The turf war between the European Commission and the Member States over the new European External Action Service (EEAS) has stepped up over the past week, following the leaking of a draft paper on the EEAS and a "vision paper" by High Representative Catherine Ashton which proposes giving a dominant role to the Council of Ministers (representing Member States) in the new diplomatic service.

On Wednesday 3 March, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso launched the EU's new ten-year economic strategy, including targets on higher employment, greener growth and greater research spending to be met across the 27-country bloc. The "2020" strategy has been met with widespread cynicism, with many commentators pessimistic of the chance that it will be translated into significant concrete action. The EU's last "Lisbon" strategy was widely perceived as containing excessive targets and weak implementation mechanisms.

The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) began its annual 12-day conference in New York on Monday 1 March. Speakers are debating the issues set by the Beijing Platform for Action adopted in 1995, which range from the political and economic under-representation of women, to sexual violence, to maternal mortality.

On 2-4 March, the two European development NGOs CIDSE and Caritas jointly hosted their fifth North-South forum, attended by representatives of global civil society and of the European Commission. The title of the meeting was "European Commission cooperation with civil society & cooperation between Northern and Southern Civil Society Organisations — exploring roles, space and added value".