Behind the flow of depressive commentaries related to the appointments of Catherine Ashton and (less so) Herman van Rompuy, there are more EU foreign policy news coming – the announcement of the new Commission’s line-up. One interesting development is the merging of enlargement and neighbourhood portfolios under one Commissioner – Stefan Fule (Czech Republic). A couple of months ago I heard a murmur in Brussels saying that it is way too early to give the enlargement portfolio to a new member state. Apparently, it is not. (I also heard the Czechs would never get a substantial portfolio because of Klaus’ foot-dragging on Lisbon.)

More importantly, I never thought that enlargement-wary EU member states would ever accept the merging of the enlargement and neighbourhood portfolios under one commissioner (though formally, Barroso is in charge of the distribution of portfolios). For many in the EU this would send all the wrong signals to states like Ukraine and Moldova that want to join the EU. It is equally true that for many this would send all the right signals (as well as the right framework for approaching relations with the EU’s neighbours). I thought the EU needs a separate commissioner for the neighbourhood, but I did not think it was politically feasible to have a commissioner for “enlargement and neighbourhood”. I proved wrong.

Merging enlargement and neighbourhood is in some ways an innovation, but in some ways is simply going back to the origins. Back in 2002-2003 Commission’s task force that developed the neighbourhood policy consisted of officials coming overwhelmingly from the then DG enlargement (that started to look like a useless behemoth once the negotiations on the big-bang 2004 enlargement were finished). Back in 2003 some expected that enlargement and neighbourhood could indeed be run from the same hq. Now that vision seems to be taking shape. 

Though its shape is still unclear. The formal announcement mentions that Stefan Fule will be in charge of DG enlargement and the “The neighbourhood parts of DG External Relations (RELEX) and of the EuropeAid-Cooperation Office (AIDCO)”. But then there is also a footnote saying “Without prejudice for the creation of the future European External Action Service (EEAS).” It is not entirely clear (to me at least) what will be the relationship between the two bits of Fule’s portfolio (enlargement and neighbourhood). Does it mean that the neighbourhood parts of Fule’s team will be under EEAS and the enlargement parts will not?

EU foreign policy has always been fragmented between various actors, not just between the EU Council secretariat (Solana) and the Commission, but also within the European Commission with separate commissioners and DGs holding various bits of the foreign affairs (Relex) business – external relations, enlargement, development and trade. Now the Relex family seems to be even bigger with Catherine Ashton as the new high rep, Karel de Gucht on trade, Stefan Fule on enlargement and neighbourhood policy, Rumiana Jeleva on international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis respons, and Andris Piebalgs on development. It looks like Lisbon was designed to fix the Council-Commission cleavage, but not the intra-Commission fragmentation of foreign policy matters. So it remains to be seen how the new and extended family of Relex commissioners will work. For the taste of the mess to come note that five out of six footnotes in the formal announcement of Barroso’s team are trying to deal with the complexities in the Relex family. EU footnotes are usually pandora boxes for inconsistencies.

However, I hope the merging of the enlargement and neighbourhood bits of the commission will help. Unlike EU’s foreign policy at large, EU’s enlargement policy is more institutionalised, more coherent and better-organised. Placing the neighbourhood policy under the wing of the enlargement commissioner could shield it at least partly from the pains of birth of the External Action Service.

EU Observer, 28 November 2009