The slides are about the contemporary practice of diplomacy by the EEAS.

1. Week 10 European Diplomacy
Topic: European
External Action
Service (EEAS)
Establishment of the
European External
Action Service
Composition and
Functions of the EEAS
EEAS and the
member states of the
EU
Does the EU
transform the
institution of
diplomacy?

2. Cont-
• Readings:
• The European External Action Service (EEAS) Ana E. Juncos, School of
Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol and
Karolina Pomorska, Department of Political Science, Leiden University.
• Federica Bicchi & Niklas Bremberg (2016) European diplomatic practices:
contemporary challenges and innovative approaches, European Security,
25:4, 391-406, DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2016.1237941
• Further reading
• Bátora, J. (2005) Does the European Union transform the institution of
diplomacy? Journal of European Public Policy, 12:1,pp. 44-66.
• Hill, C & Wong, R. (2011), National and European Foreign Policy: Towards
Europeanization, West European Politics, April, 1-25

3. Creation of the European External Action Service
(EEAS): An Introduction
•The European External Action Service (EEAS) is a unique
institution on the global stage. Its creation resulted from an
attempt to build a fully fledged diplomatic service of a
union that brings together 27 nation-states.
•The creation of the EEAS and an office similar to a minister
for foreign affairs became a central part of the
recommendations of the Convention for Europe, which
took place between 2001 and 2003.

4. The Establishment of the EEAS
•The Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force
on December 1, 2009, finally brought to life both the
EEAS and the high representative of the Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and vice president of
the Commission—hereafter high representative.

5. Cont-
•The EEAS was formally established by the Lisbon Treaty,
which came into force on December 1, 2009. Led by the
EU’s High Representative, the new service was to
comprise staff brought from the European Commission,
the Council Secretariat General, and from the diplomatic
services of the EU member states. As such, its
establishment was hailed as the “most ambitious reform
effort in European foreign policy, ever” (Lehne, 2011, p. 2)

6. Cont-
• The Lisbon Treaty did not provide details about the
composition and functioning of the new organization,
and these had to be subsequently ironed out in inter
institutional negotiations, which culminated in the
adoption of the Council Decision of July 26,
2010 (Council of the EU, 2010). It took two long years,
however, to create the service, which only became
operational in January 2011

7. EEAS Composition and Functions
• EEAS is under the authority of the High Representative/Vice
President (HRVP)
•Regarding the composition of the EEAS, it was foreseen
that at least 60% at the AD level (administrators) should
come from EU institutions (i.e., European Commission and
Council Secretariat), with officials from the diplomatic
services of the EU member states representing at least a
third of EEAS officials.

8. Cont-
•In order to reach this figure, the staff regulations
adopted in October 2010 state that, until June
30, 2013, priority for certain posts in the EEAS
should be given to national diplomats in case of
substantially equal qualifications (European
Union, 2010b, p. 8).

9. Cont-
•In terms of its functions, it would be wrong to equate
the EEAS with a “foreign ministry,” since as well as
hosting the EU delegations it also includes elements
from defense, development, and trade ministries
built into it. The EEAS not only supports the EU’s
external representation, but it is also in charge of
planning and implementing EU Common Security
and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations and missions.

10. • EEAS is tasked with supporting the high representative
in fulfilling her threefold mandate: (1) to conduct the
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and to
ensure the consistency of the EU’s action; (2) in her
capacity as chair of the Foreign Affairs Council; and (3)
in her capacity as the vice president of the European
Commission (Council of the EU, 2010: Art. 2).

11. Cont-
•In June 2013, the proportion of national diplomats
reached 32.9% (EEAS, 2013). From July 1, 2013, posts were
opened to officials from other EU institutions, such as the
European Parliament. The transfer of staff from the
European Commission (mostly DG External Relations
[Relex] and DG Development [DEV]) and the General
Secretariat of the Council took place en masse on January
1, 2011.

12. Cont-
•This was followed by the gradual employment of
national diplomats. Unlike in the national
ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs), military
personnel, working for the EU Military Staff,
were also to form part of the EEAS.
•EU delegations fulfill most traditional diplomatic
functions as per the 1961 Vienna Convention on
Diplomatic Relations

13. Cont-
•EU delegations have gradually enhanced their role in
political reporting and devote a great amount of
time to coordinating the positions of EU member
states in third countries and international
organizations.
•Assessing the role of EU delegations in their first
years of existence, Austermann (2014) argued that
this development has contributed to “the
centralisation” of European diplomacy.

14. • However, this centralization has taken place at varied
speeds, with the delegations asserting a stronger role
vis-à-vis developing partners than when it comes to
third countries where EU member states have a
stronger economic or political interest. Thus, rather
than replacing national diplomacies, EU delegations
have continued working with and alongside them
(Bicchi & Maurer, 2018, p. 13).

15. The EEAS and the Member States
•The study of the EEAS also provides an opportunity to
examine the role of the member states in EU foreign
policy. In particular, their approach to the EEAS exposes
long-standing political disagreements between the
member states regarding the role of the EU in foreign and
security issues.

16. Cont-
• The creation of the EEAS challenged the ability of the
state to monopolize symbolic power, and the
possibility of its future growth caused uneasiness in
the MFAs (Adler-Nissen, 2014). The creation of the
EEAS also responded to the desire to avoid a
“communitarisation” of EU foreign policy, by creating
an organization, which, unlike the European
Commission, was to remain under the control of the
member states.

17. •In their approach to the EEAS, member states have shared
two concerns: the need to achieve greater efficiency and
cost effectiveness (Wright, 2013, p. 21). For instance,
practical “burden-sharing,” through the co-location of
national diplomats in EU delegations, is generally
perceived as favorable and as a form of added value by
the EEAS.
•There is reluctance of the member states to lose control in
this key policy area. Thus, in the contest to retain/gain
influence, consular representation has become a key area
of contention.

18. Cont-
•Member states remain divided on how far the EU
competence should reach, with some arguing positively
for the effective use of resources and some even arguing
that the EEAS should be given the responsibility of issuing
short-term Schengen visas (Wouters & Duquet, 2012, p.
43).
• Other member states are opposed to any further steps in
this direction, claiming the issue is “a purely national
competence” (Wessel & Van Vooren, 2013, p. 1361).

19. Does the EU transform
traditional diplomacy of
a modern state?

20. •A general answer would be NO!
•The fact that the EU is developing its own diplomatic
structures in an isomorphic (corresponding or similar in
form and relations.)manner is in line with the overall
pattern of new states establishing their presence in
the diplomatic system.
• What is novel and challenging, though, is the fact
that the EU is not a state, and still it is developing a
legal personality.

21. Cont-
•For Diplomacy to be institutionalized the need for an outlined
set of institutional features upon which diplomacy rests is an
important condition.
•But in the case of EU as can be seen in the example :
there is ambiguity in relation to the diplomatic status of the
heads of EU delegations, who ‘are ambassadors by rank and
title, ... [but] are basically asked to conceal this fact’ (Bruter
1999: 190). The conditions under which the EU delegations
perform diplomatic activities are therefore fundamentally
atypical (not representative of the group)(Bruter 1999: 185).

22. • Incase of the EU’s diplomatic practices– it raises the
question of who are legitimate participants in the
diplomatic exchange, what is legitimate conduct and
legitimate principles regulating diplomatic actions,
what are the professional values and norms that steer
the work of diplomatic agents, and not least what
language is appropriate?

23. Cont-
two alternatives:
•the EU becomes a state;
•the global diplomatic system will be transformed
owing to the adoption of new standards allowing
non-state entities (such as the EU) to act as
standard diplomatic actors on a par with states.

24. • Each of these represents radically different potential
trajectories of change and is evidence of the fact that
the EU at this point in its development indeed is a
challenge to the established Westphalian interstate
order, while it is at the same time also evidence of the
fact that the EU could be in the process of becoming a
fully-fledged state, which would undermine the
ambition of the EU to become an innovative way of
organizing governance beyond the state.

25. The EU may not have
transformed diplomacy but it
has challenged the practices of
diplomacy.

26. Diplomacy as appropriateness of practices
has been challenged by the EU.
•Taking diplomacy as the embodiment of a set of
logics of appropriateness associated with the
nation-state in world politics. It simplifies the
complexities of events enabling classification of
situations, determining legitimate actors and
legitimate options for action.
•

27. Cont-
•The collection of foreign ministries forms an
organizational field through which standards and notions
of appropriateness are being distributed in an isomorphic
manner to states around the world.
•This means that diplomats form a global professional
community with a shared set of values, practices,
behavioral patterns, professional language and identity,
perpetuated by similar recruitment methods and
socialization.

28. How the EU has challenged Diplomacy?
•The process of European integration challenges these
established notions of appropriateness within the
diplomatic organizational field in at least three ways.
•The first challenge is most obvious at the level of bilateral
relations between member states of the Union, which are
conducted in the common European legal environment.
There may be a metamorphosis of diplomacy towards an
intra-European mode of bilateral relations marked by the
absence of the threat of intra-European war.

29. • This in turn moves the attention of member states’
intra-European diplomatic efforts from the traditional
preoccupation with mutual threats to national
security towards shared strategies of ensuring
common security, and towards other agendas such as
trade, human rights, cultural issues and regional co-
operation.

30. Cont-
• It is so far uncertain whether common standards for the intra-
European mode of diplomacy are evolving or whether the
member states’ involvement in intra-European diplomacy has a
fragmented character in terms of structures, procedures and
norms applied by the respective foreign ministries. Nevertheless,
it seems plausible to expect the member states’ foreign services
to gradually develop additional set/s of norms, structures,
procedures and language regulating their participation in the
mode of relations with fellow member states of the Union.

31. •The second challenge that European integration poses to
diplomacy can be recorded in particular at the central level
of the EU administration in Brussels in the multilateral
setting of the Council.
•As permanent representatives of member states to the EU,
diplomats have traditionally had the key role in forging
treaties constituting the legal-political framework of the
Union in negotiations behind closed doors, which at first
glance appears to be congruent with the diplomats’
traditional role as exclusive managers of foreign policies of
their respective states.

32. Cont-
• The negotiations within COREPER('Committee of the
Permanent Representatives of the Governments of
the Member States to the European Union), however,
feature a set of institutionalized interactions with the
Commission, the Presidency and the Parliament,
which creates a series of ambiguities about the
diplomats’ role and brings about democratization of
diplomatic processes.

33. •recent explorative processes of treaty
development through the Convention method
have introduced new standards of openness and
inclusiveness representing a metamorphosis of
the role of diplomats from gatekeepers to
process facilitators and participants.

34. • Finally, the development of the EU’s capacity to conduct external
diplomatic relations challenges the role of states as the only
legitimate participants in the transnational diplomatic system.
• The fact that the EU mimics the transnationally distributed
standards for organizing diplomacy and tries to implement
socialization procedures normal at national foreign ministries to
enable its representatives to have a more diplomat-like behaviour
indicates that the EU attempts to gain more legitimacy as a
member of the global organizational field of diplomacy.
development would transform the field in its entirety.

35. • Yet, owing to its non-state nature and supranational
character, the EU as a legitimate member of the global
diplomatic field could imply the introduction of
completely new standards. This raises the question
whether such a development would transform the
field of traditional diplomacy in entirety.

36. •Romano Prodi suggests, Europe’s role in global
governance is that of replicating the European
experience on a global scale (both quoted in Kagan
2002), the question arises whether the new logic of
diplomatic appropriateness emerging in Europe
may be carried by the pressures within the global
diplomatic organizational field also beyond the EU
territory. Could diplomacy be Europeanized once
again, and if so, what would then be left of
diplomacy as we know it?