MEPs duck Ashton meeting on diplomatic service

BRUSSELS - The behind-the-scenes machinations on establishing the EU's diplomatic service took a faintly farcical turn on Wednesday (16 June) as MEPs and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton once more failed to meet to agree the final outline of the service blueprint.

Ms Ashton's office had been hoping to wrap the whole issue up on the eve of the EU leader's meeting on Thursday in Brussels. This would have allowed member states to sign off the proposals during the summit, giving her a high point in what has been a difficult first half-year in office.

The EU foreign policy chief announced at the beginning of the week that the meeting would take place on Wednesday. Late on Wednesday afternoon however, it emerged that the meeting was not taking place, as Liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt would be meeting Liberal leaders for a pre-summit chat instead.

Both sides are claiming the moral high-ground in the rendezvous fiasco.

"[Ms Ashton] sent a letter last Friday to convene a 'quadralogue' as soon as possible and initial indications were that this could happen this evening [Wednesday]," said a spokesperson. "However, due to diary issues for some of the other actors, this cannot take place, much to the disappointment of the [high representative] who had hoped to take a political agreement to Thursday's summit of EU leaders."

A parliament contact by contrast said that he had "not be been told that Mr Verhofstadt had ever formally agreed to Wednesday."

In addition, he pointed out that the liberal politician "could not make any moves until he met deputies from other groups on Tuesday to decide the final points."

Much the same rhetoric was heard at the end of last week when Ms Ashton's office said she asked MEPs to meet on Friday (11 June). The deputies concerned said they never received an invitation.

Member states and the commission approved the blueprint for the corps in April. Agreement by MEPs remains the last part of the puzzle.

With co-decision powers on key aspects of the service, such as staffing and financial rules, the three deputies in charge of the dossiers in the EU assembly have managed to wrangle some important concessions out of Ms Ashton on the future set up of the service. Three issues remain on the table but both sides are confident they can be fixed in one meeting.

The meeting, which also involved the Spanish EU presidency and the EU commissioner for institutional affairs will now take place on Monday (21 June) in Madrid.

Ms Ashton's camp is highly irritated that this means rescheduling flights to India for a ministerial meeting in order to go to Madrid instead. MEPs, meanwhile, remain annoyed by what they see as Ms Ashton trying to bulldoze them into a final dialogue.

The hiatus, although creating a bit of bad blood between the two sides, is unlikely to affect the overall timetable for the diplomatic service. MEPs are due to vote on establishing the service in July. Foreign ministers could then rubberstamp the decision at a meeting later in the month. This would free Ms Ashton to begin maklng appointments to the body, due to have up to 8,000 personnel once fully established.