Understanding doublehattedness

It is vital that the establishment of the EEAS complies with the spirit and intention of the Lisbon Treaty, says a newly published briefing paper from Europe External Policy Advisors.

While there is some strategic consensus emerging around the extension of the EEAS beyond its direct remit, with clear safeguards it is important to keep focus on the fact that the treaty states explicitly that the EEAS will be established to support the High Representative in her role as High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Therefore any negotiated political outcome that extends the EEAS beyond this remit, can only potentially be acceptable if it safeguards all the other aspects of EU policy protected in the Lisbon Treaty.

The Lisbon Treaty introduced a ‘double-hatted’ function for the new function of EU High Representative of Foreign Policy and Security Policy.

The High Representative would combine this role with the role of Vice-President of the European Commission, so allowing her to credibly represent all the aspects of the EU intergovernmental Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the community-based common policies with an external dimension, notably trade, fisheries, development co-operation and humanitarian assistance.

The Lisbon Treaty does not establish a new class of double-hatted officials, or institutions, and neither does it establish a new set of double-hatted policies, decisions, procedures or laws.

The Treaty does not provide for double-hatted officials. It introduces a double-hatted High Representative, who is assisted with single-hatted officials for Foreign Policy and Security in the EEAS and single-hatted officials in the Commission for her duties as Vice President of the European Commission.

The construction of the EEAS needs to be carefully monitored against the provisions in the Treaty, especially in relation to lines of accountability.

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"We need justice, not business as usual"

Social Watch statement on the 2010 UN Summit.  Next September the presidents and prime ministers of the world will meet in New York to assess a decade of antipoverty efforts and discuss the way forward in moments of unprecedented combination of global crises in climate, food, energy, finances and the economy.

The United Nations was created more than six decades ago around the belief in a world free of “fear and want” and with “dignity for all” in a framework of a “just and lasting peace”. In 1995, after the end of the Cold War that dream became the solemn commitment by all heads of State and government to eradicate poverty from the world and to achieve gender equity. In 2000 the Millennium Declaration set the date of 2015 to achieve the most urgent of the internationally agreed social development goals, known as “Millennium Development Goals” or MDGs.

Over a hundred presidents, monarchs and prime ministers signed this pledge: “We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.” The first of the MDGs promises to reduce by half by 2015 the proportion of people living in poverty and with hunger.

In September 2008, ministers from around the world stated that “however, 1.4 billion people—most of them women and girls—still live in extreme poverty...” and in January 2010 the World Bank announced that “an estimated 64 million more people may be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2010 due to the crisis“.1

With around 1.5 billion people in extreme poverty in 2010 (1.4 in 2008 plus 64 millions added by the crisis in 2009), the poverty reduction promise seems almost impossible to achieve! In fact, according to the report of the secretary general of the United Nations, the number of people under the $1 a day poverty line “went up by 92 million in sub-Saharan Africa and by 8 million in West Asia during the period 1990 to 2005”. Further, “the poverty situation is more serious when other dimensions of poverty, acknowledged at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development, such as deprivation, social exclusion and lack of participation, are also considered”.

 

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EU approaches to address food security challenges

 

The European Commission adopted two strategic communications on 31 March addressing food insecurity in developing countries.  Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs stated that it is “unacceptable that, in 2010, one billion people are still suffering from hunger and malnutrition,” The Commission is proposing that the EU provides more structured help to developing countries overcome the challenges that result in so many people being derived access to food.

The Commission proposals include helping smallholder farmers, and especially women to increase local food production, and to increase its support to demand-led agricultural research, extension and innovation by 50% by 2015. It also proposes launching a joint initiative with the African Union on the implementation of the African Land Policy Guidelines, and to provide support for targeted and flexible social safety nets that would be more effective in addressing local needs.

At a global level the Commission proposes that the EU promote reforms to the Committee on World Food Security, to that it can become the pivotal global institution on food security, and to strengthen the capacity of the international humanitarian system so that it can be more effective in its responses.  The Commission plans to €3 billion over the next three years to the initiative on global food security agreed by world leaders in Aquila iat the 2009 G8 summit. The Foreign Affairs Council will consider the proposals at its meeting on 11 May. (More information)

Defining the role of the EU's Diplomatic Service

 

The sole objective of the European External Action Service (EEAS) is to assist the HR in this task. (Art 27.3 TEU )In her role as representative of the EU’s foreign policy and security interests, the HR is fulfilling an intergovernmental mandate. The same is the case for the EEAS, being set up to support this part of her mission.

The provisions of the Lisbon Treaty to increase the effectiveness of the EU’s role in the world is an important innovation in the evolution of the Union. However, for the outcome to deliver what was intended the institutional changes that are put in place must be firmly rooted on the spirit and letter of the Treaty. Many of the current proposals being put forward involve combining the management of aspects of the different policies across the institutional structures. This will lead to a mixing of policies that the Treaty clearly defines as being within the intergovernmental framework with others which are within the remit of the European Commission. The inherent danger is that this will weaken the position of the Parliament at a time when there is already concern over the effectiveness of the democratic scrutiny on EU programming towards developing countries. It would also weaken the role of the Commission in fulfilling its mandate reflecting a full range of competences of the Union. Finally, it could also lead to an undermining of national scrutiny of the intergovernmental decision-making process.

See briefing paper on what the Lisbon Treaty says about the role of the EEAS