After long drawn-out negotiations with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s team, Parliament has finally voted to allow the European External Action Service (EEAS) to become operational, with 549 in favour and 78 against.

Rapporteur Elmar Brok MEP welcomed the result, noting that Parliament had gained important concessions during the negotiations. “The EAS will be fully subject to parliament's budgetary control rights, for both operational as well as administrative funds.” With the new service, the EU will become “a global player instead of payer” on the international stage, said Brok.

Following the vote, Catherine Ashton publicly thanked MEPs for their “constructive engagement” which she said “has improved the text for the Service decision in many ways”.

She also made a statement reiterating the case for the creation of the EEAS. “We cannot afford to act in a disparate manner in a world that is seeing fundamental power shifts and where problems are increasingly complex and inter-linked,” Ashton said. “The European Union and the Member-States have an impressive array of instruments, resources, relationships and expertise to help build a better, more stable world. Now we need to bring all this together, to forge joined up strategies and maximise our impact on the ground. Particularly in the troubled parts of the world where our action matters the most.”

Ashton was keen to stress that she did not intend for the EEAS to override or submerge the Commission’s directorates-general for development or humanitarian assistance.

“EU external action will always involve different actors. It is right and proper that development policy operates differently from diplomacy, crisis management or humanitarian aid”, she stated. “Andris Piebalgs, Stefan Fule and Kristilina Georgieva, together with other Commission colleagues, have clear, distinct roles and I pay tribute to the work they are doing –under Lisbon we have the opportunity to operate under one shared comprehensive political strategy.”

Ashton concluded: “I know what we can, and are doing — I also know what we can achieve for the future. I am ambitious — I confess, for I believe it is time to move forward and get the Service up and running quickly.”

Sources:

• TheParliament.com
• European Parliament
• Council of the European Union (pdf)

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