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RESEARCH PRODUCT

European Union Foreign Policy after the Treaty of Lisbon:Chartering the Contours of the European External Action Service

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Presentation on department page: http://www.uia.no/no/portaler/om_universitetet/oekonomi_og_samfunnsvitenskap/statsvitenskap_og_ledelsesfag/ forskning_isl/isl_working_papers_series The EU’s newly established diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), has attracted research interest from several sub-disciplines in political science and law. Two gaps in the contemporary literature, however, persist: i) a lack of empirical data on the establishment and organisation of the service, and ii) a dearth of theoretical research programmes that aim at ‘contextualizing’ the EEAS within broader conceptual debates in international relations, public administration, and law. This research note seeks to remedy these shortcomings by studying how national administrations reacted and adapted to the first waves of recruitment within the EEAS using a unique new dataset on the recruitment of member-state diplomats to the EEAS. It thus explores an empirical issue that was widely discussed among both academic and non-academic observers, and represented a key practical question for many national foreign ministries, at the time of the EEAS’ launch. Our analysis indicates that, contrary to early fears of ‘colonialisation’ of the EEAS through member-states diplomats, the EEAS has managed to hold a firm grip on the recruitment process, which overall has been largely informed by European Commission recruitment procedures and practices thus far.