The complicated ‘relationship’ among commissioners with foreign-policy dossiers.

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What exactly is the relationship supposed to be in the next European Commission between Catherine Ashton, who combines the job of commissioner for external relations with being the EU’s high representative for foreign and security policy, and the other commissioners who have dossiers linked to foreign policy? 

José Manuel Barroso has assigned development to Andris Piebalgs, enlargement and neighbourhood policy to Štefan Füle, and international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response to Rumiana Jeleva.

Announcing these responsibilities back on 27 November, Barroso said they would be working “in close co-operation with the high representative/vice-president in accordance with the treaties”. But there is still much speculation about what to read into all this.

Some national government officials – and some MEPs – suspect that, in assigning neighbourhood policy to Füle, Barroso was making a power-grab against the Council of Ministers and the future European External Action Service. Barroso denies this and went some way this week to explain his thinking at a meeting of Brussels think-tanks. The other commissioners would be in a support role, he suggested. Ashton would be too busy to visit Ukraine as regularly as Füle might.

“Responsibility for the neighbourhood policy is with Catherine Ashton. She will need support to develop that policy,” he said, adding that the other commissioners “can be deputies of the high representative”.

But Barroso is treading a fine line: some member states will bridle at the suggestion that any commissioner is a deputy for or of anyone else, because it smacks of two tiers of commissioners.

It may not be irrelevant that the three commissioners concerned come from countries – the Czech Republic, Latvia and Bulgaria – that are not the strongest players in the European Council.