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EU high representative for foreign affairs Cathy Ashton is to face tough questions from MEPs next Wednesday (15 December) over her strategy to promote European human rights values through the bloc's new external action service. On the same day as Norway's Nobel Prize committee handed this year's prestigious award to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in absentia, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said he was keen to hear how Ms Ashton intended to work in the field.

"Next Wednesday in Strasbourg we are expecting to hear from Baroness Ashton how she intends to implement the commitments she made on this matter during the negotiations leading up to the establishment of the EEAS," he said.