The second funeral of the Minister of Foreign Affairs

(BRUSSELS2) The shift in terms between the European Constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon from the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the High Representative for Foreign Policy might seem a rather symbolic sign of not giving the European Union too visible a competence in this domain. Because most of the skills and tools were preserved. And, in fact, the High Representative, number 2 of the European Commission, with a diplomatic service bringing together all the diplomatic and crisis management instruments of the EU, had many of the attributes of a Minister. With the appointment of a Briton, totally unknown in the world of diplomacy, Catherine Ashton, who has no reference or experience in the field, it is clear that this is not the case.

A top manager rather than a minister. Unless she turns into an unsuspected Golda Meir or a revealed Alliot-Marie, it's a safe bet that even the function of minister will be lacking. For my British colleagues who worked with her at the Commission, she is not a "think woman", she is a "top manager", a "senior civil servant" (in English please). Unpleasant. The footnotes or statements slipped into the European Treaties (read: Lisbon Treaty: ESDP becomes PeSDC. A little more common?) are therefore not only there for form and that the political will remains very strong: there is no question of giving an ounce of additional power to the Commission and the European Union in these matters which come under the sovereignty of the States. And this (ulterior) thought is very present among some Britons and is approved by other Europeans. As my colleague from the Daily Telegraph pointed out in his published article today, quoting a British source close to Downing street: "This means the job is not a foreign minister job, it's a job of co-ordinating policies among 27 members." It's clear...

Where will the power of initiative go?. The High Representative - we often forget - has the power of initiative in all these areas. To reduce, to lessen this power of initiative is already a guarantee of lessening of the policy and the preservation of the States. Unfortunately, it is not certain that ambition will be there for the next five years, especially in terms of common defense policy. We can therefore be relatively worried about the future of the PeSDC.