‘In the face of adversity’: explaining the attitudes of EEAS officials vis-à-vis the new service

Abstract

The establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS) by the Lisbon Treaty was preceded by time-consuming negotiations about the composition, organization, budget and accountability of the service. In spite of the negative views among EEAS officials concerning the actual implementation of the reforms, they displayed a surprisingly positive attitude towards the new organization and identified strongly with it. This contribution aims to explain this empirical puzzle by drawing on two different approaches to attitude formation: one based on material calculations and another one on socio-psychological factors. It shows that a narrow understanding of rationality based on short-term career-related calculations cannot account for the support that the EEAS garnered among its ranks since a majority of officials reported a negative impact in terms of careers prospects. An explanation of positive attitudes towards the EEAS thus needs to take into account a broader conception of ‘career prospects’, including other indicators such as reputation and job satisfaction. Moreover, this contribution shows how a strong identification with the European Union (EU) and a desire to make EU foreign policy work might also explain why officials profess strong support for the EEAS.

Keywords:

• Attitudes
• European External Action Service
• European foreign policy
• international civil servants
• organizational reform

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous referees and the editor of this collection, Michael E. Smith, for their feedback on previous versions of this article. Special thanks are also owed to the officials that gave up their time to participate in this research. We are also grateful to Jost-Henrik Morgenstern, Alex Prichard, Michael H. Smith and Sophie Vanhoonacker for their invaluable comments.

Notes

The performance of the EEAS during the Libyan crisis is a case in point (see Koenig 2011).

By the end of 2011, the EEAS had received 8,830 applications for 181 posts, of which 66 are management posts in Brussels Headquarters or in EU Delegations (O'Sullivan 2011).

However, another matter refers to whether this is the result of self-selection or prior socialization within EU institutions, but this is beyond the aims of this contribution.

An additional point to consider here is whether the overall positive attitude towards the EEAS is also linked to the shared feeling of professionalism among EU officials, which had already been identified as a key factor by Simon Nuttall (1992) in his work on European political co-operation. The authors are grateful to the editor for pointing out this issue.