European External Action Service
Diplomatic service and combined foreign and defence ministry of the European Union
Follow European External Action Service on Notably News to receive short updates to your email — rarely!
| 2020 | The Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) is set to expand its operational capabilities to run executive operations of up to 2,500 troops, equivalent to one battle group's size. |
| 2017 | EEAS becomes part of the Secretariat of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which involves 25 of the 27 national armed forces of the EU. |
| July 28 2015 | Announcement of a third Deputy Secretary-General position to be created, focused on Economic and Global Issues, planned to be implemented from mid-September 2015. |
| 2014 | Start of the 2014-2020 programming cycle for international development, with the EEAS taking on three of the five planning cycles previously managed by the European Commission. |
| 2012 | The European External Action Service (EEAS) began testing the division of responsibilities with the European Commission, particularly regarding development programming for the 2014-2020 period. |
| January 1 2011 | First staff permanently transferred to the EEAS, comprising 585 staff from the Commission's External Relations DG, 93 from the Development DG, 436 from Commission delegations, and 411 from the Council of the European Union. The total staff count reached 1,643 on this transfer day. |
| 2010 | The EU planned to convert all delegations to the new embassy-type missions by the end of 2010. |
| 2010 | Joao Vale de Almeida became the first joint EU ambassador in Washington D.C., with new powers to speak for both the Commission and Council presidents, and member states. |
| December 1 2010 | EEAS is formally established through a merger of external relations departments from the European Commission and Council, with staff also seconded from national diplomatic services of Member States. |
| October 2010 | Catherine Ashton chose the Triangle building as the headquarters for the European External Action Service after considering alternative locations like the Charlemagne and Lex buildings. |
| September 2010 | Job adverts were issued for three junior posts at the EEAS, including roles for foreign deployment, a multi-lingual internet researcher, and a position to follow up on open and confidential information sources. |
| July 8 2010 | European Parliament approved the European External Action Service with 549 votes in favor, 78 against, and 17 abstentions. |
| January 2010 | Catherine Ashton was named High Representative and tasked with drawing up the structure of the new European External Action Service (EEAS). |
| January 2010 | Following the Haiti earthquake, Catherine Ashton chaired a meeting of foreign policy actors to coordinate a disaster response, which she noted as the first coordinated effort across EU foreign policy actors. |
| January 1 2010 | All former European Commission delegations were renamed European Union delegations and began gradually upgrading to embassy-type missions with expanded powers. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles European External Action Service & European Union Military Staff, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.