During the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Catherine ASHTON, EC Vice-President /EU High Representative, makes a statement on the European External Action Service.

VERHOFSTADT, Guy (Renew, BE)

statement

Strasbourg

plenary session

BROK, Elmar (EPP, DE)

ŠEFČOVIČ, Maroš (SK, EC)

Budgetary control (T2)

European External Action Service

ASHTON, Catherine (UK, EC)

European External Action Service: extracts from the statements by Catherine ASHTON, EC Vice-President /EU High Representative

SOUNDBITE (German), Elmar BROK (EPP, DE), rapporteur, It's being a difficult process of negotiation, Commissioner allow me to say that many of us in the EP have done more for the Commission's powers in the last few months than the Commission has itself. After initial hesitation there has been willingness in the Council as well to listen to what the EP as a co-decider has to say, and on the financial regulation and the staff regulation we also want to see this co-decision approach.

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), rapporteur, What we need is not 'une bataille arri&egrave;re garde' on the service; the service is now there. What we need now is to use the service to develop a real EU foreign policy, because until now we didn't have a real foreign policy of the EU at all. I remember when I was member of the Council, the year 2002, we spent all of 50 seconds on the Iraq war, and it was at that time the biggest foreign policy issue&hellip; Europe was not able to discuss it, not to issue a common position on it, this cannot happen again.

SOUNDBITE (English), Catherine ASHTON, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the EC, EU and the member states have an impressive array of instruments resources, relationships and expertise to help build the better most able world; now we need to bring all this together to forge joint up strategies and maximise our impact on the ground, particularly in the troubled parts of the world where our actions matter the most. Wherever I have travelled, from Gaza, to Haiti, West-Africa and the Balkans, this has been my key conclusion.

SOUNDBITE (English), Catherine ASHTON, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the EC, Development cannot be pursued on its own, separate from other strands of external relations, and that's why we are creating a strong common platform allowing us to work together; Andris Piebalgs, &Scaron;tefan F&uuml;le and myself, to ensure that general development objectives and poverty reduction in particular are mainstreamed in our cooperation programmes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Catherine ASHTON, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the EC, We have a balanced agreement on staff issue between the wishes of member states to have at least one third of staff in the service coming from national diplomatic services so we can rely on their expertise&hellip; while at the same time ensuring at least 60% of permanent officials. In the same way we need to ensure a proper gender and geographical balance and not loose sight of wider diversity issues.

SOUNDBITE (English), Maros SEFCOVIC, Vice-President of the EC in charge of Interinstitutional relations and Foresight, How we will secure a proper financial accountability? Here again we've been looking at all available options and now I am sure that even though we are going to create something new, with three sources of the people that will work for the EEAS we will have appropriate financial accountability, safeguards built in the system and I am sure that the system will pass the test of the future operations.