Has anyone seen our EU minister? Labour peer keeps missing key Brussels meetings

By TIM SHIPMAN
Updated: 04:40 EST, 7 January 2011

Non-attender: £230,000-per-year foreign policy chief Lady Ashton's attendance record is the worst of all 27 commissioners

Britain's European commissioner has missed four out of ten key Brussels meetings – leaving the UK with no voice at the top table.

Statistics released yesterday show that Cathy Ashton, who is EU foreign minister, has a poorer attendance record than any of her colleagues.

And, because her duties force her to travel frequently, she left before the end of almost half the meetings she actually did attend.

Baroness Ashton’s absences from Brussels have hampered Britain’s ability to influence policy there, according to Foreign Office sources.

The figures come at a time when her £230,000 role as the EU’s international ambassador is in the spotlight. Diplomats have questioned her commitment and complain she returns to London at weekends to be with her family.

In the past 12 months, the Labour peer has completely missed 17 of the 42 meetings that all 27 commissioners – one from each EU state – gather at to plan future legislation.

In 11 sessions she did not stay until the end.

The Commission has banned her from joining the meetings via video conference because of fears it would encourage others not to bother turning up in person.

This puts the UK at a disadvantage because Baroness Ashton has to combine the role of high representative for foreign affairs with that of commissioner.

Missing meetings: Records show Lady Ashton has failed to attend 40 per cent of the 42 commission 'college' gatherings since January last year. She also left 26 per cent early

She missed a meeting on Wednesday because she was visiting the Middle East.

‘She cannot be in two places at once,’ her spokesman said. Her aides claim that – in the meetings she left early – she was there for the ‘meat’ of the discussions.

Bad choice: Politicians have questioned Gordon Brown's decision to appoint Lady Ashton to the important post

The Tories were highly critical of Gordon Brown’s decision to demand the foreign affairs role for Britain, claiming the country’s economic interests would have been better served through economic portfolios.

The frustration ministers experience in trying to influence EU policy was underlined yesterday when Chancellor George Osborne urged the Eurozone to sort out its banking system and ‘put its own house in order’.

In an article for the Financial Times, Mr Osborne warned Brussels against hobbling the City with ‘badly thought through regulation’ – ideas dreamt up by the French, who hold the internal market commissioner’s job.

A Foreign Office official said: ‘We need to be at the table when things are discussed.

‘So many daft ideas begin in the Commission that we need to be in at the start to head things off or steer them in a direction that works for us.

‘It’s not entirely Cathy Ashton’s fault that she’s often away but it just shows how short-sighted Labour were to go for this high-profile foreign affairs position rather than the nuts and bolts jobs that would have done Britain some good.’

Mats Persson, director of Open Europe, a think tank, said: ‘It was a spectacular mistake for the UK to go for the EU foreign minister post, which is a position of limited influence because there is no coherent EU foreign policy.

‘The European Commission has huge powers to make laws that affect the UK but, instead of being present for these decisions, Ashton is off touring the world with very little to say.’