Diplomatic Nominations By Catherine Ashton and Federica Mogherini Compared: Which Officials, Whose Nationals and What Gender?

By employing a unique data-set classifying the nationality, gender and source of recruitment of all up to date Heads of EU Delegations and EEAS management, the paper firstly demonstrates a growing overrepresentation of national diplomats over former Commission and Council staff in the European External Action Service (EEAS). By pointing to this trend, the paper argues that it is increasingly EU Member States who are in charge of the EEAS having taken-over the decision-making channels. Secondly, in spite of generally good progress towards a higher recruitment of female staff, women remain under-represented, particularly in the decision-making positions within the EEAS Brussels management and as Heads of EU Delegations. Moreover, female Heads of EU delegations have not been spread across the globe and, contrary to the general trend, many more women were recruited from EU institutions rather than national diplomatic services and from few EU Member States. The paper therefore concludes that thanks to the implications of the patterns of EEAS recruitment, there is a clear ‘CFSP-ization’ of the EEAS managerial structures and hence of EU foreign policy-making while maintaining the gender gap. In addition, the paper identifies which countries were particularly (in)effective in getting their nationals into the (male and female) EEAS staff. The paper concludes whether and where we can observe any changes in the nomination processes between the two last heads of the EEAS: HRVP Ashton and Mogherini.