EU Picks Unknowns for Top Two Jobs

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Catherine Ashton

Catherine Ashton, meanwhile, emerged relatively late in the race to be the EU's top diplomat. Her name appeared after UK foreign secretary David Milliband, the preferred candidate at the beginning, said he was not interested in the job.

Ms Ashton's rise could possibly be described as being even less expected, although as a woman from the Socialist political family and a large country, she ticked all the boxes necessary to get the high representative position.

Despite criticism over her lack of foreign policy experience, the current EU trade commissioner from the UK insisted on Thursday night that she has the necessary skills for the job.

"In the last year as trade commissioner I've traveled all over the world, I've built new trade agreements, I've built new relationships, so I do have some experience," she told Al Jazeera News.

Ms Ashton, who started her political career with an appointment as chair of the Hertfordshire Health Authority has never been elected to public office, with sources saying she was one of three candidates put forward by the UK government, along with current British business secretary Peter Mandelson, and Geoff Hoon, a former defence secretary.

Since her departure from the UK's upper parliamentary chamber – the House of Lords – in 2008, she has won plaudits for her trade negotiations, recently securing a free-trade agreement with South Korea, considered the jewel in the EU's crown of bilateral deals.

She has also worked hard to kick-start the stalled multilateral Doha trade negotiations and recently made good progress in resolving a long-running dispute with several Latin American countries over bananas.

Having studied economics and sociology, the 53-year old has worked on a number of social issues such as campaigning for nuclear disarmament, before being made a life peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland in 1999.

With the EU president being a man, from a small country and from the centre-right, Ms Ashton balances the scales in terms of gender, coming from the left and being from a big country.

Balancing these criteria is a part of any major EU decision, with conservatives laying claim to the presidency post early on in the game and the left later saying the top diplomat should be one of their own.

Ms Ashton, trade commissioner since October last year, has never held a senior ministerial post.

She said it was a measure of "her slight surprise" that – unlike Mr Van Rompuy – she did not have a prepared speech but pledged to "represent [European] values across the world."

Ms Ashton, who still has to be approved by the European Parliament, highlighted her skills by pointing to her success in negotiating a free trade agreement with South Korea, the EU's largest ever bilateral trade deal.

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