France and Germany are exploring scenarios for reforming the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Union’s diplomatic apparatus created fifteen years ago. According to the Financial Times, citing five informed sources, one of the options under discussion would curtail the powers of the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, and effectively dismantle the service itself, whose annual budget stands at around one billion euros.
The stated aim of the reform is to make the bloc’s response to geopolitical crises faster and better coordinated. According to the FT, France and Germany are among the countries considering an overhaul of the EEAS, amid concerns that the service is struggling to cope with major geopolitical challenges.
What would be transferred, and to whom
This is a very concrete redistribution of functions. Paris has reportedly prepared a preliminary document setting out several reform options; one of them would limit the independence of the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and weaken the diplomatic chief’s control over the network of more than 140 EU delegations around the world. Some of those powers would be handed back to the European Commission, the Council of the EU, and national governments.
As the sources describe it, the split could look like this: the preparation of sanctions lists and proposals for military missions would go to the Council of the EU, while day-to-day diplomatic work would fall to the European Commission. In the most radical scenario, the FT’s interlocutors do not rule out that the EEAS, in its current form, could effectively be disbanded.
Legally, the reformers have room to manoeuvre without resorting to a painful procedure. Supporters of the restructuring argue that the changes could be carried out without revising the EU treaties, which stipulate that the EEAS is to “assist” the High Representative under arrangements agreed among member states in 2010. Any change to those arrangements, however, would require the unanimous approval of all 27 member states, meaning that any single country could block the initiative.
Institutional rivalry and the figure of Kallas
Behind the technical language lies a long-standing struggle for influence over the bloc’s foreign policy. The diplomatic service and the European Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, are competing for control of foreign and security policy. Von der Leyen has already moved beyond the bounds of her traditional role, frequently taking the lead in shaping the bloc’s response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, and she has considered setting up her own intelligence-sharing unit, similar to the one that already exists within the EEAS, a move Kallas opposed.
The complaints directed at Kallas herself come down to this: officials point out that the functions of the EEAS, of national foreign ministries, and of the external-relations directorates within the Commission and the European Council overlap one another, while coordination is lacking. The irritation is compounded by the fact that the head of EU diplomacy, in the view of several interlocutors, too often voices her own position, for instance on EU–China relations, and puts forward initiatives that have not been cleared in advance with European capitals.
The budgetary backdrop
The discussion is unfolding in parallel with preparations for the EU’s next common budget, at a time when several countries are demanding savings and a reduction in bureaucracy in Brussels; the question of the EEAS’s future could thus become part of a broader spending review. The participants themselves stress that the examination of the various options remains preliminary at this stage. A spokesperson for Kallas told the Financial Times that the EU’s foreign policy chief was fully focused on fulfilling her mandate and regarded strengthening the EEAS as an important part of that work.
