Her army of overseas officials take so much time-off — up to an incredible 19 weeks a year — that an EU audit last year found offices supposed to promote European interests empty much of the time. "Some posts are effectively half-time posts for which a full-time salary is paid," the report damningly disclosed. "A state of affairs which must be seen in the context of very high net salaries and the provision of accommodation free of charge." 

Meanwhile, Ashton's office spews out 600 statements a year but is crippled by the fear of offending any of the EU's 28 member states. She failed to condemn the coup in Egypt, then issued a pathetically limp response to Robert Mugabe's election theft in Zimbabwe and has been irrelevant over the Syrian crisis. Her mantra is "quiet diplomacy" — but insiders put it more harshly. "Low-key to the point of ineffectual is how most of us sum it up," said one British bureaucrat in Brussels.

Now, as Ashton prepares to retire from her £287,543-a-year post with a fat taxpayer-funded pension, EEAS is ignoring austerity with a 3.2 per cent funding rise while it attempts to grab more power. Meanwhile, spending cuts have left Britain's Foreign Office with a smaller budget than Kent County Council.

"The EEAS, like all European institutions, seems intent on amassing ever more power," said Vincenzo Scarpetta, political analyst at the Open Europe think tank. "Foreign policy is and should remain primarily a national matter." The group argues that EEAS offers limited added value since it can only act on the rare occasions when all member states agree. "It is therefore completely unacceptable that its running cost continues to go up when the Foreign Office and other foreign ministries across Europe are facing budget cuts." 

Few of Europe's 500 million citizens would disagree. Indeed, even those working at the Triangle, the vast Brussels complex that serves as Ashton's base and costs £10 million in annual rent, wonder what on earth they are meant to be doing all day. "The atmosphere is very odd," said one. "Officially everybody is meant to be dealing with pressing international problems, but the service's exact remit is far from precise. This means people sit around desperately trying to think up ways of making an impact."