France and Germany are discussing proposals for a radical overhaul of the EU’s 15-year-old diplomatic service and cutting the powers of EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, in an attempt to improve the bloc’s response to geopolitical crises, the Financial Times reported on June 11.

Paris, Berlin and other capitals are weighing options that include stripping powers from Kallas and her €1bn-a-year External Action Service (EEAS) and returning them to the European Commission and member states, according to five senior officials briefed on the discussions.

“It is clear that [the EEAS] doesn’t work the way it should in today’s world. It is dysfunctional," one of the officials told the Financial Times. “The problem is structural and so the structure needs to be rebuilt.”

Kallas has become deeply unpopular, and several member states have criticised her focus on battling Russia and trying to do as much damage to it regardless of the cost to the rest of the EU.

The move comes as disunity in the EU is growing, as the block comes under increasing economic pressure that is widening increasingly visible cracks amongst the members.

At the same time the EU should discuss the option of temporarily limiting some voting rights of the ​bloc’s future new members and creating more rule-of-law safeguards, Germany, ‌France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg wrote in a joint paper seen by Reuters on June 9.

Montenegro is hoping to join the EU in 2028 and Albania, Ukraine and Moldova ​are pushing to make progress on their accession bids, sparking discussions ​among European governments about whether rules for new members should change.

After the democratic backsliding in ​Hungary under previous Prime Minister Viktor Orban some EU members are pushing for the EU to develop stronger safeguards to prevent rogue leaders from stymieing decisions by using their ability to veto votes.

Options are being discussed for new rules for entering countries that could be written into future accession treaties. A new monitoring mechanism is also being proposed and a safeguard clause which ​would allow measures to be taken in case of serious backsliding in ​areas such as democracy and media freedom. Currently the EU treaty has no mechanism to expel countries if they renege on their commitments to values enshrined in Article 2 of the EU founding treaty that commits countries to the EU values.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy this month rejected a suggestion by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that Ukraine be made an “associate” member of the EU, allowed to participate in EU meetings, but without any voting powers and none of the financial benefits of membership.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has also been trying to centralise more power in the European Commission (EC) executive, but ending the unanimity rule that gives all 27 members of the EU a veto on any major decision and instead introduce majority rule. The smaller members of the EU have been set against that idea and a fundamental change to the EU charter would be needed to change the rules, which is also subject to a unanimous decision.

The EU’s diplomatic chaos has been highlighted this week after the E3 London summit on June 8 came up with a five point list of demands on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. The E3 is made up of France, Germany and the UK, three biggest countries in Europe, but the UK is no longer a member of the EU. Under the Biden administration, the US operated in concert with the EU as a whole. However, over the last year that was first whittled down to the amorphous “coalition of the willing" and has since been reduced even further to just two members, plus Britain.

Nominally, as the head of the EU’s foreign policy directive, Kallas should lead the efforts to thrash out a cohesive EU policy to Russia and the peace talk process, however, she has focused all her energies on imposing new and tougher sanctions on Russia and badgering members states to contribute more funds to arm Ukraine.

Last month she caused another small scandal by admitting that the EU has no policy for the war in the Middle East, because “too much is happening there.”

The EU has been roiled by the wars in Ukraine and Iran, as well as being bullied by US President Donald Trump who imposed 15% trade tariffs on Europe and demanded a €750bn energy deal over three years that analysts called delusional. Kallas played little role in those talks which were led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The upshot has been more questioning whether the EEAS is up to the task of coordinating effective responses to multiple challenges.

France is suggesting the autonomy of the foreign policy head who answers to member states and the Commission, be stripped of control of the network of more than 140 delegations that the EEAS operates in countries around the world, which will be turned over to the commission.

A representative for Kallas told the FT that she is “fully focused on delivering on her mandate”, adding: “An important part of it is further strengthening both the EEAS and the Commission for implementing the treaties in the field of external action and the common foreign and security policy.