Foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton will turn her attention to choosing the top officials and the main building for the European External Action Service (EEAS) after the EU Parliament approved the legal blueprint for the new body.

MEPs in a landslide result in Strasbourg on Thursday (8 July) backed the final EEAS set-up by 549 votes against 78 with 17 abstentions.

Some legal niceties remain to be cleared in July and September. But the parliament decision paves the way for the service to begin work on 1 December, 10 years after it was first mooted by EU leaders, in what Ms Ashton called “a historic step in the development of the union” in a debate in parliament on Wednesday.

The EEAS today boils down to Ms Ashton and a team of 30-or-so officials in one corridor on the 12th floor of the European Commission building in the EU capital, struggling to work with experts in the commission’s Charlemagne building next door, the EU Council building across the road and dozens of other bureaus.

From 1 December, she will take command of some 1,500 officials housed under one roof in the heart of the EU quarter in Brussels, as well as 800 EU diplomats in the EEAS’ 136 foreign embassies.

Ms Ashton herself will concentrate on shuttle diplomacy and conflict resolution, supported on one side by seven-or-so EU Special Representatives and on the other by an in-house “crisis response centre” of up to 160 security analysts.

A powerful secretary general or “CEO” will run the day-to-day EEAS administration. Two deputy secretary generals, a “COO” in charge of budgets and personnel, and five or six senior directors general will form the rest of the management.