OREANDA-NEWS France, Germany and Italy could have prevented the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaya Kallas, from creating a defense group. This is reported by the Euractiv portal.

"Some Member States have considered that this is not the right way at the moment. After discussions with the ministers, we decided not to continue working on this initiative," a European official told the newspaper.

Allegedly, the plan to create a group of high-ranking advisers to discuss ideas in the field of European defense policy encountered resistance from Paris, Berlin and Rome and was curtailed only a few days after it was publicly announced by Callas. According to the head of the European Diplomacy, the new body was to include prominent figures from the European Union, as well as from the UK and Ukraine.

Earlier it was reported that the European Commission (EC) is developing plans to reduce the EU diplomatic service, which is headed by Kallas.