With plans for the EU’s new diplomatic corps entering their final stage, EU capitals have quietly begun to negotiate over who will take the top jobs up for grabs.

The office of EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton is aiming to submit a draft organigram for the External Action Service (EAS) to EU diplomats in Brussels on 17 March.

According to an EU official acquainted with the document, Ms Ashton’s office wants the service to have nine senior posts: A secretary general, two deputy secretary generals and, below them, six director generals.

At the top of the hierarchy, Ms Ashton will mainly do shuttle diplomacy on the model of her predecessor, Javier Solana, who clocked up over 2.6 million air miles in his 10 years in office. The EU’s 11 “special representatives,” such as Marc Otte on the Middle East, will report directly to her.

The secretary general is to stay in Brussels and run the EAS on a day-to-day basis.

He will oversee the work of the six director generals and a number of autonomous EAS cells: the EU’s Military Staff, responsible for planning overseas military missions; SitCen, an intelligence-sharing bureau; an internal security unit; an internal audit unit and a department handling communications and relations with other EU institutions.

The two deputy secretary generals will not have administrative duties, freeing them up to replace Ms Ashton at internal EU meetings or second-tier international events.