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Ms Ashton, whose meteoric ascent has come as a surprise even to her, will have to hit the ground running. She is set to attend an EU-Ukraine summit on 4 December. The first EU foreign ministers' meeting, which she is supposed to chair under the new rules, will take place on 7 December.

It will also fall to her to oversee the setting up the EU's external action service, a thousands-strong diplomatic outfit that one EU official described as the greatest-ever change to the commission's bureaucracy.

Her 1 December start opens up other questions, such as what will happen to the trade portfolio which she will vacate and what will be the role of Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the current EU external relations commissioner.

Ms Ashton's new job merges the external relations commissioner post with that of the high representative for foreign policy, currently held by Javier Solana, for the first time putting foreign policy clout together with the financial means to implement it into the hands of one person.

Once in force on 1 December, the Lisbon Treaty will merge the current military planning unit with a civilian one and fold all operational and planning divisions into the diplomatic service, due to be fully up and running by 2012.

The military chiefs will no longer report to the rotating EU presidency, but directly to the new EU foreign minister, who will also be a vice-president of the European Commission.

In the face of the persisting economic turmoil, France and Germany's leaders sent a letter to the Czech EU presidency and to the president of the European Commission on Tuesday reiterating what they see as an urgent need to reform the financial system.

"The top priority is building up the new global financial architecture. The European Union must affirm a common position and take the lead in this process," French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote.

France and Germany on Thursday (12 March) agreed that the emphasis at the upcoming G20 meeting in London should be on greater financial regulation and rejected calls coming from the US to increase spending as a way to deal with the crisis.

During a meeting of their cabinets in Berlin, the two countries "underlined their determination to pursue and strengthen the co-ordination of their economic policy in the face of the financial and economic crisis and to work together so that such a crisis does not reproduce itself," reads a joint declaration of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The economic crisis is putting relations between EU member states under strain and testing the fundamentals of the European Union to an unprecedented extent, UK foreign secretary David Miliband has said.

"The sense of solidarity within Europe, between east and west, rich and poor, new and old is under strain," he said in a speech at the London School of Economics on Monday (9 March).

German chancellor Angela Merkel has given the strongest signal to date that her country may come to the rescue of embattled eurozone economies.

"We have shown solidarity and that will remain so. We should use Sunday's summit [in Brussels] for member states affected to give an honest report of their situation," she said on Thursday evening (26 February) at a press conference in Berlin.

Certain conditions are likely to be attached to any support plan offered by Berlin.

While Ms Merkel refused to be drawn on the exact nature of financial support, she made it clear that action to tackle excessive budget deficits would be a stipulation for receiving aid.

She indicated such action could be carried out under Article 100 of the Maastricht Treaty that allows financial assistance to be given to countries experiencing "difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control."

"Of course there is a certain interpretative room to manoeuvre in the stability and growth pact and a country like Ireland that has been hit quite hard by the banking crisis is clearly in a different situation to a country like Slovakia with fewer banks," said Ms Merkel.

European Union member states are sharply divided over whether to condemn Israel for its bombing of UN schools and other buildings during its 23-day war on Gaza.

Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania are opposed to condemning the shelling of UN Relief and Works Agency infrastructure and do not want the EU to call for an international investigation of alleged war crimes by both Israel and the Hamas governors of Gaza, according to sources close to discussions amongst EU diplomats.

Under a plan approved by the United Nations Security Council last week, some 2,000 EU police, justice and customs officials will take over UN duties in Kosovo.

It also foresees the EU mission being deployed under a UN mandate and take a neutral position regarding Kosovo's status – something which pleases Belgrade, but enrages Pristina.