The Diplomat
The European Parliament will call on the European Commission to set up a permanent training programme for young diplomats from candidate countries to join the European Union.
The proposal, approved by Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, was put forward by Spanish MEP Ignacio Sánchez Amor (PSOE), who was also the driving force behind the pilot project to set up a European Diplomatic School, which is already underway.
According to the Spanish MEP, the aim of the programme would be to train young diplomats from the candidate countries in the functioning of the European Union’s external action and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
This would seek to solve the problem created by the fact that these diplomats, who have been participating in the pilot project of the European Diplomatic School, could not have access to all the meetings, due to certain restrictions on authorisations for security reasons.
For example, they cannot be present at certain meetings of the EU Council, to which their diplomatic colleagues from Member States participating in the same European Diplomatic Academy project have access.
The text of the proposal was adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee on 20 November and is expected to be approved by Parliament’s plenary.
