New EU member states sidelined: Estonian president

(WARSAW) - The EU's new member states are being sidelined in the 27-nation bloc's diplomatic and civil service, and its incoming chief must shake things up, Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said Monday.

"So as not to be subjective, let's look at the figures. Out of 158 so-called European Union embassies, only one is headed by a diplomat from a new member state," Ilves said in an interview with the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

Estonia and Poland were among the 10 states, most of them formerly communist, that joined the EU in 2004 in its largest-ever expansion.

Under the EU system, the bloc's executive European Commission is made of one representative per member state. EU diplomatic missions formally represent the Commission abroad.

The lack of parity is also glaring in the "directorates-general", or EU civil service departments under the Commission's wing, Ilves noted.

"There are 41 directorates-general in the EU. We're in our sixth year of membership, and none of them is headed by a director from a new member state. These are figures, not back-chat," he said.

"Mister Van Rompuy, please explain this to me, I'm begging you! Why is it like this? I don't understand," Ilves added, referring to Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian who is poised to became the EU's full-time president.

Besides Estonia and Poland, the EU's other 2004 ex-communist entrants were the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Cyprus and Malta also joined that year.

The EU expanded to its current 27 members when ex-communist Bulgaria and Romania joined in 2007.