Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to the contribution of the Minister of Europe, in the debate on the European External Action Service of 14 July 2010, Official Report, column 1056, if he will give a detailed breakdown of the £400 million estimated cost of the European External Action Service.
Answer
[holding answer 22 July 2010]: Any calculation of the cost of the European External Action Service (EEAS) will necessarily be provisional until presentation of the EEAS draft budget, expected in mid-September 2010. We expect that the European Commission will issue an amending letter detailing the redistribution of expenditure. I will deposit this letter in Parliament. However, taking the most recent year for which actual figures are available, 2009, the total cost of the Commission and Council services which, according to provisional plans, will be transferred into the EEAS is in the order of €398.5 million. This figure does not represent the entire cost of the EEAS, which will also include seconded member state nationals, a part of the staff of the EU Special Representatives, and administrative costs which have not yet been fully laid out. This figure is based on the assumption (subject to some change as details are worked through) that the units that will move are:"the Directorate-General for External Relations (DG Relex) (although not all staff in delegations);""half of Directorate-General Development (including staff in delegations);""half of the cost to DG Relex of delegations;""12.5% of the non-building (ie staff and ancillary costs) of the Council Secretariat."The costs of these four items for the last year for which we have actual figures of money spent, 2009, are: €11 million; €97.4 million; €128 million; and €59 million. This gives a combined total of €398.5 million.