The EU’s new ambassador to the US, Joao Vale de Almeida, has underlined the new powers conferred on EU envoys by the Lisbon Treaty while taking up his post in Washington.

In a series of interviews to US-based press on Tuesday (10 August), the ambassador noted that he is empowered to speak on behalf of EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and EU member states.

“I do not wish or will impose myself on the member states’ ambassadors … Where we have a common position, I am the one leading the show. Bilateral matters are the mandate of the 27 [EU member state] ambassadors,” he told the Washington Post.

“In this area code, you call me,” he added, on the apocryphal tale of former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger once asking whom he should telephone if he wants to speak to the EU.

“I’m the first new type of ambassador for the European Union anywhere in the world,” he told Agence France Presse.

“Our delegations now cover a wide spectrum of issues well beyond the economic dimension, trade dimension and regulatory dimension, to cover all policies in the union, including foreign policy and security policy.”

The EU is currently in the process of converting its 138 foreign missions into EU delegations empowered to speak on behalf of the whole union.