Ashton takes over foreign policy reins

The EU’s new high representative will have to be a quick learner to get to grips with her new job.

The European Union’s new institutional arrangements for managing foreign policy will be given a baptism of fire next week with a flurry of summits and international negotiations.

Catherine Ashton will take up office as the European Union’s foreign policy chief on Tuesday (1 December), having been chosen for her new job on Thursday (19 November) by national government leaders who also named Herman Van Rompuy to be president of the European Council. The same day, the long-awaited Treaty of Lisbon enters into force.

The next day, Ashton will face questions from MEPs about her suitability for the post, before travelling to Kiev for an EU-Ukraine summit on 4 December. She will attend – but she will not chair – the monthly meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers in Brussels on 7-8 December.

Ashton, who is currently the European commissioner for trade, will attend only the opening of a three-day meeting of trade ministers at the World Trade Organization in Geneva on Monday (30 November). Mariann Fischer Boel, the European commissioner for agriculture, will represent the Commission on 1-2 December.

But José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, is expected to announce that Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the current European commissioner for external relations, will replace Ashton as the European commissioner for trade for the next two months, until the next Commission takes office.

Barroso is also expected to say that Ferrero-Waldner will retain responsibility for the European neighbourhood policy and external assistance. But officials said that this would not prejudge the final division of labour between the European External Action Service, which will report to Ashton, and those foreign relations services that may remain part of the European Commission.

It is understood that initially Ashton will work from the Commission’s Charlemagne building, home of the trade and external relations departments.

Her first hurdle will be an interrogation by the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Wednesday. Her relations with the Parliament while trade commissioner have been good, but UK Independence Party and Czech conservative MEPs have flagged up concern about her past employment working for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Fact File

The departing act for Javier Solana, who has held the office of EU foreign policy chief for the last ten years, will be to attend Monday’s EU-China summit in Nanjing, accompanied by Barroso and Ferrero-Waldner.

The coming into force of the Lisbon treaty on Tuesday will significantly increase the powers of the Parliament. MEPs will gain powers of co-decision with the Council of Ministers over agriculture and fisheries policy and international trade agreements. Legislation in the fields of criminal law and police co-operation also become subject to co-decision. MEPs will gain power over all areas of EU budgetary expenditure. Until now, they have not been able to decide spending on agriculture and fisheries policies.

The Lisbon treaty also strengthens the powers of national parliaments, which can ask the Commission to reconsider proposals that they consider do not respect the principle of subsidiarity.

UPDATE: A Commission official said on Thursday that, for the moment, Ashton will continue to work from the office that she has in the Berlaymont, the Commission headquarters.