With the Arab world in ferment,the West as a whole in decline and America drawing down its military commitment to Europe, one would assume that Europeans would have a lot to think about and do in international affairs. But a year after the launch of its "foreign ministry", though, the despair is palpable. Fewer and fewer people have anything good to say about its boss, Cathy Ashton.

One unusually fierce shot was fired last month from the pages of The Economist's sister publication, European Voice (here). The author, Toby Vogel, concluded:

I wrote here a year ago that the EEAS would be judged not by its performance at launch but by the state of the EU's foreign and security policy after a year or two. The new service is still failing. Among all the design flaws that have held back the EEAS, by far the biggest has been to put Ashton in charge of it.

Since then the reports and assessments have been coming in thick and fast. One poor grade comes from the foreign-policy “scorecard” issued by the European Council on Foreign Relations. Another think-tank, FRIDE, analyses more generally the growing trend towards commercial interests in "Challenges for European Foreign Policy in 2012" (PDF here).



Perhaps the most comprehensive demolition came today from Stefan Lehne, a former senior Austrian diplomat who worked for Mrs Ashton's predecessor, Javier Solana.

His analysis, "More Action, Better Service: How to Strengthen the European External Action Service" (PDF here) is phrased diplomatically, as one might expect, but its exposition of the weakness of the EEAS is more devastating for the sober tone in which it is delivered. In some ways, he concludes, the situation is worse today than it was under the previous system of fragmented roles.

Any new organisation is bound to have its teething problems, particularly one such as the EEAS, which incorporates functions that had been performed by several officers, and which must reconcile the aims and prejudices of 27 different countries. The service, moreover, has been systematically undermined by the European Commission, and by the bigger beasts among the foreign ministers. But much of the trouble boils down to poor leadership, ie, Lady Ashton. There are some first-rate people in the EEAS. But the stories of chaos in her entourage and despair among her subordinates are worryingly commonplace.



At the pamphlet's launch today by Carnegie Europe, a think-tank in Brussels, I was asked to offer a response to Mr Lehne's analysis. I have occasionally written about the EEAS in the Charlemagne column (“Waiting for the big call”, “Out of the limelight” and “High Noon over Palestine”). I have tried to stay away from the popular Brussels blood sport of Ashton-baiting, and even ventured to report in one piece that both Israelis and Palestinians were taking her mediation seriously. Alas, I too am losing hope in the EEAS. Radical rethinking is needed. Below are my speaking notes: