Current European Foreign Policy, Question One: Who said the following, "I am determined to ensure that Haiti be a test case of Europe’s capacity to speak with one voice and ensure effective division of labour between the Commission and member states… We have to provide an EU framework to these efforts. This is why I’m going now to work on shaping an EU comprehensive plan coordinating member states initiatives so that we arrive united in New York at the end of March: I’ll keep you informed"?

Was it (a) EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (b) Kristalina Georgieva, the Commissioner for International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response (c) Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs or (d) someone from among the three-legged-race that is the European Commission President, European Council President or holder of the rotating presidency of the European Council?

For those of you who missed reading his blog on February 22, it was Piebalgs, who has said that he would be going to Haiti "soon".
He has that much in common with Ashton, who – according to a European Commission media statement, would be going to Haiti "in the near future" (media reports said that it would be the first week of March), and Georgieva, scheduled to arrive in Port-au-Prince on February 27 and remain there until March 2.

When EU foreign ministers met on February 22 under Ashton’s chairpersonship to discuss issues including Haiti, Piebalgs and Georgieva briefed the meeting on developments on the island and their plans for future assistance, according to the EC statement.

Ashton said that Haiti needed "something like a Marshall Plan". Georgieva, separate reports said, spoke of the need to build with the greatest urgency temporary homes to keep Haitians safe during the rainy season. Georgieva, a former World Bank executive who was nominated to the Commission by Bulgaria, said that she would be trying to improve co-ordination among donors, improve transparency and spoke about the use of EU funds for development in the country.

Georgieva, not unimportantly, is in charge of the EC’s humanitarian aid department, known as ECHO, though which all humanitarian aid funds are channeled.
That is, however, not the only channel through which the EU is providing assistance to Haiti. There is also EUCO Haiti, a co-ordination body for EU member states’ provision of military and security assets for the relief and reconstruction effort. Separately, police from EU states are in Haiti, but they report to the UN Mission in Haiti.

Some questions arise from these meetings and statements in a few short days. Georgieva said that she wants to improve co-ordination among donors, Piebalgs’s blog speaks of "shaping an EU comprehensive plan co-ordinating member states initiatives", while Ashton’s detailed job description in the Lisbon Treaty suggests that she should be driving policy initiatives.

When the Spanish presidency of the EU held a meeting about Haiti involving development issues, Piebalgs was there but Georgieva was not. As noted, when foreign ministers met, both Piebalgs and Georgieva gave briefings. Was this a sign of dovetailing, or  needless duplication?

It is early days, and there should not be a rush to judgment about how well or otherwise co-ordination is working among European Commissioners who risk overlapping in practice, if not in the theoretical realms of the Lisbon Treaty. Yet it is also clear that the future of Haiti, where the efficiency of delivery – including by the EU – has come in for criticism, hangs on efficiencies further up of what in this case may without irony or cliché be termed the food chain.

As it is, Haiti is by no means the only item on Ashton’s desk, and given her job description, an EU foreign policy chief will never have the luxury of a single-issue agenda.
Not only did the EU foreign ministers’ meeting on February 22 include discussions on Iran, Ukraine, the Libya-Switzerland dispute and the Gaddaffi regime’s refusal of visas for Schengen zone citizens, the use of fake EU passports in the assassination in Dubai, Belarus and Niger and Trans-Dniester, there was a last-minute matter that will have a direct bearing on how Ashton does her job in future.

In short, the Lisbon Treaty makes the EU foreign policy chief head of the future European External Action Service, and as such in charge of the appointments of the bloc’s diplomats and envoys. However, on the basis of starting the process before Lisbon came into effect, EC President Jose Barroso appointed his compatriot, ally and senior official Joao Vale de Almeida as the EU ambassador in Washington.

This caused unhappiness about the way the appointment was made, along with criticism of the appointee being inappropriately lightweight, with Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt taking the lead in voicing objections, including in public, with a sideswipe at Ashton for the job being handed out with insufficient consultation.

After the foreign ministers’ meeting, Bildt told journalists that there was now clarity about the working relationship among member states, Barroso and Ashton, "I think partly as a result of the fact that we are discussing it now, this won’t be repeated," Bildt said, according to media reports.

For Ashton, the message was clear that she would not be allowed to operate with anything like a free hand and would not be able to move without consulting everyone whose view need be sought; she also came across as Barroso’s patsy in the episode.

There is the theory that Ashton was appointed to the job precisely because she was a weak candidate, and inarguably is there as a result of a complex compromise. Her first few weeks have done nothing to strengthen her image, especially given her Western Balkans tour that produced few clear messages beyond platitudes familiar from her predecessors who have ventured into that complicated corner of Europe.

After Ashton held talks with Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov on February 22, before the ministers’ meeting, and the two discussed Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia, the Foreign Ministry in Sofia indicated that Ashton had welcomed the idea of drawing on Bulgarian insight in formulating EU policies in the Western Balkans.
Right now, that seemed to be one of the few certain helping hands extended to Ashton to negotiate her way further into the hazards of the EU chessboard.