Juncker seeks greater control over foreign policy
The high representative will move to the European Commission headquarters and half of her cabinet must be made up of Commission staff.
Analysts have been fervently reading the tea leaves since yesterday’s unveiling of Jean-Claude Juncker’s grand restructuring of the European Commission. Each policy area looks to be profoundly affected, and this includes foreign policy.
Juncker has made some decisions that show he wants closer links to the office of the European Union’s foreign policy chief. He has asked her to work out of the European Commission’s headquarters in the Berlaymont building, rather than out of the offices of the European External Action Service (EEAS) across the road. This will integrate her work more closely with that of the Commission. He also wants half of her cabinet positions to be filled by Commission staff.
“To liaise more effectively with the other members of the college, following your suggestion, you will have your headquarters in the Berlaymont, and the Commission will put a cabinet of an appropriate size at your disposal, about half of which will be Commission officials,” Juncker instructed the new foreign policy chief, Italy’s Federica Mogherini, in his mandate letter, yesterday.
Catherine Ashton was appointed as the first foreign policy chief, called the ‘High representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy’, in 2009. At first it was unclear where she would set up her office, and the formation of her cabinet took much longer than expected. Her eventual decision to locate in the EEAS headquarters signalled a closer link with member states than with the Commission.
Over the course of the term Ashton’s presence was rarely seen at the Commission, and she was often not in attendance at college meetings. Though she was meant to regularly convene a group of commissioners with portfolios related to foreign affairs, she never attended any such meeting.
In the restructured Commission, Mogherini will head a project team of four commissioners under the heading ‘a stronger global actor’. Her team will include Johannes Hahn, commissioner for European neighbourhood policy and enlargement, Cecilia Malmström, commissioner for trade, Neven Mimica, commissioner for international co-operation and development, and Christos Stylianides, commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management.
Juncker said in his letter to Mogherini that he wants this team to meet “at least twice a month”.
Juncker’s letters to the four commissioners in the foreign policy team also suggest a stronger Commission role. He wrote to Hahn, “the focus of your work should be on strengthening the EU’s political and economic ties with its southern and eastern neighbourhood.” He said Hahn should be “working with the commissioners responsible for other relevant policies to ensure that the European neighbourhood dimension is appropriately reflected in our activities”.
The EEAS, which Mogherini will head, will remain a separate institution from the European Commission and the European Council. But Juncker’s changes may give the Commission as much influence as member states over the coming term.
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