Brussels blog

Setting up the European Union’s new diplomatic service was never going to be easy.  Turf wars between the EU’s 27 member-states and the European Commission were inevitable, and the ever meddlesome European Parliament was certainly not going to pass up an opportunity to stick its oar in.  But if the EU doesn’t get this right, the world’s other big powers will never be convinced that the Europeans are serious about operating a coherent common foreign policy.

Much fuss has been made about the abilities, or lack of them, of Baroness Catherine Ashton, the EU’s new foreign policy high representative.  But in truth the problem goes deeper than that.  It is about the redefinition of foreign policy in the modern world and the inter-institutional battles that break out as a consequence.  The EU’s most important policy priorities include areas such as climate change and energy security, which may not fall into traditional foreign policy categories but which require constant interaction with the rest of the world.  The Commission regards these topics as its natural territory and is trying to keep them out of the clutches of the EU’s External Action Service.  The member-states understandably take the view that a diplomatic service prevented from engaging with the external dimensions of internal EU policies would be hobbled from the start.

EU enlargement and EU neighbourhood policy are two more areas where the Commission is seeking to retain control.  They involve countries whose stability is absolutely vital to the EU’s credibility as a foreign policy power, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Turkey, Ukraine and the Mediterranean states of North Africa.  The Commission is correct to contend that it has developed a special expertise in managing ties with countries that are candidates for EU membership.  It therefore deserves to play a strong role in relations with states that may join the EU in the next decade, such as Croatia, Iceland, Montenegro and Serbia.

But countries such as Turkey, even though it is a candidate for membership, and Ukraine are somewhat different.  The EU needs to frame its relations with such places in a bigger context than the Commission is accustomed to do. For example, Turkey’s deepening engagement with its Arab neighbours, as well as with central Asian states, Russia and the South Caucasus, needs close attention.  So, in the case of Ukraine, does the Crimean question, the future of Russia’s Black Sea fleet and other issues fundamental to the security of the Ukrainian state.

These are precisely  the kind of subjects that the EU’s diplomatic service should hire specialists to devote their careers to.  They are what any self-respecting national diplomatic corps would equip itself with.  In certain EU countries, it has become the fashion in recent years to turn diplomats into something not far removed from commercial agents promoting exports and investment opportunities.  The EU’s External Action Service represents a chance to rebalance the content of foreign policy and put the diplomats back in diplomacy.