The new EU 'foreign policy' system after lisbon: A work in progress

European Foreign Affairs Review

Volumn 15, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 427-452

  Missiroli, Antonio ^a,b  

^a EUROPEAN COMMISSION   (Belgium)

^b JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 84859477482     PISSN: 13846299     EISSN: 18758223     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.54648/eerr2010033     Document Type: Review

References (15)

1. See the excellent work by F. Santopinto, 'Collection of Articles on the External Policy of the EU', .
2. See, for example, his speeches at the College of Europe (Bruges, 25 Feb. 2010) and at the Brussels Forum of the German Marshall Fund (Brussels, 26 Mar. 2010),
3. , respectively.
4. After UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband declined the offer to take up the post, in late October 2009, the British government came up with three names: Business Secretary Peter Mandelson (also former European Commissioner for Trade), former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, and notably Baroness Ashton, who had replaced Mandelson in the Commission a year earlier and, therefore, was already a member of the College. Art. 18 TEU would have allowed a ballot by QMV, but the appointment - which included Van Rompuy's - was consensual. Ashton started right away as HR but had to wait until the parliamentary confirmation of the whole new Commission to exercise fully her VP function, although she 'switched' her Commission portfolio with that of the outgoing Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero Waldner almost immediately. See i.a. .
5. .
6. The Groups of Commissioners are established to ensure an effective preparation of certain key initiatives. Each Group is chaired by a lead Commissioner and meant to work on the basis of a mandate from the President setting out its purpose and the 'products' to be delivered. Groups are not to take decisions but to prepare for collegiate deliberations, and they will include the President's Cabinet and the Commission's Secretariat-General. See Note d'information de M. le President, SEC (2010) 475, 16 Apr. 2010 - revised on 21 Apr. 2010.
7. The resulting papers can be consulted in the Annex to G. Avery & A. Missiroli (eds), 'The EU Foreign Service: How to Build a More Effective Common Policy', EPC Working Paper 28 (Brussels: European Policy Center, November 2007), 82 ff., .
8. The full text is available at . The April deadline was probably dictated also by concerns about a possible change of government in the United Kingdom (following parliamentary elections due in May 2010) and its repercussions on the whole Lisbon foreign policy 'package' - although Conservative leaders later gave assurances as to their compliance with EU decisions in this domain.
9. In particular, MEPs Elmar Brok (Foreign Affairs Committee) and Guy Verhofstadt (Constitutional Affairs Committee) co-signed on 18 Mar. 2010 a 'non-paper' demanding i.a. a status for the EEAS that would still make its link with and eventual integration into the Commission possible, and the creation of three 'political' deputies for the HR/VP alongside the three Commissioners Fuele, Piebalgs, and Georgieva. Other MEPs demanded at some stage the separation between ACP countries (to remain with the Commission) and the other geographical desks (to be moved to the EEAS). Extensive reporting on these developments can be found in
10. .
11. .
12. The way in which the Member States coordinate (or not) within such bodies varies a lot already among those - like the OSCE or the Council of Europe - where the EU-27 alone make for nearly half of the overall membership. The most intricate case in point is arguably that of the United Nations (UN), where the Union is considered an international organization in its own right. As a result, any possible enhancement of its status is seen as a precedent for others (e.g., the Arab League), and thus blocked. See, for example, K.V. Laatikainen & K. Smith (eds), The European Union at the United Nations: Intersecting Multilateralism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
13. I am grateful to Michael Emerson and Piotr Maciej Kaczynski (CEPS) for allowing me to use this table (reproduced in BEPA Monthly, no. 38 (June 2010)), which is part of a broader research project carried out jointly by CEPS, EPC, and Egmont. See also S. Gstoehl, '"Patchwork Power" Europe: The EU's Representation in International Institutions', European Foreign Affairs Review 14, no. 3 (2009): 385-403.