Twelve member states have said bureaucracy and bad management are hampering the effectiveness of the EU's new diplomatic service one year after its launch.
The foreign ministers of Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden put forward their ideas in an informal three-page paper dated 8 December and seen by EUobserver.
While couched in polite language, the text strikes raw nerves in Brussels on issues inclu...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.