Paris and Berlin publicly call for options to restructure the EU’s diplomatic service by the end of the year, demanding a rapid timetable to emphasise the need for the bloc to have “strong and better” foreign action. Context: The EEAS operates like an EU foreign ministry shared between the 27 member states. Its head, high representative and vice‑president Kaja Kallas, reports to both the European Commission and the bloc’s capitals.

Dismayed by the EEAS’s failure to co‑ordinate responses to the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the wars, US President Donald Trump’s whims, tariffs, economic coercion and energy supplies as foreign policy tools, Paris and Berlin have privately discussed drastic action to reform its functions and powers. “With the geopolitical developments we are facing, Germany and France emphasise the need to reform the EU’s internal set‑up for external action, to allow for stronger, swifter and more co‑ordinated EU responses at the international level,” the capitals said in a joint statement following intergovernmental consultations last week.

The two largest economies called for EU leaders to use a summit in October to formally request a study of potential remedies, to be delivered “by the end of 2026”. The work intends to include studies into how certain EEAS powers could be shifted to the Commission. Kallas has said EU foreign ministers will discuss the future of the EEAS at an informal meeting in Ireland in September, ensuring the discussion leads to formal reform proposals.

Meanwhile, six of the EU’s largest economies, the E6, urged Brussels to go further in easing banking rules, pushing back against parts of its plan to deepen cross‑border banking integration. They call for a recalibration of post‑financial crisis capital rules, including reducing discretionary capital buffers imposed by supervisors and revisiting capital requirements for mortgage lending and loans to companies without external credit ratings.