Archive for category EU foreign policy

Last week I wrote an article about Baroness Ashton’s poor track record of attendance at European Commission meetings. It stirred up debate so I thought it worth coming back to.

It’s all matter of record, along with the rest of the “college”, see here. To recap: for the last 42 meetings of the European Commission college, Jan 6 2010 to Jan 4 2011, she was totally absent for 17, 40 per cent. She was not present for the entire meeting on 11 occasions (26 per cent) but managed to make it for 14 (34 per cent).

Gratuitously cruel photo is courtesy of European Commission, she's the one on the left

These figures are, in fact, a charitable estimate for, as one official told me, my count is for the full year and not since February 9 2010 when the new commission was formed. In that case her non-attendance rate rises to 44 per cent.

Before writing the article, I sent the figures to various EU contacts I have both within and without the commission to ask whether the record was a bad one. The answer, unanimously, was “it’s bad”. I also emailed the results to her office, to confirm the particulars and to give her people over 24 hours to respond.

Even so, and typically, in a letter to the Telegraph (published) James Morrison, Lady Ashton’s prickly chef de cabinet, disputed the figures. “A new year but the same distortion in your story about Catherine Ashton’s attendance record at European Commission meetings. An attendance record of more than 60 per cent at Commission meetings is astonishing,” he wrote.

The “astonishing” record is less than 60 per cent as the figures show – but never mind, EU rebuttals never let the facts get in the way of a good denunciation. Morrison, rightly defending Lady Ashton’s punishing schedule as a “double-hatted” High Rep and commission VP (of which more later), went on to make a frankly incredible statement.

“Catherine Ashton is well known as one of the hardest working people in Brussels,” he fibbed, squinting through rose tinted spectacles and crossing his fingers behind his back.

Lady Ashton, who has never been elected to public office, is known for but a few things and being “one of the hardest working people in Brussels” is not one of them. In fact, her contempt for working in Brussels, and disdain for commission meetings is as well known as her track record of NOT being in the right place at the right time.

Ronny Patz, over on Ideas on Europe, dissects both Morrison’s claims and my article – read it here, while not a natural ally (as I’m sure he would be the first to admit) he draws similar conclusions, using a slightly different counting methodology.

Lady Ashton has a difficult job juggling the demands of her foreign policy role – which is tough enough – as well as a position as a commission vice-president and Britain’s commissioner. Half of the problem is with her but the other half is with EU institutions.

EU foreign policy has an inbuilt tension: it demands both visibility and invisibility; being seen in places like post-earthquake Haiti and being involved in the tortuous behind closed doors, the nitty gritty, of diplomatic negotiations. With the launch of the EEAS, some of Lady Ashton’s problems may get easier. Pierre Vimont, for example, the EEAS’s secretary general, took the strain on the Cote d’Ivoire crisis – although some still believe that she was too slow off the mark allowing France, the ex-colonial power, to dominate proceedings.

Her structural problem is the Lisbon Treaty’s absurd “double hat” arrangement where she is both EU High Representative and commission VP. Despite being in a unique position, unlike any other commissioner, Jose Manuel Barroso, the EC president has refused to allow any rule changes to allow Lady Ashton to deputise or video conference for meetings.

The Council of the EU, an equally august institution, allows ministers to deputise, even for votes – why can’t the commission? When Lady Ashton cannot attend one of her officials takes her chair (usually a pretty junior one, who cannot speak regardless of seniority). Votes under the Soviet-style “Hebdo” system almost never occur but if she is not there the CFSP does not have an authoritative voice in the commission, negating the whole idea of the “double hat” in the first place. If the presence of commissioners at the “college” is irrelevant under the Hebdo system (a weekly meeting of chefs de cabinet), then what are they for?

One of the most enduring euro-fantasies, both from phobes and philes, is the myth that commissioners (as per their oath) do not “take instructions” from national states or governments. Of course, as everyone knows, from the outrageously chauvinist Antonio Tajani to the urbanely discreet Michel Barnier, all commissioners are also national politicians and often speak in meetings to reflect the concerns of “the country they know best”. Lady Ashton’s difficulties in engaging with her commission job are universally recognised as something of a problem for Britain by all parties, officials, MEPs, MPs, and national diplomats, that I have spoken to.

Needless to say, from inside the High Rep’s bubble, where all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, Morrison sees it otherwise. “Even when Catherine Ashton is not able to attend the European Commission’s weekly meeting, the process in Brussels ensures that her voice is heard and that her views are fully reflected in Commission decisions,” he hallucinates.

Lady Ashton has a very difficult job and her difficulties have been compounded by the commission’s vindictive refusal to make life easier for her, a resented institutional rival who has taken DGs, staff and power away from the Berlaymont/Charlemagne HQ to create a new EU foreign service.

But – and it’s a very big BUT – the defining question is one of political character.

As a Labour peer, appointed as an act of political cronyism to Britain’s undemocratic House of Lords, Lady Ashton does not possess the political nous or commitment of an elected politician. Apart from one or two months last year, she has shown herself to be unwilling to travel or work over weekends. Working Monday to Friday might be fine for a jobsworth public official or serial quango/Lords appointee but it’s not good enough for an EU foreign minister. People who want to change the world have to give up prosaic ideas like the work/life balance.

Let’s be brutal. Lady Ashton, outside her commendable past in CND, has never fought for politics. Her career (note the word) has been a conveyor belt of appointments. Her place in the current job is based on an unlikely sequence of events akin to someone winning the lottery rather than any political contest or test of merit.

The lack of public persona is evidenced by her extreme aversion to the media, which she dislikes intensely for having criticised her. Lady Ashton prefers closed meetings to public question and answer.

One of my colleagues was told security guards would throw her out of  a press briefing with Lady Ashton if she asked forbidden questions. Another, investigating an EEAS mission in Africa was threatened with the police unless she desisted, a real threat in that part of the world. A new spin doctor – see here – was to be chosen from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to try and patch up the damage but, as the rumour has it, his salary costs are too high, even for the EU.

She has also failed to relocate to Brussels, choosing to juggle her life on London’s chatterati circuit, where her husband Peter Kellner is a big player, with her EU job. An elected politico, perhaps such as David Miliband who was the first person lined up for the job, would realise that political life takes more commitment. Being a national foreign minister, let alone the EU’s, is a seven day operation. Politics has no room for part-timers and nor should it.

Political respect is earned. It is not conferred by office. Lady Ashton hasn’t earned it – not yet.

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Happy new year to all