Well, well, well.  The Daily Telegraph on Friday reported that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is expected to resign “within months.” According to the unnamed EU source at the heart of the story:

This particular rumour, that she plans to leave after a few months in the job, has been circulating in Brussels since early February or so. At the time, with Ashton heavily under fire for not going to earthquake-struck Haiti, it was anybody’s guess where it might have started.

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, is running an article on the back of the Telegraph piece alleging that former EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson is behind the “whispering campaign.” This seems to have come from someone in Ashton’s circle who remarked:

“When I saw the report I immediately thought of Mandelson. It has his fingerprints all over it.”

Mandelson, who has the reputation in Britain of being a wily operator with more than his fair share of political lives, was one of those keen to get the EU foreign policy post. In the end, Ashton – a novice to diplomacy – secured it by virtue of being both from the left and a woman. An arbitrary set of criteria , arrived at due to a deal by Europe’s two main political families. (Incidentally, Mandelson seems to have a spokesperson who is as adept as his political master at issuing apparently supportive statements, which reveal themselves to be insults at second glance. “He thinks she is doing quite a reasonable job.”)

(According to the Daily Mail, Mandelson started the rumour mill because he is “planning to become the next British foreign secretary.”  )

Still, it is interesting that the report comes now just when the worst of the criticism – concerning her ability to get the job done – seems to have receded. At least from the public arena. (She secured a major victory earlier this week when member states gave the greenlight to her diplomatic service blueprint.)

At one stage in late January, early February, it seemed that barely a day would go by without a negative headline about her. (The less-than-stellar coverage was a factor both of her obvious lack of experience and the belated realisation that the Lisbon Treaty per se is not a solution to the EU foreign policy woes, but only a means to a solution.)

Personally, I have always wondered whether she would be able to stick out for the full five years. It’s a gruelling and rather thankless job – you are only as successful as the 27-strong group of big-egoed foreign policy ministers behind you allow you to be. And Ashton has previously indicated how much family life matters to her – and there is no room for that with this job.

But it would make little sense be on “the verge” of resignation as the Telegraph source suggests. The diplomatic service, which her aides say she sees as her “legacy” will likely not even be up and running for several months. If she wants to own it in terms of credit, then it needs to established and working. Only then will she be remembered as the EU’s first foreign minister.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, the High Representative has to be approved by a qualified majority of EU leaders with the agreement of the commission president. Parliament would also get a say via a hearing.

A potentially bigger shake-up, involving the merry-go-round of a wider commission re-shuffle, would mean parliament is bound to ask for a vote on the shake-down. Not a pretty prospect.

I suspect she will not resign soon but neither do I think she will last the full five years. She just does not seem to be enough of a political animal to want to do the job for so long.  I think talk of a change in the post might naturally start occurring when EU council president Herman Van Rompuy’s post is automatically up for renewal in 2012. The two posts are not linked in terms of the treaty – Ashton’s post runs through to 2014. But they have been intertwined politically by the criteria used to choose them.

Two and half years would be a respectable innings time-wise. And by then, it really will be clear whether she was ultimately up to the job. A resignation now would just mean failure. And who wants that on their CV?