EU foreign minister and national embarrassment Cathy Ashton has been savaged by a European Parliament report on her time in the post. Apparently she is unable to delegate, reacts late to events and her overall management has been poor. Shocker. Most amusing was the account of Cathy irking her Brussels colleagues by complaining that they were smoking outside, carried in Der Spiegel:
“Recently Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, took the elevator to the ground floor of her agency’s Brussels headquarters and marched into the building’s inner courtyard. A pavilion there allows smokers to stay dry even on rainy days. On this particular one, though, it wasn’t raining in Brussels for once, and a few EU employees stood smoking outside the structure. They were more than a little surprised when Ashton appeared in front of them and asked that they please step inside the pavilion, because otherwise their cigarette smoke would waft into the offices on the building’s upper floors.”
“Recently Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, took the elevator to the ground floor of her agency’s Brussels headquarters and marched into the building’s inner courtyard. A pavilion there allows smokers to stay dry even on rainy days. On this particular one, though, it wasn’t raining in Brussels for once, and a few EU employees stood smoking outside the structure. They were more than a little surprised when Ashton appeared in front of them and asked that they please step inside the pavilion, because otherwise their cigarette smoke would waft into the offices on the building’s upper floors.”
