Controversy rages (zzzzz) over plans (or not) for the EU to have its own Embassies within the new External Action Service.

As previously described, this proposal of course is being hotly debated in Brussels, not least because hundreds of EU officials’ jobs as currently funded are at stake.

This latest report looks like more of the same, with the European Parliament pressing for some sort of decisive say’in the appointment of ‘EU Ambassadors’, so as to create implicitly or explicitly a new source of collective European uber-legitimacy for the whole project at the expense of national sovereignty.

Note the crafty phrasing by the Foreign Secretary’s spokesman:

Mr Miliband had told the Commons that work would not begin until the treaty had been ratified by Parliament and entered force next year. "There have been no discussions at ministerial or working level on the detailed organisation and functioning of the EEAS," he said on Feb 28 …

… A spokesman for Mr Miliband said: "This is Tory fiction. Nothing in the allegation or reality contradicts the Foreign Secretary’s February statement.

"While the commission or member states may draw up or circulate ideas for an external action service those ideas will have no status until they are agreed by all member states including the UK. There will be no final agreement until ratification is complete."

What this breezily glosses over is the fact that numerous detailed proposals are now sloshing around, some of which will have significant de facto authority. Whether they have gone to EU Working Groups or Ministers formally or informally or otherwise have ‘status’ is beside the point – heads of steam will be building up behind various ideas (some of course HMG will like and be pushing), so that when they do enter the system ‘officially’ they can be pushed through more easily.

But it is clear that unless we like the outcome we can block it, and that our partners know that. Just as we know that if they do not like what we want, they can block.

So as usual it comes down to two simple questions.

How tough are we prepared to be on the day?

And what do we (the UK) actually want?

A very important issue. Being discussed and debated in the UK in an honest open way?

No.