Foreign minister

: EU Common Foreign & Security Policy High Rep. Javier Solana, US President Barack Obama, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso & Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt- EU-US Summit, Washington, DC, November 3, 2009 (Photo: www.eurunion.org/eu/index.php?option=com_cont...)

The Lisbon Treaty has established an EU foreign “minister” to conduct the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy. The Foreign Minister is also a vice president in the EU Commission. Javier Solana was appointed to this position but left when the post was introduced with the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty.

The British longlife peer, Catherine Ashton, former head of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom has been appointed to the job in a special summit in Brussels, 19 December 2009. She will also be a Vice President in the Commisison.

The Lisbon Treaty deleted the word "Foreign Minister" from the rejected EU Constitution and uses instead the title "High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy".

In 2009 the European institutions started to educate more than 500 civil servants for the future cooperation under the Lisbon Treaty, before it was ratified by all member states.