Catherine Ashton

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Catherine Ashton : biography

20 March 1956 –

Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland

Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer (Baroness Ashton of Upholland) by the Labour Government. Under this government she became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Department for Constitutional Affairs and Ministry of Justice in 2004. She became a Privy Councillor (PC) in May 2006.

Catherine Ashton was appointed Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Queen’s Privy Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. As well as Leader of the Lords, she held responsibility in the House of Lords for equalities issues, and she was instrumental in steering the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon through the UK’s upper chamber. In 2008, she succeeded Peter Mandelson as Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.

In December 2009, she became the first person to take on the role of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that was created by the Treaty of Lisbon. As High Representative, Baroness Ashton serves as the EU’s foreign policy chief.

Criticism

Ashton faced questions in the European Parliament over her role as national treasurer in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s, amid claims by its opponents that it may have had financial links to the Soviet Union. The eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party has written to Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, asking him to investigate whether Ashton was party to payments that he alleged were made to CND from the Soviet regime in Moscow. Ashton’s office refused to discuss CND’s funding in detail. It merely said that she “left CND in 1983 and had no involvement after that”.

French journalist Agnès Poirier has criticized her for the fact that she cannot speak any foreign languages.. Agnes Poirier. From The Times, 28 January 2010

In February 2010, it emerged that Ashton had been heavily criticised within the EU community for a number of actions, including her failure to visit Haiti in the wake of the earthquake and her lack of leadership abilities during ministerial meetings and policy briefings. Senior officials within her team complained that she speaks only in "generalities". She was also criticised for a lack of commitment to the job, allegedly switching off her phone after 8 pm every day. By Vanessa Mock in Brussels, The Independent, Tuesday, 16 February 2010 Ashton came under further criticism, including explicit criticism from national defence ministers Hervé Morin, Carme Chacón, Jack de Vries, and EU minister Pierre Lellouche, for her failure to attend the European Defence Summit in Majorca.The Times, 26 February 2010, David Charter and Graham Keeley

In March 2012, Ashton was criticised by several newspapers for comparing the shooting of Jewish children in Toulouse with the situation in Gaza. Ashton said to Palestinian youths at a UNRWA event, “When we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives.” After she was misquoted in the press as having not mentioned Sderot, Israeli ministers denounced her for equating the murder of three children and a rabbi in the shooting attack with the situation in Gaza. Her spokesman stated that her remark had been “grossly distorted” and that she had also referenced Israeli victims in Sderot, but this fact had been incorrectly omitted from the original transcript.

In September 2012, the Daily Telegraph criticised her European Commission attendance record, reporting that Baroness Ashton had been completely absent from 21 out of 32 weekly meetings held so far that year.

Responses to criticism

Ashton has argued that much of the criticism she faces is a result of the "latent sexism" within the EU community. She has also told the press that the lack of resources provided to her, such as not having her own plane, is holding her back in her work. by Andrew Rettman, 08.03.2010. Retrieved 09.03.2010.