Michael Dóczy
Check, and Check Again, Before Killing the EEAS
A Critical Analysis of the Franco-German and German Papers on EU External Action
AIES Comment 2026/7
18.09.2026 / Europäische Union / Europäische Sicherheit und Verteidigung
Recent Franco-German and subsequent German proposals seek to fundamentally reshape EU external action by transferring large parts of the European External Action Service (EEAS) into the European Commission and strengthening the coordinating role of the High Representative/Vice-President. This paper critically examines the institutional, legal and practical consequences of these proposals. Drawing also on the author’s first-hand experience of the negotiations that created the EEAS, it argues that moving structures between institutions would not resolve the underlying fragmentation of EU foreign policy and could instead recreate the pre-Lisbon divide between Commission and Council, while generating new bureaucratic, personnel and legal complications.
Rather than dismantling the EEAS, the paper argues for reforming and empowering it while opening a much more fundamental debate about the architecture of European external action. The central constraints on an effective common foreign policy lie not primarily in administrative structures, but in the division of competences between the EU institutions and Member States, the continued existence of 27 national foreign policies alongside the CFSP, and Treaty-based decision-making rules. If Europe wants a genuinely more coherent and powerful foreign policy, it should look beyond another institutional reshuffle and reconsider the structures, instruments, diplomatic networks and ultimately the Treaty framework on which European external action is built.