March 10, 2020 / By mobanmarket
MEPs call for major changes at EU’s diplomatic service.Backing for report calling for overhaul of the EEAS
MEPs are likely on Thursday (13 June) to vote in support of a call to overhaul the European External Action Service (EEAS) and increase the European Parliament’s influence over the EU’s diplomatic service.
The vote will be on an own-initiative report drawn up by Robert Gualtieri, an Italian centre-left MEP, and Elmar Brok, a German centre-right MEP who is the chairman of the foreign-affairs committee. The report is an attempt to contribute to a review of the EEAS’s performance currently being conducted by a group of senior officials within the EEAS, with input from member states.
The report sailed through the foreign-affairs committee in April, and officials and MEPs suggest that approval by the plenary is a formality. There is a “huge consensus”, said one, on the main issues – which he described as a streamlining of operations, improved co-ordination between the EU’s institutions and greater accountability to the Parliament.
The report calls for the EU’s foreign policy chief – currently Catherine Ashton – to have four deputies, for the EEAS’s managerial levels to be thinned out, and for inter-institutional disputes over financing to be resolved.
There are repeated recommendations for a rebalancing of influence over the EEAS, which is staffed by officials drawn from the European Commission and the Council of Ministers and by diplomats from member states. The foreign policy chief also spans the institutions, as a vice-president of the Commission as well as high representative appointed by member states.
Brok and Gualtieri want the Parliament to have more say on the direction of foreign policy, the vetting of senior staff, and mandates of missions. They also want the foreign policy chief to have a stronger role in the Commission, the Commission’s prerogatives to be reduced, and the number of national diplomats in managerial positions to be curbed.
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