Back from giving further diplomatic mediation skills training in Brussels to EU officials. Unlike the FCO, the EU’s nascent foreign policy machine dimly sees the point of understanding how to get better outcomes by using smart mediation techniques. So, I duly help deliver the superb training they need.

In the margins I picked up some ideas on what is happening more generally in the Brussels foreign policy machinery. Thus:

  • she usually gets rotten reviews from the UK media (and not only the UK media), but Baroness Ashton as the EU’s ‘High Representative’ is making a not inconsiderable impact in some senior global circles, particularly with the Obama Administration who seem to enjoy her company.
  • At the fleeting EU/US Summit in Lisbon, Baroness Ashton made a positive impression on the American delegation and won some pointedly warm words from President Obama himself. Why? She has one advantage over her senior EU colleagues from other member states. She talks like a human being and does not waste American time by reading out speaking-notes like a nervous Euro-robot.
  • Baroness Ashton presides over the new ‘European External Action Service’ as set up under the Lisbon Treaty. This body basically reboots a lot of what was there before by way of EU delegations beyond the EU’s own borders and attempts to make the collective impact of ‘Europe’ more, er, impactful by pulling together a lot of functions and associated ‘instruments’ which had grown in a higgledy-piggledy fashion over the years.
  • Launching the new formation at the start of 2011 as planned is a horrendously complicated task, as the tentacles of EU process cling to every move. Lots of people currently in Commission foreign action roles overseas and in Brussels are facing gloomy uncertainty: under a significant innovation in the Treaty representatives from member states are expected to join the EEAS, taking up important job-slots.
  • Needless to say, the one thing many EU leaders want at this time of dangerous uncertainty across the Eurozone is top diplomatic postings for their countrymen (and even occasionally countrywomen). Baroness Ashton’s office is under siege from assorted Prime Ministers and/or Presidents begging or demanding more ‘good jobs’.  
  • Baroness Ashton is striving to fend off this crass lobbying by insisting that appointments are made only on merit, which in some cases has been conspicuously lacking. A first group of nearly 30 Ambassadors has been appointed. Not too many women – but the EU Ambassador gender balance is looking better than it was previously.

The birth-pains of the EEAS are affected by the agonies of the Eurozone. The fact that the 2011 EU Budget is still not agreed is making life even more procedurally difficult for the EEAS planners.

Here the British and some other cruel budget disciplinarians are locked in a tense struggle with the European Parliament, who are manoeuvring furiously to get a sliver of toenail in the door to open a precedent for the Parliament having a real say in future budget total decisions – ie increases.

The beastly Brits are to the fore in saying NO. Partly because there is already a consensus of sorts on a modest increase in the budget for 2011, despite member states’ financial problems. Partly because London (rightly) does not want the European Parliament to have any more powers, especially when it comes to Money. 

And partly because the Brits are trying to lay down (yet again) a clear marker against the inane EU tendency of refusing to dismiss any proposal as ridiculous and then looking for ‘solidarity compromises’ between common sense and sheer stupidity.

With Portugal now looking ever more sickly as the Eurozone wobbles, Commission President Barroso (himself Portuguese) feels under pressure and is publicly flailing against the British position in a way unlikely to impress London.

But if we Brits with our various allies do get our way and compel the European Parliament into a sulky retreat as the deadline for agreeing a 2011 Budget hurtles forward, will the Parliament look to do something even more beastly to us when it next gets the chance to act within its already existing competences? Eeek.

My overall impression?

That the Brussels Metro is a freakily decadent and dysfunctional place. The numbers of people actually paying for tickets must be very low, as there are no barriers to getting into the system. Say what you like about London’s Oyster card, but it does uphold the noble principle that if you want to use public transport, you should jolly well buy a ticket.

Does it make sense for the EU to press for ever-more centralisation in Bosnia, when the country hosting the core EU institutions – viz Belgium – is riven with ethnic divisions and is heading in exactly the opposite direction?

The EU’s institutional and policy contradictions are like credit card arrears. They compound up faster than anyone expects.

Then we get the bill.