“Confidential negotiations on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty have produced proposals to allow the EU to negotiate treaties and even open embassies across the world.” So reports Bruno Waterfield, the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, concerning a leaked letter circulated by the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg that “spells out the need for legal changes to set up a European External Service (EEAS), an EU diplomatic and foreign service with ‘global geographical scope’”. The decision, taken before Ireland's referendum last week, would lead to European diplomatic service with over 160 "EU representations" and ambassadors across the world. The first pilot embassies, the London daily reports, are mooted for New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa. This spells the end for the European Community, the Telegraph pursues, “the organisation that Britons originally voted to join in the country's only referendum on Europe 34 years ago.” Mark Francois, the Conservative party’s spokesman on Europe, has said, "As we have long warned, the Lisbon Treaty increases the EU's power at the expense of the countries of Europe," he said.