Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) Josep Borrell, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, criticised EU diplomats for ineffectiveness on Tuesday.
Addressing EU External Action Service (EEAS) diplomats, Borrell accused them of being ineffective, slow and patronising, according to The Guardian reporting.
“This is not a moment when we are going to send flowers to all of you saying that you are beautiful, you work very well and we are very happy,” he pointed out and reminded that EEAS diplomats failed to anticipate the start of war in Ukraine.
“Sometimes, I knew more of what was happening somewhere by reading the newspapers than reading your reports,” Borrell added and pointed out “I should be the best-informed guy in the world.”
He called on the diplomats to “behave as you would behave if you were an embassy: send a telegram, a cable, a mail – quickly… please, react.”
Borrell reminded that the only warning he received about Ukraine was from the US, from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who called him two days before the war broke out.
“I have to recognise that here, in Brussels, the Americans were telling us ‘they will attack, they will attack’, and we were quite reluctant to believe it,” he noted.
Borrell accused the diplomats of being patronising towards other diplomats in their host countries and lacking empathy. “We think that we know better what is in other people’s interests… we underestimate the role of emotions and the persisting appeal of identity politics,” he added.
One of the diplomats noted that some colleagues were offended by Borrell’s statements, while others found the speech relevant. “I think [the speech] was well-received overall, for he spoke substance,” the diplomat concluded.
Propaganda war
Borrell stressed that the EU was losing the “battle of narratives” against China and Russia, adding that the two countries are amplifying their narratives.
According to Borrell, “this is a battle we are not winning, because we are not fighting enough.” He pointed out that this presents a long-term problem for the EU and urged diplomats to do more.
“I am still surprised that, in some delegations, it seems that they do not take enough consideration of our communication, and they do not tweet and retweet the messages that we are delivering from the centre,” he noted and added “you have to be a network that is repeating, transmitting, insisting.”
