The European Parliament adopted a resolution on October 22 2009 calling for the planned EU diplomatic service to be part of the European Commission administrative structure and be funded from the EC budget – meaning that the service would be subject to oversight by the European Parliament.

The European External Action Service (EEAS) is due to be established under the Lisbon Treaty.

It will consist of officials from the European Commission, European Council and member states and will assist the High Representative for external relations, a post also provided for in the Lisbon Treaty. 

The European Council is to decide how to organise the service on the basis of a proposal from the High Representative after consulting the European Parliament and obtaining the consent of the EC.

However, in a resolution adopted by 424 votes to 94 with 30 abstentions, MEPs called on the Commission "to put its full weight" behind preserving the community model in EU external relations. 

They say "the EEAS must be incorporated into the Commission's administrative structure". However, some fields of current EC external relations need not be assigned to the EEAS if a "specific model" is provided for them. 

MEPs believe that Commission delegations in third countries, as well as European Council liaison and EU Special Representative offices, should be merged to form "Union embassies", headed by EEAS staff which would be answerable to the High Representative, who will also be Vice-President of the Commission responsible for external relations.

The European Parliament says that "the establishment of the EEAS must include agreement on the budgetary issues" and "reiterates its determination to exercise its budgetary powers to the full in connection with these institutional innovations".

The resolution says the Commission Vice-President-designate will be asked to state a position on the EEAS during the parliamentary hearings held as part of the appointment of the new European Commission.

MEPs recommend "that political agreement be reached with Parliament on all issues at an early stage in order to avoid valuable time being wasted on political controversies about the form to be taken by the EEAS after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon".