EU turf war erupts over control of development aid

(BRUSSELS) - A turf war has erupted in Brussels, pitting the EU Commission against member states in a bid for control of the top diplomatic jobs and the influential development aid purse strings.

At the centre of the battle for control is the EU's nascent External Action Service (EAS) which will eventually boast some 7,000 eurocrats in Brussels and in EU offices worldwide.

Created by the bloc's Lisbon Treaty of reforms, the huge diplomatic corps will be led by the European Union's first High Representative for foreign and security affairs Catherine Ashton, a British peer.

She uneasily straddles both camps, as a vice-president of the commission and the personal representative of the 27 EU member states.

As the European Union is the world's biggest development aid donor, this has become a particular battleground in the fight for influence, with the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, unwilling to cede ground to the new external service.

For Green Euro MP Franziska Brantner, who is closely following the discussions, the two bodies must find a way of working closely together because "the EU need coherent strategies on the ground."

The development aid mechanism gives the EU a profile in areas such as the Middle East, for instance, where it is the biggest donor to the Palestinians.

Up to now the European Development Fund and Development Co-operation Instrument have been managed exclusively by the commission, led by Jose Manuel Barroso.

The former fund has a budget of 22.7 billion euros over 2008-2013 to distribute among former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The latter has been granted 16.9 euros for the same period essentially to help tackle global poverty.

Some nations, with their own active cooperation programmes for former colonies, would like to see the "strategic management" of these budgets taken out of the commission's hands.

They cite article 208 of the Lisbon Treaty, which states that Europe's development policy "shall be conducted within the framework of the principles and objectives of the Union's external action," and therefore under Ashton.

But the commission believes that development aid and foreign policy involved different goals and handing the EAS control of both could skew strategies.

Some also say the same article 208 offers some succour to the commission.

The "primary objective" of the development policy is the long-term reduction and eradication of poverty, it states.

Such long-term strategic planning is not the preserve of the foreign policy service, a senior commission official said.

Ashton is expected to make a formal proposal on the service before the end of the month.

All sides agree that the commission should maintain control of detailed spending. The question is how far down the process will Ashton's team hold sway.

France is among the nations calling for the EAS to have as much substance as possible.

The new EAS organisational chart foresees six directors general, four of whom would have geographical areas of interest.

All would come under a secretary general and two deputies.

One compromise sees the external action service defining development strategies "in cooperation" with the commission, according to one source close to the negotiations.

But the organigram itself has come under fire.

German liberal MEP Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, part of a group of deputies actively debating the diplomatic service, sees the proposal as "a continuation of French policy by other means."

The MEP, from the same party as German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, says his concerns are largely shared by the German foreign ministry.

He said it accords too much power to the service's secretary general, on the model of the French foreign ministry, and isolates the military part of the service away from political governance.

The post of secretary general is expected to be filled by a French candidate.