Both EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and MEPs have claimed victory in the final outcome of the battle of wills to establish the thousands-strong European diplomatic service.

To be on its feet by 1 December, the corps is supposed to give impetus to the EU’s often incoherent foreign policy by bringing all its different aspects – external relations, military, civil and development – under one roof.

The path to the agreement on Monday (21 June) was a typically Brussels-style battle, forcing a mindset change in the EU capital as member states and EU institutions for the first time sought to make a body etwining both intergovernmental and communitarian cultures.

It pitted Ms Ashton’s still small team against a parliament determined to push the limits of the powers given to it under the Union’s new rulebook.

The power politics saw Ms Ashton saying she is too busy to take calls from deputies while MEPs prevaricated over meeting points.

Both sides claimed victory in the end, however.

“The text which we have on the table today is not substantially very different to the text we set out with in our proposal at the end of March proposal,” said an EU diplomat referring to the blueprint signed off my member states earlier this year.