EU's Washington appointment triggers spat

Feb 22, 2010, 13:04 GMT

Brussels - The appointment of a European Union insider to one of the bloc's top diplomatic postings in Washington triggered a spat Monday as EU foreign ministers said that they had not been consulted.

The clash hints at a power struggle behind the scenes between the EU's national capitals and its central bureaucracy, the European Commission, as the bloc tries to set up a brand-new diplomatic corps.

'There was evidently a decision taken by the commission last week to downgrade the way in which we are represented in Washington ... I'm not quite certain it sends the right signal at this time,' Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said as he arrived in Brussels for regular talks with EU counterparts.

Diplomats from a number of other member states said that they had not been consulted on the appointment of the EU's new head of mission - effectively an ambassador - to the US.

Under the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which came into force in December, the bloc is due to set up a shared diplomatic service to give it more clout in international affairs. The EU's new foreign-policy director, Catherine Ashton, is tasked with creating the corps.

On Wednesday, Ashton proposed Joao Vale de Almeida, former chief of staff to commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, as the new EU head of mission in Washington - one of the EU's most important diplomatic posts. The body of commissioners approved the appointment.

Almeida is 'a top civil servant, a senior official of the European Commission who has comprehensive and enormous experience in both European affairs and international relations,' commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said Monday.

In the days before the Lisbon treaty, the commission maintained its own delegation in Washington, and therefore appointed its top officials without consulting member states.

But under Lisbon, the commission delegation becomes a full EU embassy, and is expected to represent member states.

Almeida's appointment therefore raised eyebrows in some capitals, with Bildt calling for foreign ministers to debate it.

'I don't know which motives the commission had for that. I'm not quite sure that that is in conformity with the Lisbon ambitions we should have, but we'll see,' he said.

Hansen said that she was not aware of member states' irritation. Separately, commission officials said that the body had had to use the pre-Lisbon system to appoint Almeida because no new system yet exists to appoint top diplomats.

The creation of the EU's External Action Service has already raised tensions between member states.

Smaller members and newcomers from Central and Eastern Europe say that the process is being dominated by a handful of major states such as Britain, France and Germany.