1 Introduction
1. The Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon William
Hague MP, said in his first major speech in office, in July 2010,
that the Government aimed to increase the number of UK nationals
working in the EU institutions. Mr Hague said that the previous
Government had "presided over a decline in the holding of
key European positions by British personnel" and that the
Coalition Government was "determined to put this right".[1]
2. We have consistently taken an interest in
the UK staff presence in the EU institutions. We have done so
principally through our annual inquiry into the performance and
finances of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), when we
question the FCO's Permanent Under-Secretary and other senior
officials on FCO human resources policies, among other issue,
on the basis of the FCO's annual report and other communications
from the department.[2]
The issue of UK nationals' ability to secure jobs in the EU institutions
also arose during our 2010-11 inquiry into The Role of the
FCO in UK Government, when some witnesses said that the FCO's
wish to see more UK personnel working for the EU meant that it
should do more within Government to protect and advocate the teaching
and learning of EU languages in UK universities.[3]
We also gathered information about the presence of UK personnel
in the EU's new European External Action Service (EEAS) when we
held a one-off evidence session in November 2011 with Baroness
Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign
Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European
Commission.[4]
3. In March 2012, we launched an inquiry into
Government policy on the future of the EU, primarily to investigate
the political and institutional implications for the UK of the
December 2011 European Council (when the Prime Minister vetoed
EU Treaty change and other Member States concluded a new treaty
outside the EU framework, without the UK, to tackle Eurozone issues).
UK influence in the EU emerged as a key underlying theme of our
inquiry—its extent, the impact on it of Government policy,
and how it might best be maintained and strengthened. In that
context, a number of witnesses discussed UK nationals on the staff
of the EU institutions as a source of UK influence; and we gathered
a significant body of data on the issue, principally from the
FCO. We were sufficiently struck by what we found to decide to
publish the information we had gathered and our conclusions as
this short separate Report, in order to give the issue greater
accessibility and prominence.[5]
1 William Hague, "Britain's foreign policy in
a networked world", London, 1 July 2010 Back
2
Foreign Affairs Committee, Third Report of Session 2010-12, FCO
Performance and Finances, HC 572; Eleventh Report of Session
2010-12, Departmental Annual Report 2010-11, HC 1618; Fifth
Report of Session 2012-13, FCO Performance and Finances 2011-12,
HC 690 Back
3
See para 12 of this Report; Foreign Affairs Committee, Seventh
Report of Session 2010-12, The Role of the FCO in UK Government,
HC 665, para 163 and Ev w39 [Professor Ritchie Robertson, Professor
Sarah Colvin and Dr Peter Thompson] and w45 [Society for Italian
Studies] Back
4
Foreign Affairs Committee, EU Enlargement and Foreign Policy,
Oral and written evidence, 21 November 2011, HC 1642i, 12
January 2012 Back
5
We published the main Report arising from our inquiry into The
future of the European Union: UK Government policy under that
title as our First Report of Session 2013-14, HC 87-I and 87-II,
11 June 2013. Most of the evidence for this present Report was
published with the evidence for that Report, in Volume II, HC
87-II. Back
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