The European Parliament’s budgets committee today (5 October) decided to withhold close to €20 million earmarked in next year’s draft EU budget for the creation of 118  posts in the EU’s new diplomatic service.

The decision escalates an ongoing dispute between MEPs and Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, over how much influence the Parliament ought to have over the European External Action Service (EEAS). MEPs on the budgets committee, following up a request from the foreign affairs committee, tied the release of the funds to receiving assurances on the service’s recruitment policy and crisis management capabilities.

The money was to be used for the creation of 118 EEAS posts, in addition to 1,525 officials who are to be transferred from the European Commission and the Council of Ministers immediately after the EEAS is launched. The EEAS is scheduled to begin work in December.

Of the funds the committee proposed to put into reserve, €18.6m concerns the creation of the 118 new posts, primarily to deal with the service’s increased workload linked to tasks currently performed by the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. This money will be released as soon as Ashton “explicitly commits herself to consulting Parliament on staffing priorities within the service”, according to the amendment adopted today. A Parliament source suggested that this wording was general enough to reflect the concerns of MEPs on the budgets committee, who are primarily concerned with staffing costs generated by promotions, and of MEPs on the foreign affairs committee, who want to ensure that more applicants from the EU’s new member states are hired.

Ingeborg Grässle, a centre-right German MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position on changes to the financing rules, accused the EEAS of turning into a “Mexican army” with “many generals but few boots on the ground”. Grässle criticised the fact that there would be eight posts at director-general level in the service, and 73  posts at director level. She said that each director-general would only be responsible for 74 officials, contrasting the situation with the German civil service where she said an official at the same level would be responsible for more than 1,000 staff.

The budgets committee also recommended putting an additional €1.37m in reserve, relating to 17 posts that are currently part of the European Commission. This money will be released once the Commission presents a proposal for the transfer of these posts to the EEAS unit in charge of crisis response “in line with previous commitments and statements by High Representative Ashton”, according to today’s amendment. The member states want the 17 posts to remain with the Commission.

The committee’s recommendations require the backing of the full Parliament, which is expected to vote on the measures during its 18-21 October plenary in Strasbourg.