“We are not here to throw flowers at each other, nor to tell you how handsome you are, how well you work or how happy we are”, warned Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, at the start of the speech with which this Monday opened the Annual Conference of EU Ambassadors.
Before the cream of the crop from the European diplomatic corps, who had come for the occasion from all the offices abroad, Borrell presented a sharp analysis of today’s world and gave his staff homework, from reading his blog and spreading his slogans to better connecting with “emotions” of the countries to which they have been sent. An intervention, in short, that will take a long time to be forgotten in community circles, the closest thing to a scolding of high-ranking European officials that has been seen in recent times in Brussels.
Borrell argued that the problems we are experiencing today are due to the fact that, in the past, “we have based our prosperity on cheap gas from Russia and access to the Chinese market.” That old world in which “you, the United States, take care of our security and you, Russia and China, take care of our prosperity, no longer exists,” he warned. The former forces Europe to assume “more responsibilities” in defense matters. The second will force a strong restructuring of the economy, all this in a context of the rise of the extreme right. “It’s a very complicated cocktail for which the old recipes no longer apply,” he concluded.
Borrell then went on to assess all the things that, in recent months, the EU did not see in time, such as the war in Ukraine, or that it could have done better. “I have to admit that here in Brussels the Americans told us that Russia was going to attack and we were very reluctant to believe it,” admitted the head of community diplomacy, who acknowledged that the capacity that Ukraine would have to resist aggression like this has also been underestimated. as the extremes to which Vladimir Putin is willing to go.
Having described the world they face (US-China competition, a complicated multipolarity, a perfect storm in energy and food prices…) Borrell got to the part where he explained “how ” wants the EU ambassadors and the employees of the dozens of delegations abroad to face this context, the part that its recipients will probably never forget.
The Vice President of the European Commission and High Representative for European Foreign Policy told officials that they must come out of their bubbles and “listen” to the people more. Also “be faster” when it comes to informing you of what is happening in the countries where they work and “more reactive 24 hours a day”. “I want to be informed by you, not by the press. Sometimes I know better about what’s going on somewhere by reading the newspapers than your reports. Sometimes, I see what has happened, I ask what our delegation says and they tell me ‘for the moment, nothing’. We can’t afford that ‘nothing for now’.”
“I don’t want to point fingers at anyone, but it’s something I have to tell you. You have to be more reactive, 24 hours a day. We live in crisis and you have to be in ‘crisis mode’. (…) With all of you scattered around the world, I should be the most informed person in the world, or at least as much as any foreign minister. I am the ‘foreign minister of Europe’. Behave as you would if you were an embassy: send a telegram, a cable, an e-mail And quickly. Act quickly, please”, Borrell begged them, who encouraged them to propose new things, to abandon the “silos” in which they work and get out of the established channels from time to time.
The Spanish politician, who in his time as president of the European Parliament already distinguished himself as an uncomfortable Jiminy Cricket from European leaders with his speeches prior to the summits, has been seriously concerned for months that Europe is not winning the battle of the story about the Ukrainian war worldwide. On Monday, in a speech broadcast live on the internet, Borrell asked the EU ambassadors to delve deeply into “the battlefield of communication”, to read the “slogans” he gives on his blog and to retweet the messages that are launched from Brussels.
“I am surprised that some delegations do not take our communication seriously, that they do not tweet and retweet the messages that we launch from the center. You have to be a network that repeats, transmits, insists”, emphasized Borrell, who concluded that if Europe does not is winning this war because of the story or narrative about the causes and relevance of the war in Ukraine for the continent as a whole “it is because we are not fighting enough, because we do not understand what a fight is. In addition to conquering space, we must conquer minds, and the Russians and the Chinese do that very well”.
“You are my eyes and my ears in the world. I’m counting on you, the task is not easy but we can certainly do much better,” concluded Borrell amid a deathly silence in the room. As he had warned, in his 35-minute speech, there was no room for complacency. His speech has caused a greater surprise in Brussels, a city more accustomed to the official langue de bois used by the rest of the conference participants than when speaking directly about the Spanish politician. Numerous analysts and commentators, both in Europe and the United States, have applauded Borrell’s candor, although not a few lament the lack of delicacy.
“Is the EU waking up?” Tweeted Nargis Kassenova, a researcher at the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard, who described the intervention of the vice president of the Commission as “excellent”. “What a shock, a senior EU official (Borrell) has given a really interesting speech!” commented Gideon Rachman, columnist for the Financial Times. “A clairvoyant wake-up call,” said Eric Maurice, director of the Brussels office of the Robert Schuman Center. “Disturbingly honest,” according to American geostrategist Peter Zeihan.
For Andrew Gray, a veteran journalist specializing in European affairs, the speech is “typical Borrell”; that is to say, it contains “a lot of very sharp analysis, a direct but also confusing and contradictory language”, he pointed out, recommending working with “a good editor”. For Jon Worth, associated with the European College of Bruges, Borrell’s diagnosis of the failures of the EU’s foreign policy is correct. “But he reminds me of a coach of a failing football team railing against his players instead of acknowledging the coach’s part in the team’s problems.”
