2 for 1 at Pizza Express

Matthew Syed

Where am I?

Concerns about the European Union centre on three familiar criticisms: first, that it represents an assault on British sovereignty; second, that it wastes a huge amount of taxpayers’ money on high-living and procedural incompetence; and finally that its opacity is a deliberate ploy obscuring a surreptitious goal of building a powerful single European state.

The EU’s new diplomatic structure, the External Action Service (EAS), by bringing together all three themes into one narrative, seems certain to renew awkward questions about the Union’s governing institution. If the EAS creates an embassy-style ethos, does that necessarily imply a...