Big changes ahead for EU officials

EUROPEAN EXTERNAL ACTION SERVICE

Sweden, the current holder of the EU's presidency, has prepared a paper to reflect the broad consensus on the EEAS. The paper was produced with European Commission input and will be revised after today's meeting of member states' ambassadors before being presented to European affairs ministers on Monday (26 October).

According to the paper, there is agreement that the geographic and thematic desks of Council of Ministers and the Commission should become part of the EEAS. Enlargement will remain the responsibility of the Commission but the EEAS will conduct strategic foreign policy towards current and potential membership candidates.

Trade, humanitarian aid and development should likewise remain with the Commission, although the geographic desks currently at the Commission's directorate-general for development are to be integrated into the EEAS. There is some debate whether development assistance should be split between programming, part of which might fall under the EEAS, and policy and implementation, which would remain with the Commission.
Military structures currently under the authority of the high representative will likely remain outside the EEAS.

The Commission delegations abroad, which will be transformed into EU delegations when the Lisbon treaty enters into force, will fall under the EEAS, but not all of their staff will be service members.

The EEAS is to have “autonomy” on budgetary and staffing questions and is to be established as a service “of a sui generis nature separate from the Commission and the Council secretariat”, according to the Swedish paper, which requires modifications to financial and staff regulations. Ambassadors were still debating yesterday what ratio of member states' diplomats ought to be in the new service in its early days.

WHAT NEXT?

Member states' ambassadors are meeting in closed session today (22 October) for a final debate on the main outlines of the EEAS. The results will then be summarised by Sweden, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, and adopted by member states' ministers for European affairs next Monday (26 October) in Luxembourg. EU leaders will then discuss implementation of the Lisbon treaty, including the EEAS, at their summit later in the week (29-30 October).

The ambassadors also discussed the EEAS for three days last week as well as yesterday (21 October). The talks are restricted, without a formal agenda or minutes being taken. The Commission has been represented by Catherine Day, the Commission's secretary-general, and members of her office.

The European Parliament has no formal input at this stage but will send a political signal today (22 October), by adopting a report that calls for the EEAS to be part of the Commission, which would hand MEPs the ability to control its budget.

Member states want the new high representative to submit a detailed proposal on the organisation and functioning of the EEAS within one month of the Lisbon treaty entering into force. Revisions to staff and financial regulations will also need to be prepared during that period. They also call on the high representative, “as a matter of priority”, to draft a “road-map for the upgrading of EU delegations”.

In the transition period before the high representative's proposal for the EEAS is formally endorsed by EU leaders, which is to happen in April at the latest, the high representative is to be supported by a small preparatory team of member states' diplomats and staff from the European Commission and the secretariat-general of the Council of Ministers, with assistance from existing foreign policy structures at both the Commission and the Council.

Even after its formal inauguration, the EEAS will begin small, with just a few hundred staff, and build up gradually. The aim is to reach ‘cruising speed' by 2012.