EEAS Org Chart

Thanks to the Migrants at Sea blog for this organizational chart of the European External Action Service (EEAS). 

 

EurAmerican has published regularly about the EU's fledgling diplomatic corps, notably its relations with China, last year's disappointing Christmas summit with the US and this op-ed from Washington's The Hill newspaper, focused on the EEAS' presence in the American capital. 

Published on The Hill's CongressBlog

Check out my publication on Washington's view of the EEAS on the CongressBlog of the Washington newspaper The Hill. It's a better and shorter version of this post on EurAmerican from early October. 

On EU Foreign Corps, EU Officials Optimistic, Others Very Skeptical

           The locomotive of the European Union’s nascent diplomatic corps has been picking up speed, with a ribbon-cutting at the service’s new Washington site on Sep. 29^th, and officials in Brussels promising it will be ready to roll before the planned start of December 1st. But critics on both sides of the Atlantic have expressed major doubts as to whether the world can expect an EU foreign agency that can chug its weight.

            Created after the landmark Treaty of Lisbon in December 2009, the European External Action Service (EEAS) will seek to unify the EU’s voice in world diplomatic affairs. Its chief architect, Lady Catherine Ashton, sits as the EU foreign affairs chief and one of several vice presidents of the European Commission. Another key figure is João Vale de Almeida, the EU ambassador to the United States, who has been promoting a strongly optimistic view on the EEAS starting off well this winter.

EU Officials: New Service? No Problem

            The EU’s new service will offer a “a more reliable, more credible, and a more results-oriented partner” to the United States, Almeida pledged in a September interview with Washington’s The Hill newspaper. A Portuguese national and longtime deputy to European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, Almeida arrived in Washington in July amid talk of a “wider mandate” for his ambassadorship.

           

            “My ambition is to move beyond what exists today, to build a stronger and even more positive EU-US agenda with solid bilateral and global pillars,” Almeida said in an August press release, before presenting his credentials at the White House. He promised “an agenda that unlocks the full potential of our economies, promotes joint action in foreign policy, and enhances our capacity as global partners."

            Almeida’s words obliquely addressed critics’ concerns about the EU’s readiness to operate a new diplomatic structure—and a big one at that. As a branch of the Brussels-based European Commission, the EEAS will comprise 8,000 officials, with 800 more EU diplomats dispersed among the agency’s 136 foreign embassies. On budget, the latest estimates from the Devex newswire put the EEAS’ funds at $620 million. (...)

Just What Is "Culture"? UNESCO and American Sensibilities

The Netherlands' NRC Handelsbad printed this op-ed on the early August anointing of Amsterdam's 17th-century canal ring zone by that European (yet curiously, global) behemoth: UNESCO. Arts consultant Michiel Van Irsel editorializes in characteristically Dutch euroskepticism, as the world already saw over the European Constitution referendum in 2005. 

Irsel advises readers to"pretend UNESCO does not exist," lest the specialness of the organization's sites devolve to become "more common than Starbucks."

Sherrod, Wikileaks, and a New Kind of Hill Staffer: The Unpredictable Future of Media

How's this for a sign of the times: an unspecified Republican U.S. Senate office has posted a vacancy for "New Media Director." Usually new/online media falls under the purview of the press staff, but, as far as I know, this is the first explicitly-purposed staff position for new and social networking in a Capitol Hill office. I welcome your comments and insight on this trend.

In other media-related news, the Pew Research Center has compiled a chronological play-by-play of media events during last week's Shirley Sherrod scandal. Sherrod, a black Agriculture Department staffer, found herself under ferocious media scrutiny after having been shown on video allegedly admitting that she denied Ag Dept services to a white farmer because of his race. Her words were posted in a misleading edited video on the biggovernment.com website. Investigations eventually discovered the clip to be a hoax, with a later story suggesting an excerpt taken wildly out of context and edited so as to deliberately mislead news followers. Sherrod was fired, exonerated and re-hired elsewhere in approximately 48 hours.

The event sparked a furious storm of coverage over the facts and, later, a more calm national reflection on the power and speed at which internet-based reporting has shown itself able to derail the more staid world of Washington power politics.

What's most interesting about this ordeal is the gut-jarring impact that the blogosphere has had on Washington's policy circles. The sheer speed at which Sherrod was condemned and then cleared stands as a poignant example of how bloggers and media can harness the speed and vitality of independent blogs and forums -- and the mushroom effect that these can spark once a story (or scandal) hits TV and print outlets. Its repercussions are sure to be felt and discussed well after the dust of the Sherrod story has settled.

Add this to the ongoing Wikileaks controversy -- over highly sensitive US military documents on the war in Afghanistan leaked online -- and you get a foundation-shaking debate on the very "future of journalism." To say nothing of the growing partisanship of, in particular, major TV networks -- whether or not race is involved.

On the transatlantic side of things, the Sherrod affair has taken a backseat to most other European stories. Check out this coverage anyway from France and Switzerland, both in French. The Economist puts things back into big-picture perspective, dubbing the row a US-specific "family affair" with slim potential for greater ripples across the Pond.