The EU Foreign Ministry and Union Embassies

With the French and Dutch referenda on the draft Constitutional Treaty each producing a resounding 'No', the proposal in the draft to set up a new European External Action Service (EEAS), or Foreign Ministry of Europe, may appear to some observers to be pretty much dead in the water. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the politics of European integration are going to get much hotter in the coming two years than at any time since 1993, the problems that
caused the European Council to support the creation of new EEAS will not go away simply because the draft Constitutional Treaty is under threat. They were there before the talk of a Constitution emerged as strongly as it did three or four years ago, and they will be every bit as important in spite of the problems with ratification of the draft treaty.