Remember the hard wrangling on how the so-called new EU Embassies would be set up under the Lisbon Treaty and its External Action Service?

No you don’t. So look here.

Some very important issues at stake here, namely who ultimately gives the orders to these missions. Is it the EU in its purest federalistic form of the Commission? Or the member states acting through the European Council?

Or some murky compromise?

MEPs are pressing for the Commission to rule the roost. Why? Because this gives MEPs the most power over the new arrangements!

And if they do not get their way, they may block appointment of the new Commission.

An interesting and obscure and not-so-little issue with far-reaching implications for what we wistfully like to think of as ‘national sovereignty’.

As usual, it is impossible to find out in any reasonable way what eg the UK national position on this might be. Since revealing it at this stage could reduce the chances of it being accepted or manoeuvred through. But insofar as most serious member states quite like having Foreign Policy kept for themselves, it is likely that we’ll be unimpressed with the idea of outsourcing ultimate control to the Commission and MEPs.

I hope.

So as and when the Lisbon Treaty comes into full and final effect, a final ‘deal’ on this important subject will be hammered out behind closed doors between the biggest EU hitters and then presented to a bemused European public as the Answer.

Post-democratic institution-building in action.