{"id":137891,"date":"2026-07-03T01:45:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/137891\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T01:45:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:45:40","slug":"houston-we-have-a-problem-was-the-eeas-set-up-to-fail-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/137891\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Houston, we have a problem\u2019: Was the EEAS set up to fail? \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAlready at that time it was quite clear \u2026 that this system had significant structural and systemic problems,\u201d said a former senior EEAS official who joined the service at its inception. \u201cIt was always a bit of constructive ambiguity.\u201d Like others in this article, this official was granted anonymity to speak to POLITICO, as many of the issues under discussion are sensitive and officials are generally not authorized to speak to the media.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pedestrians walk past the European External Action Service building in Brussels on December 2, 2025. | Nicolas Tucat\/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

As Pierre Sellal, France\u2019s powerful ambassador to the EU for 10 years, who was deeply involved in the negotiations to design the EEAS, told POLITICO for the article on June 29<\/a>, it was \u201chashed out in a messy compromise at three in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those pushing for the EEAS\u2019s creation wanted the EU to speak with a stronger and more coherent foreign policy voice \u2014\u00a0traditionally the preserve of national capitals. And part of today\u2019s perceived weaknesses lies in the fudge agreed by leaders of the time, who weren\u2019t fully ready to give up sovereignty on the issue.<\/p>\n

The service sits awkwardly between the Commission, the Council and 27 EU member countries, with divided lines of authority and clashing competencies. About two-thirds of the EEAS\u2019s 5,000 staff, who are based at its Brussels headquarters or spread across EU missions and delegations around the world, come from the Commission and the EU institutions on permanent contracts, while around one-third are diplomats seconded from member countries, typically for four-year stints.<\/p>\n

These days, as officials rise through the ranks, diplomats from EU countries increasingly dominate senior positions, while Commission officials often feel they lack backing from either Brussels or national capitals, said the former official.<\/p>\n

That awkward arrangement has fostered acrimony on both sides. \u201cThe basic problem has never been resolved \u2015 this imbalance,\u201d said the official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAlready at that time it was quite clear \u2026 that this system had significant structural and systemic problems,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[140],"tags":[2697,12158,1062,1426,1847,23968,250,1427,1102,947,468,6679,12220,1490,245,1047,249,9353,1069,34,243,952,13903,442,16,4016,1432,248,1086,329,1434,932,9933,2289,12222,6299,330,403],"class_list":["post-137891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kaja-kallas","tag-accountability","tag-afghanistan","tag-budget","tag-buildings","tag-career","tag-catherine-ashton","tag-china","tag-cooperation","tag-democracy","tag-diplomacy","tag-energy-prices","tag-estonia","tag-federica-mogherini","tag-foreign-policy","tag-france","tag-fraud","tag-germany","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-intelligence","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-italy","tag-josep-borrell","tag-kaja-kallas","tag-markets","tag-missions","tag-negotiations","tag-poland","tag-rights","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-security","tag-serbia","tag-services","tag-stefano-sannino","tag-sweden","tag-ukraine","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}