Dinner at Fredrik's - Will the EU finally speak with one voice under the Lisbon Treaty ?

Hello Derek, Thank you for your comment ! In the text I phrased it that the HR is the « bridge between the Commission and the Council ». As you correctly pointed out, that means that he will be the Vice-president of the Commission and in addition also replace the current Commissioner for External Relations.

The President of the Commission (currently Barroso)is mentioned in the article as the third of the four representatives. But is the President of the Commission the superior of the HR ? This is actually a tricky question.

First of all, the HR is more than only Vice-president. He is also subordinate to the Council. Thus he is subordinate to both -Commission and Council. It depends thus always on the legal basis of the Foreign Policy that is to be handled. Where the Commission has and will have competence, then you could argue that the HR will have to follow the will of the commission. To illustrate this, you can imagine that this constitutes somehow the tasks that the current Commissioner for External Relations (Benita Ferrero-Waldner) is doing.

Second, there might still be a very extensive grey-zone that might get clearer, when the HR will excercise his role. I personally hope, as a Federalist, that the HR will effectively use this grey-zone and create a strong precedent for his role. This could mean a strong step towards a more coherent EU foreign policy and also a more 'federalist character'.

Cheers ! Chris

Dinner at Fredrik's - Will the EU finally speak with one voice under the Lisbon Treaty ?

Good overview, thank you. The only thing you perhaps should,have mentioned is that the High Representative will also be the Vice-President of the Commission. So, where does the High Representative's superior (ie Barroso) stand in all this ? Does that make five representatives on the world stage ???

Dinner at Fredrik’s - Will the EU finally speak with one voice under the Lisbon Treaty ? - commentaires

Dinner at Fredrik's - Will the EU finally speak with one voice under the Lisbon Treaty ?

Dinner at Fredrik's - Will the EU finally speak with one voice under the Lisbon Treaty ?