Claude-France Arnould takes the helm of the new civil-military leadership of the EU

(BRUSSELS2) This is in some ways the first appointment of the future Foreign Diplomatic Service. After much procrastination, it was finally the Frenchwoman Claude-France Arnould who was chosen to head the brand new “civil-military planning directorate” (CMPD) within the Council Secretariat. This appointment must still be made official quickly. But there is no longer any doubt about it. Javier Solana, the current High Representative, dubbed her (with the agreement of the Member States). This is an important point for several reasons.

A triple innovation. The new directorate will be integrated, from the start normally, into the new Diplomatic Service for External Action (EEAS) created by the Lisbon Treaty. It will be a key element of future European crisis management. This is a major innovation: mixing military and civilians in the same direction will not automatically be easy (if only for the methods of choosing new members and the organization chart of the management) and few States have ventured to such “mixture”.

This appointment took some time because there was discussion between the member states on the choice of the best candidate. To tell the truth, it was above all a Franco-German dissension (the German ambassador to the COPS was also a candidate), and a little British, which had weighed on this appointment in the corridors for several months already (His deputy, an Italian, has been known since May…).

career diplomat, Claude-France Arnould is currently Director for Defense Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union since 2001. She was Director of International and Strategic Affairs at the General Secretariat for National Defense (SGDN) in France, 1998 to 2001 then First Counselor at the Embassy in Germany from 1994 to 1998. Previously, she had started as technical advisor to the Minister Delegate for European Affairs in 1986 (Bernard Bosson in the Chirac government), and was then Secretary General of the National School of Administration (ENA) from 1987 to 1989.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)