{"id":336273,"date":"2010-02-18T15:56:04","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T20:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/eu-s-barroso-tightens-grip-eu-foreign-policy-39631\/"},"modified":"2010-02-18T15:56:04","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T20:56:04","slug":"eu%c2%92s-barroso-tightens-grip-on-eu-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/336273","title":{"rendered":"EU\u0092s Barroso Tightens Grip on EU Foreign Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 02.18.10 11:00 AM posted by Sally McNamara<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The EU\u0092s appointment of Jo\u00e3o Vale de Almeida<\/a> as the new EU Ambassador to Washington confirms European Commission president Jos\u00e9 Manuel Barroso\u0092s tightening grip on Brussels\u0092 foreign policy levers.<\/p>\n

Virtually-unknown on the international stage, Vale de Almeida has been Barroso\u0092s head of cabinet for the past five years, and intimately associated with the creation of the EU\u0092s new diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service (EEAS). The fact that someone so closely associated with the set-up of this new diplomatic corps should land such a plum role in it, would be considered a conflict of interest by any other organization, save the EU.<\/p>\n

Vale de Almeida has all the essential qualifications that Brussels requires: he is a quintessential EU bureaucrat, whose advancement of ever-closer-union is unquestionable. And his loyalty to the unelected and unaccountable European Commission, especially Barroso, is certain.<\/p>\n

However, foreign policymaking should now be the purview of the EU\u0092s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Catherine Ashton, who should answer directly to the member states through the European Council. The British Government repeatedly claimed that the Lisbon Treaty was nothing more than a tidying-up exercise, and that foreign policy would not be supranationalized.<\/p>\n

In less than three months, the Lisbon Treaty has made a farce of the claim that foreign policy remains the responsibility of member states. Ashton herself is a Vice-President of the European Commission and has chosen to base herself in the Commission\u0092s Berlaymont building. Her less than stellar resume and awkward performance before the European Parliamentary confirmation hearings has left her completely reliant on Commission bureaucrats to guide the development of the EEAS and the Common Foreign and Security Policy, ensuring that power goes further toward Brussels, and further away from member states. And with Vale de Almeida\u0092s appointment, there is little doubt that arch-federalist Barroso will tighten his stealthy control over the EU\u0092s foreign policy making machine.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/18\/…oreign-policy\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 02.18.10 11:00 AM posted by Sally McNamara The EU\u0092s appointment of Jo\u00e3o Vale de Almeida as the new EU Ambassador to Washington confirms European Commission president Jos\u00e9 Manuel Barroso\u0092s tightening grip on Brussels\u0092 foreign policy levers. Virtually-unknown on the international stage, Vale de Almeida has been Barroso\u0092s head of cabinet for the past five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}