EU to create new diplomatic service

Whether practical politics or pipe dream, the European Union’s common foreign policy is set to move into sharper focus next year with the creation of a new EU diplomatic service.

Assuming that all 27 member-states ratify the bloc’s Lisbon treaty on institutional reform by January 1, the EU will acquire a so-called External Action Service uniting officials in Brussels with diplomats from national foreign ministries.

The service is unlikely to be fully staffed from day one, but hopes are high in Brussels that it will reduce the duplication of effort and multiplicity of voices that characterises EU foreign policy at present.

For the service’s supporters, such as Alex Stubb, Finland’s new foreign minister, it is high time, too. “If we play our cards right, we’ll become one of the world’s great actors,” Mr Stubb, a former European parliament member and expert on EU institutions, told the Financial Times.

“We are already a superpower in trade, a superpower in aid, but in foreign and security policy we haven’t reached the level we should be at. I firmly believe we should seize the moment.

“The only time we’re taken seriously is when we speak with a common voice. There’s still a mentality in some countries to break up the EU by calling on individual national capitals.”

China, Russia and the US are often seen as exploiting the EU’s disunity in this manner. But some experts say that on the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, and recognition of Kosovo’s secession from Serbia, the EU suffered from serious divisions in the first place.

The External Action Service is a hot topic in Brussels because numerous officials from the European Commission and the secretariat of the European Council, which represents national governments, will be expected to join the new outfit.

Yet many sensitive questions – such as the service’s budget, staff numbers, administrative structure and reporting lines – have yet to be decided. Indeed, it is not entirely clear under the new arrangements what an EU mission in a foreign country will be called. “Delegation” or “representation” sounds too bureaucratic to some ears, but “embassy”, for some, is a word that should be reserved strictly for a sovereign state.

Mr Stubb is impatient with such distinctions. “All over the world there will be EU embassies. The name issue is not important, but they need to be called something people understand.”

The service will work under the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, currently Javier Solana of Spain, who took the job in 1999 and may remain in office until at least late 2009.

Mr Stubb said Mr Solana, or his successor, would be a stronger figure from next year, thanks partly to the External Action Service.

“Javier Solana has used his instruments well and has established his role on the world scene, but the new instruments will be even more useful,” Mr Stubb ­predicted. One will be the EU’s new identity, under the Lisbon treaty, as a “legal personality”, enabling it to sign certain international agreements without ratification by all 27 member-states.

The high representative will also gain extra weight by serving as a Commission vice-president and by chairing EU foreign ministers’ meetings. However, money will be vital. The EU’s common foreign and security policy is set to receive €243m ($378m, £191m) in funds next year, up from €200m this year but far below the billions spent on foreign aid, agriculture and help for poorer EU regions.