The Establishment of the European External Action Service

Abstract

The EEAS was designed as the institutional solution to the perennial problems of inefficiency and incoherence that have beset CFSP. However, creating an organisational and administrative centre for EU foreign and security policy has not been uncontroversial and since its launch the EEAS has faced a range of administrative and bureaucratic challenges. The chapter begins by exploring the positions of Germany and the UK towards the EEAS, particularly during the negotiations that created it, and their subsequent attitudes to it and how it has functioned and been led. What emerges is a complex set of competing preferences, with Germany strongly supportive in principle while the UK has sought to limit its activities and responsibilities for ideological and budgetary reasons.