Britain’s very own EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Cathy Ashton, has not had a terribly good press after a report from the European Parliament said her department had too many decision-making layers, is top heavy and is indecisive in response to crises. It didn’t help that she was looking for a four per cent increase in her department’s budget, amounting to £18 million for next year.
Which is why she will be doing everything possible to make the most of her one diplomatic triumph last weekend, a deal between Kosovo and Serbia. Implementation talks started yesterday.
Indeed the one undoubted gainer from the Kosovo-Serbia deal initialled by Hashim Thaci, Kosovo prime minister, and Serbia’s Ivica Dacic and brokered by Baroness Ashton is the EU. Or as the FT puts it, ‘the accord makes clear that the Eurozone crisis has not diminished the EU’s allure. Without the promise of getting on the road to membership, Serbia would never have engaged’.
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