EUC Report: EU External Action Service

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Jopling]

My Lords, I begin by following my noble friend Lord Lamont in his tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and to our staff for this report. It is a good report. I particularity want to thank publicly my noble friend Lord Teverson, who has been a very distinguished chairman of the committee. I particularly applaud his initiative in introducing, at most of our sittings, maybe an hour when people come and brief us from the Foreign Office and beyond. It has been a most advantageous innovation and I congratulate him on that.

My noble friend Lord Lamont said that he was the first of the members of Sub-Committee C to speak. I suppose, looking at the list, that I am the last, because after that we come—I hope they will forgive me—to the “heavies”, who will tell us about their previous Brussels experience. Having thanked the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I think that all of us on the committee are glad to see my noble friend Lord Tugendhat, who has such good experience with Brussels. I suppose he is another of the heavies. He will be a very worthy successor to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and we all welcome him on to the committee. I was not aware that the noble Baroness was going to join our committee until she got up. I am sure we will all welcome her in due course, maybe in three days’ time. If she contributes as she has contributed this afternoon, we have good things in store. It was good to have heard what she had to say.

I was particularly glad that the Government—the Foreign Office—gave broad agreement to the report in their response. There are not many things that they demur from, which is a good thing. It is not our job to follow the government line, and I do not think that any of us on the committee want to do that, but it is good to know, after our deliberations, that the Government find themselves in broad agreement with it. This all rather contrasts with the swathing criticism that came upon the head of the EAS from the European Parliament, which was extremely critical of the service. Reading the European Parliament’s report, I just wondered whether it was not too much coloured by a personality conflict with the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. Some of its criticism was not justified.

We have to realise that the service is only two years old. However, it is urgent that, at this time, it comes in for a degree of reassessment and regrouping. I am sure we shall find that coming from the current review. Indeed, the timing of our report was very much based on producing it in the early or middle stages of the review of the service, so that our views could be taken into account by those who are carrying out the current review. I hope they will ask all the right questions. My noble friend Lord Lamont raised a good many of those questions, as did the chairman.

In this context, I always remember the question that our old friend Lord Peyton used to ask. I think a number of noble Lords here will remember Lord Peyton of Yeovil, who was a somewhat abrasive character. I worked with John Peyton in opposition many, many years ago. He used to go around places and say to people who were doing various jobs, “Tell me, what do you do, and who benefits?”. I hope that the review will ask those sorts of questions and come to the sort of conclusions, which my noble friend Lord Lamont referred to, about what we want the External Action Service to do. I hope that they will take note in the review of what we have had to say.

Clearly, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton has been hugely overstretched and it is an achievement to have got the EAS up and running within these first two years. However, I wonder whether the architects of the service, who put together the Lisbon treaty, realised what a massive task it was and what huge, varied responsibilities were to be put upon its head. Years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, and I were on this committee when the service was originally mooted. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, also had a good deal to do with this many years ago. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Williamson—I hope he will not mind me quoting him—pointing out what a massive and wide responsibility was being proposed. Therefore, it is not surprising that the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton has been massively overfaced with the responsibilities that she has had. The pressure on her must be addressed.

In the United Kingdom we are familiar with the position of junior Ministers operating within departments under the responsibility of their political heads. In 2014, when the new Commission is appointed and the new responsibilities are apportioned, it would be wise at the same time to appoint deputies. These should not be the people who, as the European Parliament has described, sit representing the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton “like lemons”. They need to be there as deputies, with proper powers to represent the high representative and vice-president of the Commission. The more I think about this the more I think it needs a structure that is not dissimilar to the ministerial structure that we enjoy in Whitehall.

As I said, there is much to be done. The salary rates need to be reviewed and made comparable with other diplomats’. I noticed in the European Parliament report—I quote from the Daily Telegraph—that more than 100 European Union diplomats working in the Brussels-based Diplomatic Service earn more than William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, and at least 50 senior officials pocket higher salaries than David Cameron’s prime ministerial annual salary of £142,500. The rates clearly need to be addressed, and we have put that in our report.

Missions need to be closed where they are not effective or where responsibilities are duplicated. All that should lead, hopefully, to better co-operation with member states’ missions in the countries concerned. There are too many of the alleged “turf wars” going on, a point to which the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred. We must try to get a better understanding so that these turf wars do not exist.

There is one point in the report on which I have had second thoughts. Of course I recognise that the EEAS can provide representation in some countries where smaller European states have no presence. This especially concerns consulate services. We say in our report that if the EEAS were to provide consular services for some smaller states, those small states should be asked to pay for them. On reflection, though, that was a dangerous thing to open the door to. The service, as we say in our report, has no consular expertise at all, and to start trying to provide it could easily lead to tears. In all states around the world where there is an EEAS presence, there are other embassies that provide consular services, and it would be far better if those smaller countries that seek a consular presence in those countries sought to provide it through the consular services of existing embassies and high commissions rather than trying to start from scratch within the EEAS.

In conclusion, I am bound to say that it is almost as difficult to say EEAS as it is to talk about the atomic energy authority in Vienna, whose name I cannot remember.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

My Lords, speaking as a non-member of the committee that produced this report, I join those who have paid tribute to its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He has been famous for some time for his skill in chairmanship. I had not quite grasped how skilful he is until I heard the terms in which the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, supported his report. I detected a slight element of dissent here and there, yet, looking at the report, I discover it is unanimous. I congratulate the chairman on his skill.

I also congratulate him on and join with him in what he said about the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland. That tribute is very well deserved. What she has done on reconciliation between Kosovo and Serbia is quite remarkable and puts her up in the pantheon of those Members of this House who have made a real contribution to reconciliation and peacemaking in the Balkans. One could mention the noble Lords, Lord Carrington, Lord Owen and, particularly, perhaps, Lord Ashdown. We should note that what looked like a hospital pass has resulted in scoring a rather brilliant try. The game is not over, it is not even half-time, but she is doing extremely well.

So one has to ask oneself: is the European Parliament correct in its criticism? Are those who carp about the External Action Service and about the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, right? I think that they need to ask themselves: in what situations is the Union prepared to allow the high representative to take the lead? First, there has to be a degree of common policy among the member states. For example, in Libya or Mali, she could not take the lead. The Germans even abstained in the General Assembly on the resolution. The Union was not united. The same, I fear, applies now in Syria.

The report is slightly Panglossian when it suggests that the External Action Service should focus particularly on the places that are of most importance to us in economic and security terms. Suppose that the noble Baroness tried to take the lead on China. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, is right that the member states would not be prepared to allow her to do so. On the other hand, I think that the noble Lord is wrong when he says that there is no role for EU diplomacy, as distinct from member state diplomacy, on human rights. Sometimes, people find that there is safety in numbers. When one is dealing with, say, China or Russia, as we see, receiving the Dalai Lama can have consequences and criticising the murder of Litvinenko in London can have consequences. Sometimes, member states feel braver about speaking up for human rights if they are speaking up collectively. There may well be a role for the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, there. Basically, the tasks that the Council tends to entrust to her are the ones that it thinks are too difficult. It is no accident that she plays a leading and very successful role on the P3+3 process with Iran. That was seen to be too difficult for any one of us to tackle on our own. We were very happy to put her in charge, and we were not all rushing forward saying, “We will handle Serbia and Kosovo”. When one accuses the service and its head of not yet having done a great deal, one should remember the constraints that we impose and the subjects that we pick for her.

I agree with a lot of things in this report. Unfortunately, on a couple of things with which I wish to disagree, my fox has just been shot by the noble Lord, Lord Jopling. He is entirely correct about consular work.

[Lord Jopling]

I hope that the noble Lord understands that I would never dream of shooting a fox.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

A dull, grey metaphorical fox, not a beautiful red one.

The treaty is quite clear. Any citizen of the Union may seek consular assistance from the embassy of any Union member state. Of course, a financial transaction will properly follow. Suppose that an independent Scotland required consular services provided from the Foreign Office in its posts abroad, the bill might be quite substantial. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is right, and I think that the report is wrong. The Government agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jopling; perhaps they always do, perhaps it is the noble Lord who moves the Government on these matters.

On the central problem of overload addressed in the report, I think that the committee got it completely right. It is not the case that there was no thinking about how it would work. There was a lot of thinking and worry in the original Convention in which the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, served with such distinction. There was a text on the External Action Service produced by the Convention which was deliberately not put into the treaty so that it would not be subjected to the delays of ratification but people could start planning and building the External Action Service so that it was ready to go on day one. Unfortunately, they did not. However, that text did some of the thinking about what the External Action Service should do and what it is for.

As for the job of high representative, all of us in the Convention assumed that there would be two political deputies. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is right that they are needed. We assumed that there would be a political deputy whose job would be to chair the Council when the high representative was on a mission, to undertake some missions for the high representative and, particularly, to maintain contact with national Parliaments. The report is slightly pusillanimous on the relationship with national Parliaments. At paragraph 85 we are told that:

“The scrutiny role of the European Parliament should not go beyond its current level, as foreign policy is primarily inter-governmental and scrutiny should therefore be performed at the national parliamentary level”.

Yes, by national Parliaments. Physician, heal thyself. We need to devise a way of doing it. There also has to be a docking point. There has to be someone at the other end who is ready to talk to us. That is the political deputy high representative.

The problem is even greater inside the Commission. We all assumed that there would be another commissioner who would co-ordinate external relations dossiers, working to the vice-president external relations, which is the other title of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. That has not happened. We could not put it into the treaty because the definition as well as the allocation of commissioner portfolios is the prerogative of the incoming President of the Commission. However, we all assumed that it would happen, and I am very puzzled that it has not. I hope that in the next Commission it will happen. If people remember that the high representative is also the vice-president of the Commission, and if she is helped to do what used to be done by the Relex group of external relations commissioners—this is where the overload has shown most—the situation will improve considerably. I hope that will happen.

I should like to pick up on the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, about the purpose of the External Action Service. I was a convert to it before I worked for the Convention. When the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, was commissioner in charge of external relations, he made a good appointment to head the Commission’s office in Washington. He appointed an Irish ex-Prime Minister, John Bruton, and John handled the job in a way that no one had done previously. It had been seen as a great job for a trade policy expert, trade policy being seen as an Eleusinian mystery, with high priests working with incense in darkened rooms.

Trade policy is hugely political. The point about trade policy, particularly in a place such as Washington, is to be known on the Hill and to be up there all the time, to be good on television and to be on television often, all the things that John Bruton was extremely good at. I am very sorry that his successor was not another political appointee. However, the External Action Service is supposed to be about producing secondees or breeding its own talent, people who do not only know about the subject but have the communication, diplomatic and lobbying skills which made Bruton so successful.

When Javier Solana, a distinguished Foreign Minister and Secretary-General of NATO, moved from NATO to do the job of high representative, he told me that he discovered that he was entitled when abroad to the assistance of a small council office in New York, a council office in Geneva and nothing more. The Commission sent out an instruction to all its delegations around the world that no assistance was to be provided to the high representative as he worked for the member states and was nothing to do with it. When he went to Washington, Javier Solana would go to call on member states’ ambassadors, but he had to book his own hotel. That is why dual-hatting—and it may seem eccentric—makes sense. Bringing together the two jobs of the high representative and the vice president in charge of the external dossiers of the Commission is, in principle, a good idea if it is put into practice. All these budgetary problems disappear. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, is right, and I agree with him. There is no need to have this nonsense because the person responsible for these posts abroad is a vice president in the Commission as well as being a high representative.

I do not think there is such a thing as a purely technical mission. I think this report flirts with error when it suggests that the EAS should have no role in purely technical missions and should back off from where they are all trade, aid or humanitarian aid. I do not think so at all. What matters for effective trade or development policy is adequate access to heads of state and Governments and the ability to project what we are trying to do in the country in ways that are understandable—languages matter very much, as the noble Baroness said—and acceptable to the country. We need a more professional External Action Service, but we should not regard any of the jobs of any of the delegations around the world as unsuitable to be done by, or at least to be done under the guidance of, that service.

It is a pity that our Government still take such a defensive approach to the build up of this service. I hope that that will improve. I share the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, about whether it is always wise to be so ferocious, usually on our own, while 26 others take a different view, on every last detail on the frontiers of competence.

I hope that the dual-hatted job will be built up still more and the External Action Service will bed down. The record so far, though patchy, is one on which the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, deserves all our congratulations.