The EUโs foreign policy chief has accused his top diplomats of being slow, ineffective and patronising towards the countries they work in, also berating them for failing to anticipate Russiaโs invasion ofย Ukraine.
โThis 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,โ Josep Borrell, the EUโs high representative for foreign policy,ย told ambassadorsย who work for the EUโs external action service.
Borrell, a Spanish former foreign minister,ย who has a reputation for bluntness, lamented that the EUโs global diplomatic network was less informative than reading the papers. โSometimes, I knew more of what was happening somewhere by reading the newspapers than reading your reports,โ he said.
โI should be the best-informed guy in the world,โ Borrell complained, instructing them to be more reactive to unfolding crises. โBehave as you would behave if you were an embassy: send a telegram, a cable, a mail โ quickly. Quickly, please, react.โ
The EU, he said, had failed to predict thatย Russiaย would attack Ukraine, leaving him reliant on warnings from the US, notably a phone call from US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, two days before the invasion. โI have to recognise that here, in Brussels, the Americans were telling us โthey will attack, they will attackโ, and we were quite reluctant to believe it.โ
As his audience sat in silence, Borrell accused his diplomats of lacking empathy and patronising counterparts in their host countries. โWe think that we know better what is in other peopleโs interests. We underestimate the role of emotions and the persisting appeal of identity politics.โ
Read the whol story here https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/11/eu-foreign-policy-chief-josep-borrell-says-diplomats-are-slow-ineffective-and-patronising
