538 Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos Núm. 2 / 2013 reticent in relinquishing competences in matters of foreign policy and security, a last stronghold of their sovereignty in the classic sense. Coherence, consistency and unity in European external action was the mantra that had been constantly repeated since the Treaty of Maastricht, with the Lisbon Treaty attempting to provide a definitive proposal. With the provision of an External Action Service, in the form of a pan-European diplomatic corps, it was devised to assist the new High Representative, who would sit as a member of the Commission and, and at the same time chair and coordinate the Council of Foreign Ministers. After a lengthy gestation period, the Council adopted the decision of 26th July 2010 on its organization and functioning.3After the first appointments, the service commenced operations on 1st January 2011 with the transfer of the corresponding Council and Commission staff. The structure is made up of a central administration and Delegations of the European Union (EU) in countries and in international organisations around the world whose staff largely belonged to the EEAS. The central administration, managed by the executive Secretary-General is organised into Direc-torates- General over geographical, cross-disciplinary and multilateral areas. Development and neighbourhood policies, security and peace-building, human rights and the promotion of democracy are reflected in the structure. In concrete terms the majority of staff from the Commission’s Directorate-General for External Relations were transferred, along with part of the staff from the Development Directorate-General (the remain-der of which merged with the Directorate-General on External Cooperation into the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation). The management of development cooperation programmes remains under the auspices of the Commission4, along with expansion, trade, humanitarian assistance and civil protection. For its part, the Cou-ncil Secretariat transferred to the EEAS the staff of the Directorate-General for External and Political-Military affairs, and therefore the structures of CSDP and crisis management. This new European bureaucracy for the implementation of the EU’s common foreign policy generated some confusion among community institutions and the Ministries of Foreign affairs of the EU member States. As M. E. Smith has pointed out, while many of the questions raised referred to the traditional supranational or intergovernmental controversy regarding the body governing external policy, others referred to the future that awaited EU policy under the management of this new ins-titutional machinery 5. 3 Council Decision, 26 July,2010, establishing the organisation and functioning of the EEAS, DO L 2010 201/30. 4 Without prejudice to the respective roles of the Commission and the EEAS in programming; Article 9, Council decision 26 July, 2010, cit. 5 SMITH, Michael E. “The European External Action Service and the Security-Development Nexus: organizing for Effectiveness or Incoherence?”, Journal of European Public Policy, 2013.
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