Our hard working EU Foreign Minister

The Telegraph reports that the never elected Baroness Ashton 'has failed to fully attend two thirds of European Commission meetings over the past year, leaving Britain without a voice in the most important forum for EU law making'

It seems that:

'Officials and diplomats have questioned her commitment to the job, which has a salary of more than £230,000 a year, and especially her reluctance to be away from her London-based family at weekends.

...


Lady Ashton has also been absent from 40 per cent of 42 meetings of the commission "college" in the past year, gatherings at which the EU's 27 commissioners – one for each member state – take critical legislative decisions on issues such as European regulation of the City of London.

...

n an additional 26 per cent of meetings, Lady Ashton left proceedings early, although, her aides insist that, in most cases she was there for the "meat" of the agenda. Her attendance record is the worst of the EU's 27 commissioners.

Her record, described by one senior Italian politician as "amazingly" poor, has led to renewed criticism of her suitability for the senior post and her reluctance to move to Brussels full-time combined with an unwillingness to travel or work abroad at weekends. '

People seem surprised that someone working for the EU might be less than totally diligent, why? As I have blogged over and over again once a politician works fir the EU they owe allegiance to the EU not their country of origin. Baroness Ashton is not a European Commissioner to represent the UK's interests to them, she's there to represent the EU to us.

It might also be more than a coincidence that the last two senior EU appointments have been of weak non-entities: Ashton and Herman van Rompuy, who do not have the skills to manage the forces that really control the EU.