Schools for Europe’s diplomatic corps

The EU’s greater foreign-policy ambitions are being reflected in EU studies courses.

Next week (25-26 October), the College of Europe will host a conference on challenges facing the 21st-century diplomat, with a programme that illustrates how the profession has evolved in recent years. There are many issues to cover, including a more significant European Union dimension, indicated not just by the college’s interest but also by the presence of speakers from the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission.

The area where European and diplomacy studies meet represents a relatively new niche in higher education. The College of Europe was among the first institutions to address it, setting up a master’s programme in EU international relations and diplomacy studies in 2006. The aim was to anticipate changes heralded in the (draft) constitutional treaty and subsequently implemented by the Lisbon treaty.

“It is not just foreign policy in a classical sense, but also external aspects of internal policies that have gained increasing importance,” says Sieglinde Gstöhl, the programme’s director of studies. “It was identified as a market niche to have a specialised master’s programme that combined diplomacy studies with a European perspective, but covering these external relations in a comprehensive sense: the EEAS, the Lisbon treaty, the EU’s expanding role as a global actor.”

The programme tackles the crossover between Europe and diplomacy in everything it does. “For example, EU trade policy can also address commercial diplomacy, or a Common Foreign and Security Policy course can also address diplomatic sanctions,” says Gstöhl. There are also specific courses on the EU’s external representation and its neighbourhood policy that focus on the EU as a diplomatic player.

Language skills

Most of the students already have a master’s degree and will have studied the EU before. “We can draw on that and be much more specialised,” says Gstöhl. One aspect of this is an emphasis on practical skills, with courses covering subjects such as international negotiation analysis, project management, political risk analysis and public relations. Unusually for the College of Europe, students are also required to study a new language. “We think it is quite important for somebody who wants to work in the field that they can acquire a basic knowledge of a new language relatively quickly,” Gstöhl says. Options include Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and German.

Beyond the formal courses, the college encourages students to learn from their peers. “Students live on campus, and part of the concept is that they have to learn to live and work together in a very multicultural, interdisciplinary environment.” This year, there are 81 students from 42 countries.

Graduates from the programme tend to go on to the EU or other international institutions, as well as national foreign services and public administration. “But a lot of them aim to go into diplomacy,” Gstöhl says. “The EU delegations are particularly attractive.”

Integration

While the College of Europe remains one of the few institutions to structure a master’s degree around the EU and diplomacy, Europe has not been neglected in other, broader programmes, such as that offered jointly by Leiden University and Clingendael, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations in the Hague.

“Although our two-year master’s programme focuses on international relations and diplomacy more generally, European integration plays an important role in the curriculum,” says Madeleine Hosli, a professor of international relations at Leiden and director of the programme.

Courses include European integration, diplomacy in Europe and the politics of European monetary integration, with students often choosing to tackle European issues in their master’s theses. But the programme, established in 2003, has not significantly increased its coverage of Europe with the arrival of the Lisbon treaty. “There has not really been much change,” Hosli says.

As a programme based in Europe, with a European perspective, such developments have been taken into account, but at the same time other powers and patterns of diplomacy cannot be neglected. “On the global level we are currently observing shifts in power, both economically and politically, and the European Union is certainly not the only player on the world stage.”

However, Europe has moved up the agenda for Oxford University’s foreign service programme, which trains aspiring diplomats from around the world.

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“We study and discuss the significance of the European integration process and of its institutions, in particular how the EU’s internal policies are formulated,” says programme director Jeremy Cresswell. “It is very important for non-EU nationals and diplomats to understand more about what Europe is, how it functions and – from a practical point of view – how to engage with EU representatives.”

The Lisbon treaty has caused a significant change. “This year and last year it was a matter of explaining that when you are on the spot in a foreign country, the EU ambassador has a much more significant role than he or she used to have,” Cresswell says. “The European embassies and missions in third countries now have to work more closely together with what used to be the Commission representative. It is important for people to understand that, whether they are working in foreign ministries or as third-country diplomats.

“Of course, it is also important for those who are European diplomats to have a better understanding of how post-Lisbon is working, with all its strengths and weaknesses.”

Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist basedin Brussels.