Catherine Ashton

• CR
• 23 Novembre 2009
• In prima linea

Baronessa e esponente del Partito laburista britannico è la prima donna eletta Alta rappresentante per la politica estera e di difesa dell’Unione europea

Carta d’identità
NATA a: Upholland, Lancashire 20 Marzo 1956
NAZIONE: Gran Bretagna
FORMAZIONE: Ha studiato economia alla London University

PROFESSIONE: Politica

Primo commissario europeo donna al Commercio e primo commissario donna espresso dalla Gran Bretagna, Catherine Margaret Ashton, baronessa Ashton di Upholland, è arrivata a Bruxelles poco più di un anno fa.

Dal 1983 al 1989 direttore di Business in the community, un’associazione di imprese che ha nel suo statuto l’impegno ad occuparsi dei problemi relativi alle diseguaglianze, dal 1998 al 2001 è stata anche responsabile dell’Autorità sanitaria nell’Hertfordshire, prima di essere nominata sottosegretario all’Istruzione.

ARTICOLO (in inglese):

Labour peer Lady Ashton appointed as new EU foreign minister in Brussels

Baroness Cathy Ashton, the EU’s foreign minister. Margaret Thatcher is Britain’s only female politician to have risen higher.

In the space of a few minutes in Brussels , Cathy Ashton found herself catapulted into the international limelight as one of the world’s most powerful women.

It is a quite spectacular rise by any standards.

Thirteen months ago she was a junior member of the British cabinet, the leader of the House of Lords, pushing through government bills. Last night she was commissioned to represent the foreign policy of half a billion EU citizens.

She will be on first name terms with Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel. She will be immersed in some of the world’s most intractable problems, including the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme, the Middle East and Europe’s fractious relations with Russia.

The softly spoken commissioner, who has won strong support and great affection in her year in Brussels, is also on course to become the most significant woman in the history of the Labour party. As EU high representative she will probably outrank the late Barbara Castle, the author of the landmark document In Place of Strife in 1969; Margaret Beckett, the former foreign secretary; and Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader.

Margaret Thatcher is the only female British politician to have risen higher than Ashton.

Gordon Brown hailed Ashton’s appointment. “I think the decision tonight shows that Britain is at the heart of Europe. She is the first woman to hold such a high position in the EU. There will be many who will be delighted that one other barrier of discrimination and prejudice of the past has been broken down by her appointment.”

The stunning ascent of Lady Ashton of Upholland – she prefers to be known as Cathy Ashton – who is married to the psephologist and political commentator Peter Kellner, came as a surprise in Brussels and to her. Ashton, 53, has been nervous for weeks about her political future in Brussels, viewing Brown as inscrutable and unclear about his intentions. She worried whether Lord Mandelson was plotting a comeback to Brussels. She was anxious that David Miliband, the foreign secretary, would take the job she was named fortonight.

In a sign of the intense horse-trading in the run-up to today’s summit, she remained in the dark about her prospects of surviving the job circus in Brussels until late afternoon.

Martin Schulz, the German leader of the social democrats in the European parliament, phoned her after a meeting with Brown and other European centre-left prime ministers to tell her they had agreed Britain should take the foreign policy post.

There will inevitably be accusations that Ashton is not up to the job. Tonight she tried to dispel them.

“Judge me by what I do and I think you’ll be pleased and proud of me,” she told reporters after she was appointed by EU leaders. “Am I an ego on legs? No, I’m not.”

There were similar accusations over her worthiness last year when she was Brown’s surprise pick to replace Mandelson in Brussels.

Ashton has never been elected to any position. She started her working life, after studying economics at Bedford College, part of the University of London, with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the late 1970s. In the 1980s she was director of Business in the Community which brought her into contact with the Prince of Wales who sends Ashton a Christmas card every year.

Ashton entered public service in 1998 as chairman of the Hertfordshire health authority, a post she held until 2001 when she became a junior education minister where she played a key role in establishing the Sure Start network of children’s centres. She had been appointed as a peer in 1999 while on a secondment to the Home Office. It was not until June 2007, when Brown became prime minister, that she entered the cabinet as leader of the Lords.

Her relatively low profile as a minister prompted criticisms that Ashton would be out of her depth when she replaced Mandelson last year. But she has made her mark in Brussels.

The trade job in the European commission is one of the biggest foreign policy posts in Brussels and one of the few commission jobs where the incumbent negotiates on Europe’s behalf with the rest of the world in trade talks with Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi. Ashton has won admiration for her competence, thoroughness and likeability.

José Manuel Barroso, the commission president, was keen to promote Ashton to the foreign policy post, which will also make her a vice president of the European commission. Downing Street initially balked. But her appointment showed that Brown had acknowledged that Britain would not secure a major economic portfolio in the commission.

While Ashton is dismissed by some as failing to make the big beast grade, she has shown her mettle in the last few months by mounting a highly effective campaign to remain in Brussels. After securing the support of Barroso, she won over Ron Kirk, the US trade representative, who said he hoped that Ashton would remain in Brussels.

The intervention by Kirk proved a mixed blessing. “Cathy has done well to get Ron Kirk to speak up on her behalf,” one old Brussels hand said. “But let’s not forget that the US is the EU’s greatest foe in trade negotiations whether it is liberal Britain or protectionist France. If you need the US to speak on your behalf you are immediately undermined.”

Such criticisms were swept aside and Ashton’s critics left silencedtonight . Her officials, who were enjoying a celebratory drink in her offices high up in the commission’s Berlaymont headquarters, are fiercely loyal. She is a more relaxed figure than Mandelson and makes a point of slipping off her shoes and putting her feet up on her chair to work.

Ashton has a son and a daughter with Kellner, a stepson and two stepdaughters.

One European official said her department would be responsible for a diplomatic corps and staff of close to 3,000 people, and would be likely to grow, and also was in charge of the European Union’s military missions overseas. Her annual budget could come to €4 billion ($6 billion)