The first nucleus of the EU diplomatic service: 1700 people

(BRUSSELS2) Here are some details on the personnel and budgetary organization of the new EU Diplomatic Service which has obtained the political endorsement of all stakeholders (read: Diplomatic Service Agreement: here is the text! and some comments).

The European External Action Service (EEAS) will thus comprise exactly - according to the budget document presented by the Commission - 1525 people: 411 posts transferred from the Council, 1 posts transferred from the Commission. To this must be added: 114 new additional administrator posts created (including 100 in the delegations) by the end of 80 (first recruitments in October and November) as well as 2010 contract workers (70 at headquarters "in order to fulfill the additional tasks assigned by the treaty" and 10 additional local agents in the delegations). If we take all the staff (in particular the local agents of the delegations, we arrive at 60-5 people according to a European diplomat).

NB: The "personal" budget of the PeSDC in the EEAS thus amounts to: 9,5 million euros.

Reinforcement of EU embassies

Reinforcing EU embassies is quite urgent. Since 1 January 2010, more than 60 EU Delegations have assumed the role hitherto played by the rotating EU Presidency, which notably includes "additional tasks of representation, coordination and negotiation" (In New York, it's about 1.000 coordination meetings a year for member states for the United Nations, according to a senior European diplomat).

The objective is therefore to give them some additional resources. The 80 new AD posts will be gradually filled during the last quarter of 2010.
Additional needs assessed as follows:
– reinforcement of delegations which do not include any specialist in political affairs (about 40 new AD posts);
– reinforcement of multilateral delegations (about 20 new AD posts);
– upgrading of regionalized delegations and creation of deputy head of delegation posts (approximately 20 new AD posts);
– 60 local agents who will provide the necessary support.

Distribution of positions

A first part of the new AD posts will be reserved for diplomats from the Member States. "This will also make it possible to respect the commitment in 2013 to allocate one third of AD posts to staff from the diplomatic services of the Member States“explains the Commission.

From a formal point of view, all recruitment in 2010 will be done officially in the name of the Commission. Simply, the Commission will fully delegate the required powers of appointing authority/contracting authority to the High Representative to give her exclusive competence in the selection procedure.

A new section in the budget: section X

A budget document has been adopted by the European Commission in order to modify the 2010 budget. This involves creating a section X in the budget for the European External Action Service, then ensuring the necessary transfers of appropriations and providing for the budget for additional recruitments.

The Commission's objective for the 2011 financial year is "to ensure that the EEAS has its own total budget for 2011, including all related appropriations". An amending letter to the 2011 draft budget will thus be sent "in due time" to be integrated into the annual budgetary procedure.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)