Spanish Presidency seals EEAS deal

Speaking to the Brussels press in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, ALDE group leaded Guy Verhofstadt voiced his satisfaction with the achieved compromise, insisting that MEPs had succeeded to change “the initial philosophy” of Ashton’s earlier proposal, based in his words on the inert-governmental method.

“We now have an ambitious, broader EEAS, with 6000-7000 diplomats and civil servants, based in the most appropriate way on the communitarian method, safeguarding, even strengthening the communitarian method on a number of issues,” he said.

Asked by EurActiv if the Parliament had managed to achieve this result thanks to the Lisbon Treaty, who confers more powers to this institution, or simply due to the fact that a cross-party consensus existed among the centre-right, centre-left and the liberal group, Vehofstadt said both factors had played a role.

He explained that the Parliament powers for codecision regarding the financial regulation, the staff regulation helped “create pressure”. As to the cross-party support, he also praised the role of the Greens/EFA group.

The Socialists & Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament welcomed the agreement on the EU's future diplomatic service and wants it up and running by the end of the year.

S&D leader and German MEP Martin Schulz stated: "We are pleased with this political agreement and we call on other political groups to speed up parliamentary procedures so that the new service can be on its feet by December. This would be a symbolic date for it will be the first anniversary of the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty."

S&D chief negotiator and Italian MEP Roberto Gualtieri said: "We secured agreement that the new service will be politically accountable to the European Parliament as the only directly-elected EU institution. We made sure that the budget of the common foreign and security policy will now be more transparent by identifying specific spending on major missions abroad. The new budgetary procedure set out in the Lisbon Treaty will apply, so the Parliament's powers as the budgetary authority will be fully safeguarded."

"We also succeeded in ensuring that the European Commission maintains its responsibility over all financial instruments for external action. The S&D Group successfully defended the Community method and prevented member states from taking control over development cooperation and its budget," Gualtieri said. 

"On the Staff Regulation, the Financial Regulation and the adoption of the amending budget for the EEAS, the ordinary legislative procedure will apply and the European Parliament will fully exercise its co decision prerogatives,'' he added. 

The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament also welcomed the agreement on the External Action Service but regretted its lack of ambition.

Franziska Brantner, foreign affairs spokesperson for the Greens/EFA group, said: "The political agreement reached yesterday is a step in the right direction compared to the original proposal presented by Catherine Ashton in March. A better service could have been possible, though, and we regret that Ms. Ashton, the Commission and a number of national governments didn't have the guts to embrace a more ambitious solution."

"The agreement is a promise on the future. It can serve to better integrate Commission, Council and member-state policies, but it may also merely preserve the status quo while creating additional bureaucracy and costs. It is now up to Ms. Ashton, member states and the Commission to deliver. They will need to work together, create a common 'esprit de corps' and overcome divisive competition," Brantner added.