The bad news about foreign policy

The good news from the European Council is that there will be an EU External Action Service; the bad news from the Council of Ministers is that there will still be no coherent external policy.

This unfortunate contradiction was clearly illustrated on Monday (25 June) morning, when the news of the success of the summit jostled for space with the news that Gazprom and ENI had agreed a deal on creating a pipeline directly from Russia to Italy. In other words, another bilateral deal which sinks any hope of a single EU policy towards Russia.

Both the contradiction and the illustration may be a bit confusing - though not necessarily more confusing than any issue agreed upon at the summit - since the first could be defined as no more than a matter of phrasing and the latter one of trade. But it is precisely in such distinctions, or fudges, that the potential strength - and current weakness - of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) lies.

The average interested citizen of the Union would be forgiven for not really understanding what exactly had been agreed with regard to the External Action Service, other than that it will come into being; that it will be headed by a person at ministerial level who will be called a high representative rather than a foreign minister since the title is too upsetting for some; and that said person will permanently chair the Council of foreign ministers.

Then we come to the issue of what the service is to be and how it will go about its business. A glance, or indeed a meticulous reading of the Council conclusions provides little clarification on this matter, other than noting that "the CFSP is subject to specific procedures and rules".

Within its original context this sentence may refer to provisions laid down in the defunct constitution the proposed treaty is meant to be replacing - but then again, maybe not. As such, it probably deserves a prize for obtuse legal drafting in the face of political pressure - and still leaves the EU punter to wonder about the substance of the service.

If the original constitution is the guide in this matter, then it is proposed that the new high representative will be the head of both Council and European Commission bureaucracies, therefore theoretically bringing together the money and decision-making capabilities of the EU, undoubtedly within "specific procedures and rules". As a structural move this is to be welcomed, but there is then a need for political will to make it a much-needed policy shift. The news of the Gazprom-ENI deal makes it doubtful the political will is there.

Energy has effectively become the nexus of EU activity, uniting many of its core interests and capabilities: trade, competition, climate change, and energy security. However, energy is all about foreign policy - which in the modern world is basically the sum of the four stated areas, which in turn can each be broken down into sub-sections and collectively complemented by development programmes, in which the EU also has core competencies. In other words, the Union already has all necessary policy elements of an external policy - as long as the member states see them as a single package rather than a menu to dine upon à la carte.

In a sense it is ironic that Italian energy giant ENI should be the company to highlight this basic issue, since it was Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi who accused nations such as Britain and Poland of putting national interests ahead of European goals at the summit and said that Europe had lost the common spirit to move ahead. He may want to look to his own backyard before making such bold statements.

It is a trade agreement that will further distort the competition in the EU energy market, the proposed trajectory of the pipeline may have a negative environmental impact and the entire deal will only increase dependency on Russian resources. In other words, it fulfils all four criteria - and is a bilateral foreign policy move which makes a nonsense of any commonality. If such moves persist, the external service will remain no more than a bureaucratic framework.

• Ilana Bet-El is an academic, author and policy adviser based in Brussels.

The good news from the European Council is that there will be an EU External Action Service; the bad news from the Council of Ministers is that there will still be no coherent external policy.