The Deputisation of the High Representative/ Vice-President of the Commission: Making the Impossible Job Work

By combining the post of the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy with that of the External Relations Commissioner, the Treaty of Lisbon created the position of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission (HR/VP), who is additionally tasked to chair the Foreign Affairs Council. This demanding job profile led scholars and observers to argue for the establishment of deputies, without which this position would be unmanageable.

Given that the Treaty of Lisbon does not include an explicit provision that would allow for the HR/VP’s deputisation, this paper in a first step aims to assess what the legal possibilities and constraints with regard to the setting up of a deputisation system are. Taking into account that the HR/VP interacts with various actors of the institutional environment of the European Union (EU), the paper attempts to find out, in a second step, to what extent these actors allow for the HR/VP’s deputisation. Finally, it examines how the HR/VP’s replacement is assured inside and outside the EU in practice and to what extent those arrangements can be considered as efficient.

An application of different interpretation methods to the Treaty on European Union (TEU) will first demonstrate that the teleological approach offers the most convincing arguments in order to argue for the lawfulness of deputies in EU primary law. As to the second research aim, an analysis of Rules of Procedures and political declarations will find that the environment – if at all – rather allows for other forms of the HR/VP’s replacement than deputisation by a person, who is placed under her authority. Ultimately, it will be shown that the lack of legal provisions is compensated by the expedient prioritisation of meetings by the HR/VP as well as by the establish-ment of practices which consist in forms of replacement but – to an increasing extent – also in deputisation, and which are subject to constant enhancements. The paper will conclude by advocating the expansion of such practices to other cases where the HR/VP’s replacement has to be assured, and most notably to the Commission, where the disadvantages of no deputisation prove to be intolerably high.

College of Europe: Study: EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies: Research Activities: EU Diplomacy Papers [PDF] https://www.coleurope.eu/sites/default/files/research-paper/edp_5_2014_borreschmidt.pdf

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