Summary
European Union (EU) countries have something like four times as many diplomats as the US, and with a report on the Union's own overseas representation; some are asking whether separate national foreign services are good value. Here, Hocking and Spence discuss the foreign policy in the EU context, which has become a multi-layered enterprise in which national foreign ministries and the diplomatic resources of the commission are working in cooperation.
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Extract
Europe Raises Its Voice
SOME PREDICT THE EMERGENCE OF A EUROPEAN DIPLOMATIC service and the gradual marginalisation of national foreign ministries and their networks. For others, the presence of the European Commission on the world stage is a diplomatic aberration - a view reflected in a comment by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. In reply to a question on European Union Commission delegations, he observed that 'sometimes you find all sort of odd-bods from the EU running all sorts of odd offices around the world'.
But the picture is more complex than these two cont...See the full content of this document
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