent case for the European Union to act in a unified fashion."[419] Similarly, Mr Avery told us that "the creation of the new European External Action Service should help in defining better and more effectively what are the common interests that the Member States of the European Union can effectively pursue, particularly since the Service will consist not only of people from the European institutions but people from national diplomacy who understand very well what the national interests and national measures are."[420] However, commenting on the creation of the EEAS, Open Europe told us that, in their view, "the shift towards a more centralised and powerful institution would inherently result in a major shift of power from the Member States to EU establishments, likely to grow in strength over time".[421]

180. The Lisbon Treaty would specify in outline terms the composition and function of the EEAS. However, detailed provisions as to the organisation and operation of the new Service have been left to a future Council decision. That decision would need to be taken by unanimity, on a proposal from the new High Representative, with the consent of the European Commission.[422]

181. The EEAS is to support the new High Representative, but the new Service cannot come into being until he has made the necessary proposal to the Council and secured a favourable Council decision. Under these circumstances, a Declaration attached to the Lisbon Treaty provides that, rather than wait for the new Treaty to be ratified, the Commission, the Member States and the current High Representative should start preparatory work on the EEAS following the Treaty's signature.[423] (In fact, this will be a restart, because some preparatory work was done following the signing of the Constitutional Treaty: see paragraphs 183-184 below.)

182. The areas of detail relating to the operation of the EEAS which remain to be filled in are many and significant. Sorting these matters out satisfactorily will be vital to the EEAS's role and effectiveness. The issues which must be resolved include:

the departments or other organisational units of the Commission and Council General Secretariat which are to be included in the EEAS; and as a consequence, the likely size of the new Service, and the relative weights of former Commission and Council personnel;[424]
the share of EEAS staff which is to be made up by seconded national personnel, as opposed to those coming from EU institutions;
whether there should be national quotas for seconded national personnel, and how any requirement for national balance might sit with the need for the High Representative to have control over recruitment into his own Service;
whether the EEAS will support the President of the European Council in his external representation responsibilities, as well as the High Representative, or whether support for the European Council President will be organised separately;
the legal status of the EEAS—as a new EU institution, or as an agency; and whether the EEAS should somehow be organisationally attached to the Commission and/or Council, or be organisationally autonomous;
how the EEAS is to be funded;
the legal status of EEAS staff seconded from national diplomatic services, and terms and conditions for EEAS staff, in relation to those prevailing both at other EU institutions and—for seconded national personnel—at "home";
where the central EEAS staff are physically to be located in Brussels; and
the type of diplomatic status and immunity which EEAS staff are to enjoy, if any, and how this may be made compatible with the diplomatic status of national secondees to the Service.

183. The provisions dealing with the EEAS in the Lisbon Treaty are unchanged from those in the Constitutional Treaty.[425] Preparatory work on the organisation of the EEAS was initially undertaken after the signing of the latter Treaty in October 2004. In March 2005, High Representative Solana and Commission President Barroso circulated a joint "issues paper" which was discussed with Member States. This was followed up in June of that year by a joint "progress report" formally presented to the European Council on the basis of those discussions.[426] However, following the French and Dutch "no" votes in referendums on the Constitutional Treaty, the work on the EEAS was suspended.

184. In the wake of agreement on the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, the 2005 documents are being revisited. The discussions in 2005 led to broad consensus as to which departments from the Commission and the Council General Secretariat should be included in the EEAS, as well as on a rejection of national staff quotas, and on a wish to ensure that all EEAS staff, including national secondees, should be employed on the basis of the same terms and conditions. However, the 2005 progress report noted that financing issues, in particular, and other administrative issues "required further examination". Sir Brian Crowe, former Director General for External and Politico-Military Affairs in the EU Council's General Secretariat, has been quoted as saying that "putting this together is going to be a nightmare",[427] and Professor Whitman told us that "there is an awful lot to be done […] there is an awful lot of detail to be worked through".[428]

185. Dr Solana told us that he saw no prospect of a "big bang" creation of a fully-fledged EEAS ready to start operations on 1 January 2009. In Dr Solana's view, a gradual evolution of the new Service would be preferable in any case.[429] During our visit to Brussels, we gained the impression that other officials too were reckoning on a relatively small start and gradual development for the EEAS.

186. The scale and importance of the issues which have still to be resolved with regard to the EEAS have aroused some disquiet. For example, Lord Owen believed that "we are effectively accepting a European diplomatic service without any knowledge of how big it will be and how it will be financed".[430] He also questioned the extent to which the EEAS will be subject to effective scrutiny by national parliaments.[431]

187. Others have raised the issue of the FCO's involvement in the preparation of the new Service. In a lecture delivered in December 2007, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, claimed that UK "officials are under instruction to say as little as possible about this entire initiative [i.e. the EEAS] […] until after the Treaty has passed through both Houses of Parliament, for fear of exciting the Eurosceptic press […] so we risk leaving the initiative to others."[432] The former head of the European Commission delegation in the US, Dr Günter Burghardt, has been quoted as saying that "we have to make sure that there are no discussions taking place in the open air" before the UK Parliament has approved the Lisbon Treaty and Ireland has held its planned ratifying referendum.[433] While the practical considerations militating in favour of a gradual start to the EEAS are also clearly playing a role, our discussions in Brussels tended to confirm the view that concerns about the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty are helping to keep public discussion off the agenda for the time being.

188. The Government has provided little information about its views or plans regarding the EEAS. Its July White Paper on the 2007 IGC said nothing on the topic beyond noting that the EEAS would be created by the new Treaty.[434] In a written answer of 10 December, the Minister for Europe stated that "it is [...] too early to make an accurate assessment of [the EEAS's] size, budget, information sharing procedures, staff training requirements, recruitment process or the funding arrangements for staff seconded from Member States' diplomatic services into the EEAS".[435] Giving evidence to us in December, the Foreign Secretary simply said that "The External Action Service will bring some streamlining".[436]

189. We conclude that the new European External Action Service may serve a useful function as a means of reducing duplication between the Council Secretariat and the Commission and facilitating the development of more effective EU external policies, operating in parallel with rather than as a substitute for national diplomatic services. However, the Lisbon Treaty gives only a bare outline of the role of the new External Action Service, leaving most of the details of its functioning to be determined. This could well be a case of "the devil is in the detail". We conclude that the establishment of the European External Action Service will be a highly complex and challenging exercise. Given the scale and significance of the issues that remain to be resolved, it is vitally important for the Government to be fully engaged in negotiations on these matters, in order to ensure that the European External Action Service works as effectively as possible, and in a way concomitant with UK interests.

190. We recommend that the Government reports regularly to Parliament during 2008 and beyond on the progress of the discussions with other Member States and the EU institutions on the establishment of the European External Action Service, and on the positions it is adopting. Parliament should be kept informed of developments in resolving all the practical, organisational, legal, diplomatic status and financial issues which we have specified in paragraph 182 above. We further recommend that, in its response to this Report, the Government informs us of the arrangements which it proposes to put in place to ensure that Parliament and its committees receive the information necessary to scrutinise on an ongoing basis the work of the European External Action Service.

Staffing the EEAS

191. In his December 2007 lecture, Lord Wallace of Saltaire said that he regarded it as "strongly in British interests" not only to shape the EEAS but also to staff it.[437] The Foreign Secretary told us that it was "important that Britain gets proper representation"[438] in the EEAS and that the UK "need[ed] to exploit the opportunities for secondment that are created by the new EEAS".[439]

192. In this context it is of particular concern to learn that the FCO is, in the Foreign Secretary's words, "struggling to get people"[440] to join its European Fast Stream scheme for entrants to the diplomatic service, and that the scheme is effectively being wound down.[441] The Foreign Secretary told us that he did not think "that the run-down on the European Fast Stream negates our potential to have influence in the EEAS".[442] He added that, in terms of access to the EEAS via positions in the European Commission, there is "much more scope now for people entering the Commission mid-career". With regard to potential FCO secondees, Mr Miliband said that "as long as people are assured that they will be able to come back, that will be an attractive secondment".[443]

193. In written follow-up evidence after his appearance before the Committee in December, the Foreign Secretary wrote:

In discussion of the detail of the EAS, the Government will be concerned to ensure that the service is indeed open to secondees from the Member States, which the Government sees as important to ensure that the EAS has the mix of skills and experience it will need to support the High Representative in the effective implementation of decisions taken by the Council. The Government will also be concerned to ensure that the UK is properly represented within the EAS so that there continues to be an effective UK presence within the EU institutions dealing with foreign policy issues.[444]

194. We welcome the opportunity that the new European External Action Service will offer for a greater intermingling of national and EU personnel and careers. We conclude that it would be beneficial to the UK for national secondees to be well represented among the new Service's staff. We recommend that the FCO encourages high-quality candidates among its staff to undertake secondments to the European External Action Service, by assuring them that they will have a "right of return" and that the experience will form a valued part of an FCO career. We recommend that the FCO should also reciprocally encourage European External Action Service staff to undertake secondments within the UK diplomatic service, in the interests of maximising the European External Action Service's collective understanding of UK national interests and foreign policy.

EU delegations in third countries

195. The European Commission currently maintains delegations in third countries and at a number of international organisations. These are delegations of the Commission, not the EU as a whole. The development of this network of international delegations has been driven primarily by the Commission's responsibilities for trade and for the disbursement of development aid and other forms of financial assistance. However, like the Commission itself, the delegations have become increasingly active and visible in other areas of external responsibility, such as enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy.[445]

196. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the delegations of the European Commission in third countries and at international organisations would be converted into European Union delegations.[446] Although the Lisbon Treaty makes no specific provision in this regard, it seems to be assumed that, as a concomitant of this 'rebranding', the new EU delegations would also take on functions under the CFSP, to add to their "Community" role, and thereby also "acquire a new, double-headed status", in Mr Avery's words.[447]

197. A precedent for "double-hatting" in an external role has been set in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where the head of the Commission delegation is also an EU Special Representative under the CFSP.

198. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the new EU delegations would be placed under the authority of the new High Representative, in line with their assumed new position straddling "Community" and CFSP areas. The Lisbon Treaty does not say explicitly that the EU delegations in third countries and at international organisations would form part of the EEAS.[448] However, the June 2005 Commission/High Representative progress report on the EEAS said that "there is broad consensus that the […] future Union Delegations […] should be an integral part of the EEAS."[449] This also appears to be the Foreign Secretary's expectation, as he told us that "people working in the Commission offices in 118 countries already have the first call for the new service".[450] However, the 2005 progress report also suggested that EU delegation staff need not come exclusively from the EEAS; rather, delegations might also contain staff from Commission departments, on the model of national Embassies containing staff working for ministries other than the foreign ministry.

199. The FCO drew our attention to the fact that the Lisbon Treaty "specifies that the External Action Service will work in co-operation with—not […] replace—the diplomatic services of the Member States."[451] The Foreign Secretary also told us that he saw national and EU representations in third countries as "complementary, not substitutive".[452] Dr Solana took a similar view. However, Dr Solana was among several officials in Brussels from whom we heard the expectation that the idea of relying on EU delegations in third countries, rather than maintaining national missions, would be attractive to smaller Member States.[453] However, in our Report on Developments in the European Union in 2006, we said that "it is important that the European Commission should not develop 'embassies' by stealth."[454] We conclude that the emergence in third countries of EU delegations which may be active in Common Foreign and Security Policy areas will at the least require careful management by UK Embassies on the ground. This might be of particular importance in those countries where there is no resident UK diplomatic representation. We recommend that in its response to this Report, the Government sets out its position regarding the conversion of Commission delegations into Union delegations, and informs us of the guidance which it is giving to British posts on working with the new EU bodies.

Consular co-operation

200. Since the Maastricht Treaty established the concept of EU citizenship, a citizen of an EU Member State, when in a non-EU country where his own state has no representation, may turn for consular assistance to the representation of another Member State which does have a local presence.[455] This right is currently implemented on the basis of local agreements between the missions of different EU Member States.[456]

201. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the EU would gain the right to adopt legislation, by qualified majority, "establishing the co-ordination and co-operation measures necessary to facilitate such protection".[457] The Treaty would further provide that the new Union delegations in third countries "shall contribute to the implementation" of any such legislation and of citizens' right to protection in third countries from Member States other than their own.[458]

202. In a Green Paper of November 2006, the European Commission suggested that Member States might establish "common offices" in third countries to provide consular services to citizens of EU Member States, with Member States allocating between them the lead role in staffing such offices in different countries.[459] In the June 2005 "progress report" on the EEAS, it was suggested that the new Union delegations might themselves take on consular tasks—"although it was recognised that this was a complex issue which would require some detailed examination".[460]

203. We questioned the FCO about the provision of consular assistance to the nationals of other EU Member States during our Inquiry into the FCO's Annual Report 2006-07. We subsequently recommended that the FCO inform us how it is managing the risk of increased demand for such assistance, as travel by Member State citizens continues to rise.[461] We recommend that in its response to the present Report, the Government sets out its reaction to the proposals that there should be "common offices" of EU Member States in third countries and that the new EU delegations may take on consular tasks. We also recommend that the Government clarifies the role and responsibilities of EU delegations in countries where the UK has no Embassy or High Commission.

417 Article 1 30) of the Lisbon Treaty, inserting Article 13a TEU Back

418 Ev 145 Back

419 Ev 145 Back

420 Q 429 Back

421 Ev 149 Back

422 Article 1 30) of the Lisbon Treaty, inserting Article 13a TEU Back

423 Declaration 15 on Article 13a of the Treaty on European Union Back

424 Mr Avery told us that there were currently around 350 people in the Council General Secretariat working for Dr Solana in his current capacity. At the Commission, staff of the Directorate-General for External Relations and Neighbourhood Policy number around 750; see Q 442 Back

425 Article III-296 Back

426 Joint Progress Report by the High Representative and the Commission to the European Council on the European External Action Service, 9956/05, 9 June 2005; the Progress Report includes the March 2005 "issues paper". Both documents are reproduced in The EU Foreign service: how to build a more effective common policy, European Policy Centre Working Paper No 28, November 2007 Back

427 "EU faces raft of open questions over diplomatic service", EUobserver.com, 27 November 2007 Back

428 Q 444 Back