re: "The EU's diplomatic corps celebrates gloomy first birthday"

David Bosco at The Multilateralist ("On The New World Order") reported on the EAS' first anniversary.

Money quote(s):

"The EU's new diplomatic arm, the European External Action Service, was created a year ago. A product of the Lisbon Treaty, the EEAS was designed to give flesh and bone to the longstanding aspiration of a common European foreign and security policy. The service's first chief, Britain's Catherine Ashton, has had the unenviable task of making the EAS coherent and relevant. Operating in an often toxic political and budgetary environment, she has had to draw on and meld personnel from national diplomatic services and the EU bureaucracy.

The most obvious structural obstacle to EEAS influence has been the jealousy (and occasional disdain) of national diplomatic services, particularly those of major EU states. All EU states formally support the EEAS, but many are deeply reluctant to shed any meaningful foreign-policy autonomy. But the jealousy of nation-states has not been Ashton's only obstacle."

Predictably, for those who've studied or survived bureaucratic entities, a major difficulty the EAS folks face is infighting from other parts of the EU bureaucracy.

1/6

re: "On the one hand, on the other hand ... "

Helen at Your Freedom and Ours ("A blog about politics and other things... ....but always from the right perspective.") shows that pluckiness still abides in Finland.

Money quote(s):

"Finland is not about to give up its own representations abroad."

re: "Creeping competencies, or incompetent creeps?"

Melanie Phillips at The Spectator (UK) clearly believes this to be mere theatre.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he British government is shocked – shocked! – that the European Union’s foreign service is attempting to usurp the role and authority of British diplomats."

Not a bug. A feature.

"Foreign Secretary William Hague has ordered British ambassadors around the world to fight off what he believes are attempts by the EU foreign service to usurp their positions"

He's just now figuring this out?

I know that the British are even less likely than we Americans to put an actual professional diplomat in charge of their foreign ministry (we've done it precisely once), but one of the flaws of the Westminster parliamentary model is that it limits such appointments to elected politicians. At least in the U.S. we can cast a somewhat wider net than that for such appointments.

"What’s with the surprise all of a sudden? The thermonuclear row over the Lisbon Treaty, which enshrined the EU constitution and thus effectively created the EU Superstate of Bureaucratiya, was all about the fact that henceforth the EU would indeed speak on behalf of member states through its foreign service – indeed, that it would usurp virtually every self-governing function of Britain and other EU member states.

The whole point about the Lisbon Treaty was that it would finally destroy Britain as an independently governed country."

Not just Britain. The whole point of the "European Project" to the de-nationalization of Europe's nationalities. The aim or goal of the EU (and the "European Project" of which it is a phase) is to avoid a repeat of conflagrations and devastation brought to Europe by World Wars I & II.

As if the nationalism of, for instance, Monaco, Finland, San Marino, and Malta is as much a threat as that of Germany, Italy, and Russia was when their nationalism was harnessed to national socialism, fascism, and communism, respectively.

The logic, it fails me.

_____

Please visit Melanie Phillips at her new home.

re: "Diplomats: Loyal to Whom/What?"

Charles Crawford at Blogoir ("A digital hybrid of blog and memoir presented on a daily basis, or not.") self-quotes from DIPLOMAT magazine.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Libya case has given rise to a spectacular number of high profile diplomatic changes of side, with one Libyan ambassador after another announcing support for the opposition forces struggling to bring down the Gaddafi regime.

Whereas host governments might or might not commend the high principle shown by such a defection, unwelcome problems quickly arise if some diplomats in an embassy switch sides but others don’t. Who is running the local Libyan embassy for the purpose of carrying on routine diplomatic business? Who gets invited to which functions? Does a Libyan diplomat who has announced a switch of loyalty still get diplomatic immunity? What about the official embassy car?

What if the uprising fails and Gaddafi wins – must we throw these people out of the Libyan Embassy?"

From a perspective of diplomatic visa issuance (and cancellation), what happens when a Libyan diplomat defects from his embassy, thus invalidating his legal reason for being present in your country?

"Could a worst-case scenario unfold, namely a de facto or even de jure partition of Libya, with unfathomable complications for Libya’s diplomatic representation at the UN and around the world? In short, the Libya drama exemplifies the greatest challenge to any diplomat’s loyalty to his/her country: what to do if the country slumps into civil war or even disappears altogether?

This problem was faced in acute form by Soviet diplomats when the USSR disintegrated in 1991. They had represented one massive state – what to do when the 15 former Soviet republics had each become a new country? For most diplomats born and raised in Russia, the choice was simple: stick with the new Russian Foreign Ministry.

But those diplomats born and raised elsewhere in the Soviet Union had a painful choice. Better to stay on in powerful Moscow as a Russian diplomat, or return to one’s home republic and hope for a role in the nascent and disorganised Foreign Ministry there? If the latter, would they be trusted by the new leadership?

Many chose to stick with the Russian Foreign Ministry. Thus in 1995 when Russia and Ukraine were haggling over the fate of the Black Sea Fleet, the negotiating team representing Russia included plenty of ethnic Ukrainian expert diplomats."

Which didn't work out so well for Ukraine.

He concludes with an excellent question.

"Could we see a tumultuous test of British diplomatic loyalties in the coming years if Scotland holds a referendum and opts for independence? Recent SNP gains show the country may well be heading in this direction.

Will the FCO’s sizeable tartan army of Scottish diplomats vote to stay in London representing a reduced UK or will they go north en masse to help Scotland set up its new diplomatic service?

In either case, who will trust them?"

Are they trusted now?

A related question attaches to those European diplomats who leave their own service for the EU's External Action Service. Does anyone trust them now? Will anyone trust them afterwards?

re: "MEPs again flex muscles in diplomatic service debate"

Honor Mahoney at EUObserver.Com ("to support the debate on - and development of European affairs") has news of the upcoming EU diplomatic service.

Money quote(s):

"New agreements on setting up a budget line for the External Action Service (EAS) as well as hiring national diplomats to kit out the service share the power of decision-making between member states and parliament - a situation that has forced national governments to make some concessions on the diplomatic service."

&

"Their main objections are that service is not politically accountable to the parliament; that its decision-making in key areas such as in development aid (an area with an annual budget running to billions of euros) is convoluted; and that the civilian mission part of the service is too entangled in the military structures of the service. "

re: "And the news is?"

Richard at EU Referendum ("To discuss issues related to the UK's position in Europe and the world") remarks on the formation of a European diplomatic corps.

Money quote(s):

"This is the EU's putative External Action Service (EEAS), with five hundred and thirty staff from the EU commission having already begun training to build a "shared diplomatic culture and an esprit de corps", ready to take over once the treaty has been bludgeoned into place."

&

"In December 2005, there was further evidence that the EU was implementing the constitutional treaty and, as we know from COM(2006)712 final, it has been actively plotting to take over embassy functions for some considerable time.This is simply the tip of the iceberg, just another step in the slow process of integration. There is no point in complaining about it – this is what the EU does."