Socialisation and Esprit De Corps in the External Action Service
Karolina Pomorska, University of Cambridge
(Joint paper with Ana Juncos)
The Treaty of Lisbon established the EEAS in order to increase the coherence of the EU's external policies by bringing together officials from the Council Secretariat General, the European Commission and the Foreign Ministries of the member states. However, tensions among the different institutional actors involved in the institutionalization of the EEAS did not take long to emerge. The current view in Brussels is that an esprit de corps will take a long time to materialize given the amount of frustration that has accompanied the creation of the new service. There are also still several challenges relating to the intra- and inter-institutional coherence of the EEAS. This paper examines the consequences of the establishment of the EEAS in terms of coherence, the loyalties of the officials, and the potential esprit de corps of the new institution in order to determine the future impact of the EEAS on European foreign policy.