Renewed controversy surrounding Ashton, who opted to desert the first important meeting between European defence ministers and NATO leaders in Majorca, preferring to attend the inauguration ceremony for Yanukovich's presidency in Kiev instead. There was criticism on all sides, starting with the French defence minister Morin, his Dutch counterpart and the Spanish minister: all of whom went out of their way to highlight the inappropriateness of her absence as opposed to Solana's behaviour of previous years. The criticism follows in the wake of further controversy surrounding the support for a politician who is very close to Barroso and was recently nominated as EU envoy to Washington. Some say that French hostility is particularly marked, but the Spanish press doesn't pull its punches either. Other voices inside Brussels asked why Barroso or Van Rompuy didn't go to Kiev instead, while experts in the most authoritative research centres such as the European Council on Foreign Relations point out that Ashton is displaying little interest in matters of defence.
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