Who actually runs EU foreign policy?
A High Representative, 27 foreign ministers, and a unanimity rule that decides everything.
By Jonas Lindqvist · Filed Sunday, 30 August 2026 · Last updated 07:35 CET
What happened
EU foreign policy is set by member states acting unanimously in the Foreign Affairs Council, chaired by the High Representative, who also heads the European External Action Service.
Why it matters
Unanimity means one capital can hold a statement hostage. It is why joint declarations sometimes take a week and end up saying less than they started with.
The Brussels angle
The recurring proposal to move to qualified majority voting on some foreign policy questions is popular with big member states and deeply unpopular with small ones. That is the whole debate.
What happens next
Foreign ministers meet monthly. Watch which items get a joint statement and which get "the High Representative said".
Written from these sources
Facts are extracted from primary institutional material and written independently by The Gazette desk.
Institutions Correspondent · Council and member states
Jonas LindqvistJonas Lindqvist follows the Council, Coreper and the member-state bargaining that runs late into the night. He specialises in reading the differences between the conclusions and the press conference.
More from Jonas Lindqvist →The Brief
Brussels, decoded, every morning. What happened, what it means, one good dry joke.