By Martin Banks - 2nd September 2010
Ashton must change course immediately
Franziska Brantner
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton has been urged to ensure women and people from eastern Europe are represented in the new EU diplomatic corps.
Ashton is due to announce the first set of ambassadorial appointments for the fledgling European external action service (EAS) in the coming weeks.
MEPs from the Greens/EFA group in parliament have warned that unless there is gender and geographical balance in the new service it will seek to block the start of the EAS.
It comes in the wake of media reports that Ashton intends to appoint hardly any women and eastern Europeans as EU ambassadors.
German Greens deputy Franziska Brantner, foreign affairs spokesperson of her group, said, "Ashton's first staffing decisions could hardly be worse: not even one out of 10 ambassadors would be female, a total of two of the 115 ambassadors would come from Eastern Europe.
"This is in stark contrast to Ashton's promise to parliament that gender equality would be a priority for her.
"Provided the media reports prove true, Ashton would clearly renege on that promise. Even worse: She would also ignore EU law.
"Based on an initiative of the Greens group, parliament enshrined in the founding act of the European external action service that Ashton must ensure gender and geographical balance among her diplomats.
"Ashton must change course immediately.
"The appointments to be made this autumn must sufficiently allow for women candidates and applicants from newer member states and considerably increase the proportion of women in the new service.
"As long as this is not the case, the Greens group will push for parliament to freeze the funding for the new service. The external action service must not become a western European old boys club."
A spokesman for Ashton insisted that she will seek equal representation of women and people from the old Eastern bloc in the service.
"We are seeking the brightest and best for the service but are, of course, sympathetic towards the needs of gender and geographical balance."
He said, "It is important to stress that, at this stage, no final decisions on staffing have been made."
