EU FOREIGN policy chief Catherine Ashton has pledged to prioritise the promotion of development and human rights in the nascent European diplomatic corps, a body designed to strengthen the EU’s influence in global affairs.
Addressing MEPs in advance of a key vote today on the establishment of the European External Action Service (EAS), Baroness Ashton said she wants to move forward quickly with the remaining work required to set up the new body. A positive vote is expected today, enabling her to make top-level appointments to the EAS.
The body will initially employ 800 diplomats, not counting local and support staff. This will include a small number of Irish diplomats, although no appointments have yet been made.
The vote comes alongside a vote on a new deal to transfer European bank account data to US intelligence agents. These follow a vote yesterday to curtail bank bonuses in Europe, a development with little immediate impact in Ireland as the Government has already barred the payment of bonuses in institutions protected by the State banking guarantee.
The European authorities hope the EAS will start its work in time for the first anniversary in December of the Lisbon Treaty’s enactment.
Although MEPs must still vote separately on the staffing and financial regulations that will underpin its work, today’s vote follows months of talks between Baroness Ashton and the parliament’s main political factions on the overall structure of EAS.
Leading liberal Guy Verhofstadt said the EU must have a foreign policy in a multi-polar world, saying this was not the case when he was Belgian prime minister in 2002.
“We spent all of 50 seconds on the Iraq war. It was at that time the biggest foreign policy issue – and Europe wasn’t even capable to discuss it, to have a common position on it.”
Baroness Ashton, who was criticised when appointed for her lack of foreign policy experience, said her ambition was to maximise the EU’s impact in global affairs.
“I know there was some concern that we might lose sight of development policy in the new set-up. Believe me, the opposite is the case. I will give high priority to the promotion of human rights and good governance around the globe,” she said.