Resolution on the institutional aspects of setting up the European External Action Service adopted
In the wake of the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by all the EU Member States the Council and the European Commission, in consultation with the European Parliament, will start negotiating on the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the diplomatic service that will support the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who will also be a Vice-President in the Commission.
With the adoption, on the 22nd of October 2009, of the Resolution on the institutional aspects of setting up the European External Action Service (2009/2133 (INI)) the European Parliament took a first step towards developing its views on the future institutional structure of the EEAS. While acknowledging that the High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP) is responsible for developing the administrative set-up of the EEAS, it requests the future HR/VP to inform the Parliament's Committees on Foreign Affairs and Development not only about appointments to senior posts, allowing for parliamentary hearings of the candidates, but also to promote institutional cooperation by allowing the EP access to, for instance, sensitive information, thereby allocating a bigger role for the EP in the EU's external relations.
As the EEAS will be incorporated in the Commission's administrative structure the EP calls on the Commission to ensure that the Community model will be maintained in the Union's external relations and that the establishment of the EEAS includes full agreement on the budgetary aspects, as the EEAS will be funded from the EU budget, managed by the European Commission. Consequently, the EP expresses its determination to exercise its budgetary powers to the full in connection with the institutional innovations, including the EEAS, in line with the provisions in the EU Treaties, including the Lisbon Treaty.
While the EP believes that the Commission's Directorates-General should not be stripped of all their external relations responsibilities, particularly where they have executive powers, it does not specify the specific role development cooperation is to be allotted within or outside the EEAS. It recognises that ‘..the Lisbon Treaty singles out development cooperation as an autonomous policy area with specific objectives and on equal footing with other external policies', but does not go further than proposing that the EEAS should be divided into a number of directorates, some of which will be responsible for geostrategically important fields and others for security and defence policies, civilian crisis management and multilateral and horizontal affairs including human rights. How development cooperation should be managed in the context of the future EU after the proposed institutional reforms is not clear from the EP resolution. This will need to be clarified once the consultation period starts in earnest.
Click here for the EP resolution.
