Political accountability in the EU’s foreign and security policy: How, by whom and for what can the EU’s High Representative on Foreign Affairs and the European External Action Service be held to account?

The Lisbon Treaty paved the way for restructuring the institutional landscape in EU foreign and security policy. In order to improve coherence and coordination, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs (HRVP) has obtained more powers and is now assisted by the European External Action Service (EEAS). The HRVP is the recipient of delegated authority from the member states (MS) to formulate, coordinate and implement the external policies of the European Union. Formal decision-making power pertaining to the EU’s common foreign and security policy lies with the Council, whilst substantial competences, notably in the field of the European Neighbourhood and Trade policies, as well as Development and Cooperation remain under the control of the European Commission (Commission). Concomitantly, as its supporting bureaucracy, the EEAS is situated within several, partly overlapping and conflicting accountability relationships. The questions, this paper seeks to answer, are: To what extent, how and by whom can the HRVP and/or the EEAS be held politically to account? In order to shed some light on this issue, the paper discusses the HRVP/EEAS’ relationships with three of its ‘significant others’, namely, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament. Against three standards of political accountability – popular control, checks-and-balances and efficiency – we examine whether and to what the degree the above institutions are in the position to hold respectively the HRVP and the EEAS to account for their actions. With data from official documents, 47 semi-structured interviews with EEAS and Commission officials and a survey among 184 EU foreign policy-makers, the paper thus aims at providing a map and an assessment of the multi-level actor/forum relationships of the EU’s foreign policy machinery

The European External Action Service: Torn apart between several principals or acting as a smart 'double-agent'?

Published version of an article in the journal: Journal of Contemporary European Research. Also available from the publisher at: http://www.jcer.net/index.php/jcer/article/view/605/494 Open AccessThe European External Action Service (EEAS) is a hybrid and compound institutional actor in the EU’s multi-level administration with delegated authority from the member states (MS) to conduct the EU’s external action. Substantial competences, notably in the field of Neighbourhood and Trade policies, as well as Development and Cooperation remain under the control of the European Commission (Commission). At the same time, also Members of the European Parliament (EP) are more clearly voicing their interests and ownership in the EU’s representation in the world. This article tests the notion of 'double-agent' – or in fact “triple-agent” – as a way of characterizing the position of the EEAS, and in particular of the EU Delegations (as the ‘EU field-level bureaucracies’) vis-à-vis the MS, the Commission and the EP, as an expression of complex and interrelated chains of delegation, where the EU ‘embassies‘ have to interact with and to answer to (but not in a clear line of delegation) different (sets of) principals, namely the MS, the Commission and the EP. Based on the findings from a series of elite interviews with 47 EEAS and Commission officials and on a survey among 184 EU diplomats, the paper seeks to examine this fuzzy principal-agent relationship and uses the review process of the EEAS as an opportunity to assess the level of autonomy of the new EU foreign policy apparatus

The rising fear of terrorism and the emergence of a European security governance space: citizen perceptions and EU counterterrorism cooperation

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New Alliances in Post-Brexit Europe: Does the New Hanseatic League Revive Nordic Political Cooperation?

As Brexit removes the Nordic countries’ most powerful ally from the EU, what does this imply for their approach to European affairs? The literature on small states within the EU suggests that they can counterbalance limited bargaining capacities by entering two types of alliances: strategic partnerships with bigger member states and institutionalised cooperation on a regional basis. Against this backdrop we ask whether, by significantly raising the costs of non-cooperation for Nordic governments, the Brexit referendum has triggered a revival of Nordic political cooperation. We scrutinise this conjecture by analysing Nordic strategies of coalition-building on EU financial and budgetary policy, specifically looking at attempts to reform Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union and proposals to strengthen the EU’s fiscal powers. We find that Nordic governments have successfully collaborated on these issues in the context of new alliances such as the ‘New Hanseatic League’ or the ‘Frugal Four.’ Yet, their coalition-building strategies rely on relatively loose and issue-specific alliances rather than an institutionalisation of Nordic political cooperation, implying that this revival of Nordic political cooperation hardly involves the institutions of ‘official’ Nordic cooperation. We argue that this reflects lasting differences among the Nordics’ approach to the EU as well as electorates’ scepticism about supranational institution-building, implying that ‘reluctant Europeans’ are often also ‘reluctant Scandinavians.

Managing Conflicts of Interests – Ethics Rules and Standards in the Member States and the European Institutions.

No abstract

Bureaucratic structure, geographical location and the autonomy of administrative systems. Evidence from the European External Action Service

Formulating and implementing public policy in Europe has historically been a prerogative of national administrations. This paper explores how these prerogatives may have become challenged with the ‘autonomization’ of the European Union’s (EU’s) foreign affairs administration (The European External Action Service (EEAS)). The ambition of this paper is two-fold: First, to assess how independent EEAS personnel are when making decisions, thus measuring actor-level autonomy. Secondly, to account for actor-level autonomy by applying two key variables in administrative sciences: bureaucratic structure and geographical location of administrative systems. Benefiting from two new data sets, a survey and elite interviews of EEAS officials, two empirical observations are highlighted. First, EEAS officials demonstrate considerable behavioural independence even against attempts from member-state governments to restrain this. Secondly, the behavioural autonomy of EEAS staff is explained primarily with reference to the supply of organizational capacities inside the EEAS and less by the geographical location of staff. Thus, the bureaucratic structure of the EEAS serves to safeguard bureaucratic autonomy in EU’s new foreign affairs administration. By comparison, the geographical location of EEAS staff is a relatively weak, albeit not absent, signifier of behavioural autonomy

The European External Action Service: Torn apart between several principals or acting as a smart 'double-agent'?

Published version of an article in the journal: Journal of Contemporary European Research. Also available from the publisher at: http://www.jcer.net/index.php/jcer/article/view/605/494 Open AccessThe European External Action Service (EEAS) is a hybrid and compound institutional actor in the EU’s multi-level administration with delegated authority from the member states (MS) to conduct the EU’s external action. Substantial competences, notably in the field of Neighbourhood and Trade policies, as well as Development and Cooperation remain under the control of the European Commission (Commission). At the same time, also Members of the European Parliament (EP) are more clearly voicing their interests and ownership in the EU’s representation in the world. This article tests the notion of 'double-agent' – or in fact “triple-agent” – as a way of characterizing the position of the EEAS, and in particular of the EU Delegations (as the ‘EU field-level bureaucracies’) vis-à-vis the MS, the Commission and the EP, as an expression of complex and interrelated chains of delegation, where the EU ‘embassies‘ have to interact with and to answer to (but not in a clear line of delegation) different (sets of) principals, namely the MS, the Commission and the EP. Based on the findings from a series of elite interviews with 47 EEAS and Commission officials and on a survey among 184 EU diplomats, the paper seeks to examine this fuzzy principal-agent relationship and uses the review process of the EEAS as an opportunity to assess the level of autonomy of the new EU foreign policy apparatus

How do EU Foreign Policy-Makers Decide? Institutional Orientations within the European External Action Service

<p>Four years after its formal establishment, the European External Action Service (EEAS) remains in a state of complex and overlapping areas of competence. There are interlocking layers of political and administrative governance, where the service has to interact with, and answer to, different national and intergovernmental political masters as well as supranational actors, notably the European Commission and the European Parliament. The formal political decision-making power with regard to the EU’s common foreign and security policy lies with the Council, whilst substantial competences, notably in the field of the European Neighbourhood (ENP) and trade policies, as well as development and cooperation, remain under the control of the European Commission. The EEAS’s autonomy and institutional orientation are both much debated and empirically unexplored. Based on quantitative and qualitative data, this article undertakes a behavioural analysis of EEAS decision-making. Empirical findings suggest that there are competing institutional logics at work among different groups of staff which affect their respective administrative decisional behaviour. Supranational recruits tend to be more community-minded, whereas officials with an intergovernmental background have a propensity to be more member state oriented.</p