Berlin calls for more powers to EEAS

“Germany wants to strengthen EU foreign policy,” begins Dziennik Gazeta Prawna after Berlin proposed giving the European External Action Service EEAS new powers over European neighbourhood policy, development and cooperation in order to “ensure a coherent, comprehensive and integrated EU approach to external action.” Currently, those areas fall under the control of two EU Commissioners. The proposal, to be discussed by EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Dublin on March 22, has already been endorsed by 13 countries, including Sweden, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. The daily says that for Warsaw –

The German proposition is favourable as it may increase the significance of the neighbourhood policy involving Mediterranean countries that border with the EU and six states of the Eastern Partnership (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). Strengthening their stability is in Poland’s national interest.

However, the German plan is likely to be opposed by the UK “which rejects all ideas pushing for more integration” and France “which guards the right to determine its own foreign policy and is set to put forward its own proposal to improve the way the EEAS operates”.