Examination of Witnesses (Questions 34
- 39)
FRIDAY 23 NOVEMBER 2007
Mr Patrick Child
Q34 Chairman:
Good afternoon, Mr Child. Thank you very much indeed for coming
to give evidence to us today. We are doing a report on the Reform
Treaty and your evidence will contribute greatly to that report.
On some readings of the Treaty, where there is a reference to
the High Representative as being able to make proposals to the
Foreign Affairs Council, both on his behalf and, on occasion,
with support for the Commission, it might appear that the Commission
was in some way losing its right of direct submission in the foreign
affairs area. Of course, it does not have a monopoly, but in the
way that, for example like the 27 Member States, it does have
an ambassador to the PSC, one wonders whether that position would
change in the future?
Mr Child: I am reminded by the way you framed
the question of the father who looks at his daughter getting married
and says, "I am not losing a daughter but gaining a son".
It is important in this discussion to recognise that the Commission
is gaining a Vice-President who will be this double-hatted figure
with simultaneous responsibility for chairing the Council and
external relations work in the Council, but also co-ordinating
the external relations responsibilities in the Commission. That
will bring significant, potential benefits in terms of the overall
coherence of the EU's external action. The fact that we
will have the new Commission Vice-President High Representative—to
put the order of the title the other way for once—I think
will equip the Commission to contribute to the discussion in the
PSC, for example, and other aspects of the Council's work in a
way which I hope will, rather than being weakened, give us the
opportunity to enrich those contributions with more input from
the external projection of what we call today "First Pillar
Community Policies".
Q35 Chairman:
Therefore, the misgivings which were reported at the time, that
Commissioner Patten had when he was occupying the seat now occupied
by your boss in relation to an earlier treaty, may not be as serious
as has been sometimes suggested.
Mr Child: Personally, I do not recall the position
of Lord Patten.
Q36 Chairman:
We thought he was rather concerned about some of the proposals
and, in fact, whether it would really be a workable arrangement.
Mr Child: You must ask Lord Patten what he thinks
about these things, then and now. The proposal for the basic idea
of double-hatting, of bringing together the Commissioner for External
Relations with the functions of the High Representative, was something
which the Commission, and all the Commissioners, including Lord
Patten as Commissioner at the time, came forward with as a better
model than some of the alternatives which were perhaps being discussed
at an earlier phase of the work of the Convention, and it may
be that it was there that the confusion began.
Q37 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
If you look at the work of the Commission now and quite a lot
of the 27 Commissioners, the external dimension of their work
has grown very, very much in recent years in relation to the internal
dimension. You can look at a whole range of Commissioners, from
trade policy through environment through energy through consumer
protection and so on, and there is now a very big—development
of course—external dimension in their jobs. It is slightly
difficult to imagine quite how the Vice-President is going to
co-ordinate the external functions of these Commissioners. Perhaps
you could say how you think it will work, and how it will impact
on a range of people, obviously the Commissioners with the thematic
responsibilities. Are they going to need to defer basically to
the Vice-President? How is the Vice-President going to relate
to the President of the Commission who traditionally, and particularly
in this Commission, has exercised the main co-ordinating function?
Mr Child: I think that goes to the heart of
the challenge of setting up this new system. The clear responsibility
which the Treaty gives to the Vice-President to exercise this
co-ordinating responsibility will put him or her in a stronger
position than is the case today of the External Relations Commissioner.
The very direct relationship which the High Representative Vice-President
will have with the work of the Council will also bring a degree
of natural authority to that co-ordinating responsibility. It
is clear that we will have to develop further the existing arrangements
of the group of External Relations Commissioners to bring in,
as you rightly say, also those Commissioners who are not primarily
External Relations Commissioners, but whose portfolios have an
increasing external component, and you have mentioned a number,
in order to make this work. (There followed a short discussion
off the record)
Q38 Chairman:
Again, on a specific point, which is arising out of this particular
question, if one goes back to the June 2005 discussions, as far
as the Commission is concerned, do you envisage that insofar as
RELEX is concerned there will be a single room, where the people
who are dealing with Russia, whether from the side of the Commission
or from the CFSP, will be sitting in the same place? Is that the
sort of way the June 2005 ideas were going forward, and is that
still a possible model which could go further forward?
Mr Child: It is difficult to say today clearly
which model we will come out with, but the 2005 paper identified
the right set of questions for the creation of the future External
Action Service. It is from there that we will pick up this work
when it is appropriate to do so. Of course, the focus today is
very much on the signature and ratification of the Treaty and
there is a limit to the amount of useful preparatory work that
can be done before that process is complete. Obviously the objectives
of the Treaty, in terms of greater coherence of our external action,
are better served if you have got strong and focused co-ordinating
services working, wherever they might be working, in the institutions
serving the politicians, but we are not yet ready to give a completely
clear answer to that.
Q39 Lord Hamilton of Epsom:
How do you think the External Action Service will be structured,
and what problems might arise through the creation of this Service?
Do you see an expansion of the number of EU legations, or whatever
they are called, around the world?
Mr Child: I think it is still rather early to
give a clear answer to the structure of the Service. There are
various scenarios ranging from how you bring together most of
the services that are working today on external relations issues
in the Commission, in the Council, including the functions which
are being carried out by much of the present DG RELEX, as well
as many of the services in the Council Secretariat. You can also
imagine a more narrowly focused Service which would concentrate
on the CFSP area. In that scenario, other parts of the Commission
and Council services could also be somehow working under the authority
of the Vice-President High Representative in the different components
of his or her tasks. It is difficult to give a clear answer to
that. In terms of the number of Commission delegations that we
have today and a possible expansion of the network, we have something
in the order of 128 delegations covering a large number of third
countries and also a certain number of multilateral organisations,
like the UN. I do not see a massive explosion in the numbers or,
indeed, any extension in the network driven by the creation of
the External Action Service itself. There is a certain organic
incremental growth which is naturally going on. For example, in
the coming months I hope we will be able to open delegations in
Armenia and Azerbaijan given their importance in the European
Neighbourhood Policy. I think that if in the coming years we can
give more focus to Central Asia, given the importance there of
the energy relationship with that region in particular, then that
would be a good thing. Those expansions will be justified more
in terms of the policy and the political priorities of the Union
than something which flowed from the new Treaty and the new institutional
set-up as such.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
It has been useful to be able to explore some of these issues.
We realise that they are all preliminary but, to some extent,
insofar as we are preparing a report on the implications of the
external aspects of the Reform Treaty, at least it is worth us
trying to explore them and see what are the options and perhaps
in our report give some view about our preferences among the various
options which may exist. We are, as we have been in the past,
very grateful that you have been able to come and meet us this
morning. Thank you very much indeed.
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