Catherine Ashton

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Catherine Ashton (2014)

Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland , GCMG (born March 20, 1956 in Upholland , Lancashire ) is a British politician ( Labor Party ). From 2009 to 2014 she was the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice-President of the European Commission . She is also a member of the British House of Lords and the Privy Council .

Life

Catherine Ashton studied sociology at Bedford College , now part of Royal Holloway, University of London , where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1977 . She then worked until 1979 for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , an organization of the British peace movement , of which she became Vice President and Treasurer. Later she worked in the field of social work. From 1998 to 2001 she headed the Hertfordshire Health Authority and the sponsoring association for her children's school. She was also Vice President of the UK's National Council on Single Parent Families.

1999 Ashton was a Life Peer ennobled, making them the title Baroness Ashton of Upholland , of St. Albans in the County of Hertfordshire, received ( Upholland after her birth, St Albans in the County of Hertfordshire after their place of residence) and member of the upper house was . In 2001 she became Parliamentary Undersecretary in the UK Ministry of Education and in 2004 at the Constitutional Office, where she was responsible for the National Archives for England, Wales and the United Kingdom . In 2006 she became a member of the Privy Council , the Queen's political advisory body . In the same year she was voted politician of the year by the British LGBT organization Stonewall .

In May 2007, Baroness Ashton became Parliamentary Secretary of State in the Justice Department. A few weeks later, at the instigation of the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, she became Chairman of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council . After Ashton was on leave of absence from her membership in the House of Lords during her mandate in the European Union , she has been on leave again since March 7, 2016.

Baroness Ashton is married to the journalist Peter Kellner and has two children and three stepchildren. Her husband comes from an Austrian family.

Political career in the EU

In October 2008 Lady Ashton became a member of the European Commission . She succeeded Peter Mandelson , who returned to the UK as Secretary of Commerce after a cabinet reshuffle, as Commissioner for Trade . In November 2009 she was nominated by the European Council for the post of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy , which was newly created by the Treaty of Lisbon . On February 9, 2010, she was confirmed in this office together with the other members of the Barroso II Commission by the European Parliament . In the meantime, she was appointed on the basis of the Treaty of Nice in personal union for the offices of High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Commissioner for External Relations , which she held from 1 December 2009.

Ashton's first main task in the new office was the development of the European External Action Service , which was newly established as a result of the Lisbon Treaty. She presented a first draft for this at the end of March 2010. Earlier, at the Foreign Ministers' Summit in early March, Ashton had been criticized for failing to take sufficient account of the interests of the member states. Shortly after the plan was presented, the European Parliament expressed its criticism of the proposed structure.

In the course of the Libyan crisis in 2011, Ashton worked with the EEAS to develop the EU's sanctions against the Libyan government. These were drawn up within just two days after the relevant UN resolution came into force.

The greatest successes of the term of office were the rapprochement between Serbia and Kosovo, in which it played a decisive mediating role. In addition, she is credited with the transitional agreement in the nuclear dispute with Iran in 2013 because, unlike the USA, she has always advocated further diplomatic relations and solutions between Iran and the Western community of states.

Since 2019 she has been a member of the Transatlantic Task Force of the German Marshall Fund and the Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation .

criticism

Ashton's appointment as High Representative has met with criticism on various occasions because she had previously had little experience in foreign policy and was largely unknown in British politics. She was never elected to any political office by the people. It was also criticized that, in addition to her native English , she had knowledge of French when she took office , but did not speak any foreign language fluently. Her appointment was often attributed to the fact that when the office was filled, a representative of the Party of European Socialists had been sought for political reasons , a woman because of gender balance and a British woman because of the national balance. In the press, Ashton's appointment was described as an understanding of the lowest common denominator , “choice of incompetence” and she herself was described as “fatally wrongly appointed in the Foreign Office” and as “completely overwhelmed” with her position. Ashton herself contested the lack of experience allegation that she had acquired negotiating skills in the various offices she had previously held. Her annual salary was estimated by the press in 2010 at £ 328,000 as the "highest paid woman politician in the world".

During her first few months in office, Ashton was also criticized several times for not being present on important occasions. For example, she only traveled to the disaster site very late after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and was absent from Liu Xiaobo when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . The objection to these allegations was that the office of High Representative, with its double hat role between the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, structurally entails too many tasks for Ashton to be personally present everywhere. In addition, before the establishment of the European External Action Service, she still lacks an essential institutional framework to fulfill her tasks.

After an attack in Toulouse in 2012 , in which three Jewish children were also shot, she said in a speech to Palestinian youth, according to the transcript that was initially published: “When we think about what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember, what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in other parts of the world - we remember young people and children who have lost their lives. ”The mention von Gaza in this series received criticism from Israeli government officials and European politicians such as Elmar Brok and Volker Beck . Ashton's staff later corrected the transcript of the speech so that Ashton said "in Gaza and Sderot " instead of just "in Gaza".

literature

Awards

In 2014 she was awarded the Order of the White Double Cross, Second Class, by the President of Slovakia for special merits .

In 2015 she was inducted into the Order of St. Michael and St. George as Dame Grand Cross .

Web links

Commons : Catherine Ashton  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Movers and Shakers among the Department's former students ( Memento November 19, 2009 on WebCite ) Royal Holloway, University of London .
  2. ↑ Sebastian Borger : Talented technocrat of power. Der Standard , November 20, 2009.
  3. ↑ Werner A. Perger: The penultimate left. Die Zeit , January 15, 2010.
  4. ↑ Ashton prepares vague EAD proposal. EurActiv , 24 March 2010.
  5. ↑ Thomas Mayer, Adelheid Wölfl: Head washing for Ashton by the EU Foreign Minister. Der Standard , March 5, 2010.
  6. ↑ Ashton puts French "spider" in the middle of the EAD network. EurActiv 26 March 2010.
  7. ↑ EU foreign policy: From Ashton to Mogherini
  8. ↑ Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation and German Marshall Fund establish “Transatlantic Task Force”. Accessed April 27, 2020 (German).
  9. ↑ M. Winter: Lonely fighter in Brussels. Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 3, 2010.
  10. ↑ a b Julia Kuckelkorn: Who is Catherine Ashton? Deutsche Welle , November 20, 2009.
  11. ↑ Claus Hecking: French: inadequate. ( Memento of March 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Financial Times Deutschland , March 25, 2010.
  12. ↑ The Baroness and the Bomb. Berner Zeitung , December 6, 2010.
  13. ^ Ashton, Symbol of EU Dilettantism , n-tv.de, April 15, 2014
  14. ^ The new EU duo - lowest common denominator , welt.de, November 9, 2009
  15. ↑ Who earns more, Hillary Clinton or Baroness Nobody? Cathy Ashton ... even though she's the laughing stock of the EU , dailymail.co.uk, March 9, 2010
  16. ^ Stephanie Lob: This is how Europe's new foreign minister is mocked. Die Welt , March 7, 2010.
  17. ↑ Catherine Ashton shines with her absence. Presseurop.eu , December 10, 2010.
  18. ↑ Nikolas Busse : Recreation for the restless. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 8, 2010.
  19. ↑ Dietrich von Kyaw : "The Lisbon Treaty will not remain the last of its kind". EurActiv 10 Jan 2011.
  20. ^ A b Ashton's comparison between Toulouse and Gaza outraged Israelis. Spiegel Online , March 20, 2012.
  21. ↑ Stefanie Bolzen: Diplomat without feeling. Welt Online , March 20, 2012.
  22. ↑ Outrage in Israel over Ashton's speech - transcript now corrected. Potsdam Latest News , March 21, 2012.
  23. ^ Speech by High Representative Catherine Ashton at the high-level conference Engaging youth — Palestine Refugees in the changing Middle East. European Union , March 19, 2012 (pdf, English, corrected transcript A 132/12; 50 kB).
predecessor Office Successor
Javier Solana EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
1 December 2009–31. October 2014 		Federica Mogherini
personal data
SURNAME Ashton, Catherine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ashton, Catherine Margaret, Baroness Ashton of Upholland (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Labor Party politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Upholland , Lancashire