leadership and priority-setting should be applied further in the EU’s candidate and potential candidate countries and in its neighbourhood, and in response to an arc of strategic challenges stretching from Central Asia to the Middle East and from the Horn of Africa across the Sahel; expresses its willingness to support this process; 17. Calls for a review of the infrastructure distribution and staffing of EU delegations in order to ensure that the Union’s efficiency, visibility and representation in third countries reflects our political ambitions and expected priorities; calls for such a review to be discussed with Parliament’s competent committee, especially where the outcome requires any redistribution of resources or a decision to open or close delegations in third countries; reiterates, notably, its demand for the opening of an EU delegation in Iran; MATCHING OBJECTIVES WITH APPROPRIATE RESOURCES 18. Questions, in view of the range of challenges and demands for EU engagement in the world, the Council’s rationale for cutting the multiannual financial framework, which will reduce the Union's capacity to promote peace, security and sustainable economic development and its credibility in respect of such efforts; cautions that if such cuts are applied in an uncoordinated fashion, they risk undermining the effective pursuit of our interests and values as well as our collective ability to promote peace, democracy, human security and prosperity in our neighbourhood and further afield; 19. Recognises, at the same time, the need for strategic choices to be made, and priorities established, in order to ensure that the Union's resources are used in a focused and effective manner; calls, in this regard, on the Member States to ensure that their national policies are consistent and coordinated with the Union's strategic objectives and commitments; 20. Stresses the importance of ensuring that the new external relations financial instruments under consideration by Parliament and the Council are fully funded, tailored to furthering the Union’s strategic interests, and able to be adapted to changing political circumstances; 21. Insists that the revision of the 2006 IIA on budgetary discipline and sound financial management should mark a further step forward in terms of greater transparency in respect of the CFSP; believes that democratic scrutiny requires separate budget lines for each and every CSDP mission or operation, including the work of EU Special Representatives, accompanied by streamlined – yet transparent – procedures for the internal transfer of funds if circumstances so require; ASSESSING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE VP/HR AND OF THE COUNCIL IN 2011 22. Welcomes the steps taken by the Council, with the VP/HR’s support, in the 2011 Annual Report towards mapping out the Union’s foreign policy in a forward-looking and strategic policy document; 23. Notes the efforts made to address the shortcomings outlined in Parliament's last resolution on this topic, in particular by developing new CSDP missions and operations within the framework of the Union’s overall approach to a country or region; 24. Believes, however, that the Council’s Annual Report still falls short of the ambitions of the Lisbon Treaty in important ways, and therefore calls for the following in future: