MEPs say no agreement on diplomatic service next week
By Honor Mahony
Members of the European Parliament say a political agreement on the diplomatic service will not be manageable before an EU leaders summit next week, depriving EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton of a symbolic victory.
Ms Ashton had been pushing for a final negotiating meeting on Friday (11 June) and for political groups in the European Parliament to signal their broad backing for the service blueprint by Monday.
Join EUobserver today
Get the EU news that really matters
Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.
Choose your plan
... or subscribe as a group
Already a member?
This would have have allowed foreign ministers later that day to give the green light before it landed at the summit table on Thursday (17 June).
But the parliament's lead negotiators have put paid to the idea. Emerging from a meeting of political leaders on Thursday afternoon, liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt told this website "we have set three tough conditions."
He added that the Ashton timetable is "not possible."
He was backed up by German centre-right deputy Elmar Brok, who said there would "definitely" be no agreement next week.
A major issue remains the "nature of the service" - where it is in the Brussels institutional set up. While member states are keen to see a stand-alone body with its own budget, MEPs want to see it attached to the European Commission. They fear both a lack of budgetary oversight and member states turning the corps into their pet service.
"The parliament believes that in these times of increasing intergovernmentalism it is of the utmost importance to ensure that community policies are not intergovernamentalised," the assembly said in a statement after the meeting.
Another open issue includes sorting out the percentage of EU officials and national diplomats in the service - EU officials should not be outnumbered, say MEPs - and how long national diplomats can stay in the service. At the moment, the blueprint foresees a maximum of ten years. The parliament wants this restriction to be lifted to ensure a "community spirit."
As a third issue, MEPs are concerned about the "coherence of development policy", believing the lines of command in the service concerning the programming and execution of the annual multi-billion euro policy have been blurred.
"These principles ... are essential for the success of the service. The parliament will not compromise on these," said the statement.
An official present at parliament's discussions said the MEPs were "quite happy" with the concessions made by Ms Ashton so far - these include a statement on political accountability and changing the original internal structure of the service - but that a "big, big majority" wanted to get these further changes through.
MEPs are the last in line to agree the service outline after member states and the European Commission approved it in April.
"(Ms Ashton) has endeavoured, and made great effort, to try and have the next quadrilogue as soon as possible, in fact this week, to try and keep the momentum moving to reach a political agreement. However, at the moment, no date has been agreed for such a meeting," said a spokesperson for Ms Ashton referring to the four-way talks she wanted to have on Friday between herself, MEPs, the EU presidency and the commission.
Institutional egoism
Institutional egoism seems to have contributed to the delay. MEPs insisted to EUobserver that they had received no invitation to meet on Friday to clear up the remaining issues.
One deputy noted that it was "completely stupid" for Ms Ashton's office to have made public a putative timetable for political agreement without first checking with MEPs.
But an aide close to Ms Ashton insisted the invitation had been passed on to the deputies' "people", if not to the actual deputies themselves.
The same deputy who complained about the way Ms Ashton's office is communicating noted that while there will not be agreement next week, there may be one the week after. However, the following week sees the foreign policy chief head to India for a summit.