Ashton absence from EU defence ministers' meet ruffles feathers

(PALMA DE MAJORCA) - A last-minute decision by the EU's new foreign affairs chief not to attend a two-day meeting of defence ministers from the bloc which got underway Wednesday in Spain has ruffled diplomatic feathers.

Speaking at the start of the gathering, Spanish Defence Minister Carme Chacon said she "regretted the absence" of EU's High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Britain's Catherine Ashton, given the "important" subjects that will be discussed at the meeting, a European diplomat said.

EU defence ministers will consider increased military ties authorised by the bloc's Lisbon Treaty, which created the new post which Ashton now occupies.

Ashton had been scheduled to join the gathering on Thursday. But on Monday she cancelled her participation, in part to represent the European Union at the investiture ceremony of the new Ukrainian president on Thursday in Kiev.

She was in Moscow on Wednesday ahead of the ceremony where she met with Russian officials, including President Dmitry Medvedev.

Some participants at the Palma meet had been hoping to hear Ashton's intentions as the first holder of the beefed-up foreign and defence job.

Several European diplomats in Brussels have expressed their displeasure at the fact that she would not be at the gathering since her office announced she would be in the Ukraine instead.

"Her predecessor Javier Solana didn't miss a single meeting of this type with the defence ministers," one European diplomatic source said, recalling the holder of the lesser pre-Lisbon foreign policy post.

"Something has changed in the order of priorities," she added.

Spain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency for the first half of the year, had made the relaunch of a European defence strategy one of the "fundamental" objectives of its six-month tenure.

Informal Defence Ministers meeting