Friday, May 30, 2008

Milliband fibs on EU diplomacy

Feeling somewhat fatheaded this morning, what with the MEP Facebook story doing the rounds, and an earlier post being picked up in a more substantive piece about the creation of the European Diplomatic Corps, or European External Action Service. The Telegraph reports that, as we all know, the EU 's plans for the external action service are well advanced, despite them not having a legal base until the full ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

Miliband's protestations of innocence are flimsy at best,

"While the commission or member states may draw up or circulate ideas for an external action service those ideas will have no status until they are agreed by all member states including the UK. There will be no final agreement until ratification is complete"
Pull the other one. The EEAS is up and running already, all that is going on now is some switching of the furniture. The idea that in order to placate the British,

"the name "Embassies of the Union" for EEAS offices has been dropped",
is transparent hokum. The title Foriegn Minister has been dropped, but we know what the High Representative is. Likewise the heads of EU delegations are already called Ambassador as an honorific and in general parlance rather than 'Head of Delegation' which their official title.

My hit is the comment from Robert Cooper,

Robert Cooper, the director general of the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, the body that represents national governments, has argued that the EEAS would make Brussels the diplomatic capital of Europe.

You read it here first.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How mean! Miliband's arguments may be flimsy but he is sincere in his desire to protect UK citizens from the reality of the European machine.

Later on he and his chums will say that they didn't agree to this but went along for the greater good, having secured important concessions for the UK elsewhere, and it doesn't change anything much anyway so let's get back to dealing with the economy, wheelie bins and yob culture which is what really matters in Britain today.

A European Diplomatic Corps has been on the Brussels drawing board for decades. But it won't have any teeth until a European Defence Corps is in place. Diplomacy requires sabre-rattling capacity.

So whoever takes the lead on European Defence will rapidly have the diplomatic competence in their pocket because the two elements must work in close harmony.

Anonymous said...

EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes and David Miliband agreed in a done deal that 2,500 Post Offices will close to allow subsidies to continue until 2011

Anonymous said...

Actually I read it more than ten years ago, in one of those super-glossy magazines they leave lying around in hotel rooms.

This hotel was in a rich small town in Belgium, and in the magazine, amongst the jewelery ads and articles about cars no normal human could ever afford, was a little piece glorifying the city of Brussels, which is, it said, a capital three times over: capital of the province of Flanders, of the nation of Belgium and of the future state of Europe.

Just like that.

Back in the nineties.

None of this is news to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

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