The EU diplomatic service has a problem: but not in China, but in Europe itself

Both the EEAS, diplomats from the EU diplomatic service, established in 2010 and currently headed by former Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, and others argue that members of the Community want a more independent foreign policy.

Furthermore, other EU institutions want to engage in superior diplomacy, and the EEAS itself suffers from poor management.

“Initially, many Member States were ready to give the EEAS a chance to sit down and see how they were doing. In recent years, however, they have taken away some of the responsibilities.

We see more and more Member States working more independently, taking the initiative themselves and not coordinating with the authorities in Brussels, ”said Pierr Vimont, veteran of French diplomacy and first Secretary-General of the EEAS.

Work alone

An illustration of the stickiness of the EU’s foreign policy is Libya. Borrell has made diplomatic efforts in the Libyan crisis a priority as soon as he took office last December.

However, France and Italy are supporting different sides in the Libyan civil war, and the EU is in no way succeeding in helping to establish a sustainable ceasefire in the country, even with the help of a major conference in January called by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

As for Iran, the EU has so far rated the agreement on the country’s nuclear program as one of the greatest achievements of EU diplomacy, despite the fact that the President of the United States has already withdrawn the United States from the pact.

But some diplomats point out that Member States are also more inclined to develop their initiatives on this subject, and do not share the space of the EEAS.

More and more Member States are becoming more independent, taking the initiative and not coordinating with the authorities in Brussels.

For example, during his stay in Tehran last summer, Heiko Maas represented only Germany, and on another mission, Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic adviser spoke to the Iranians only on behalf of France.

The EU, which was still part of the EU, also detained an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar on its own. Often other community members only become aware of such initiatives after the fact.

Of course, the most pressing issue now is the EU’s relations with China. The new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has always said that the institution she heads will be “geopolitical”.

A strategic rival and censorship?

However, the outbreak of the new coronavirus in EU-China relations has attracted worldwide attention. And it seems that the focus of the EEAS was almost blinding.

First, the EU diplomatic service was accused of cracking down on the Beijing report on China’s disinformation campaign. The EEAS denies this, although there is evidence that the content of an official document is more liquid than that of a draft.

The EEAS later acknowledged that the head of the EU delegation in Beijing had succumbed to Chinese pressure by allowing censors to erase a letter from community ambassadors that appeared in a Communist Party body, China Daily.

For the famous investor and activist, Bill Browder, who was expelled from Russia, it became an opportunity to say that the EU is “shameful and cowardly”.

It is true that Mr Borrell agreed this week that the EEAS had made a mistake and promised that this would not happen again. Unfortunately, many still remember that a few months ago, it became clear that German prosecutors suspected that the former high-ranking diplomat from the EEAS, Gerhard Sabathil, was spying on China.

Sabathil denies any allegation and has not been formally charged or arrested.

The head of the EU delegation in Beijing has succumbed to Chinese pressure by allowing censors to erase the letter from community ambassadors.

But Ian Bond, a former British diplomat who heads the foreign policy section of the European Reform Center’s forge of ideas, said it would not be easy for the EEAS to engage more decisively with China, as the EU must act unanimously in foreign policy.

“Furthermore, some member states are also reluctant to challenge Beijing, on which they increasingly depend economically,” Bond added.

Finally, the expert recalled that in 2013, it was Germany and several other EU members that shook a stronger community approach towards China: Berlin pressured the European Commission to approve an agreement with Beijing on imports of solar panels.

Now, like many Member States, the EU institutions are trying to strike a delicate balance in their relations with China, which they described as a “strategic rival” last year.

Must shrug

It is also important that the EEAS, even if it has to deal with diplomacy, has major internal problems. The service’s latest staff management report last year showed only 39 percent. Participants in special surveys underestimate the behavior of their managers in a teamwork environment.

Furthermore, a former EEAS official now says the service, which employs 4,000 people, makes it difficult for people to find professional staff: “There are many cases where countries send officials to the EEAS who no longer want them at home.”

The ambitious diplomats of the EEAS are also very disappointed to see that prestigious positions fall on officials recommended by national governments. Ministers are said to leave two or three resumes for Mr Borrell during each EU foreign affairs council.

Finally, it is clear that most of the work in the EEAS is shared by the main countries. Diplomats from five countries (France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Belgium) occupy more than half of all positions.

A representative of the EEAS rejects the criticism. The numbers in Belgium are said to have increased as several Britons in the service took over Belgian passports, while other giants simply have a large population and have only been able to offer even more candidates, but have not.

But Borrell is also grappling with the influence in Brussels with the European Commission and the European Council, whose president, Charles Michel, is trying to be active in foreign policy.

“However, the main challenge is tension with the Commission. The fate of the entire service is now being decided, or will remain, or due to all this pressure from other institutions and member states, much will have to fundamentally change,” said one EU senior diplomat, Politico said.

Mr Borrell is not afraid to ask important questions about the Community’s foreign policy objectives.

But the whole problem is the chaos that surrounds it and the inability of the head of the EEAS to articulate ideas and organize work effectively.

Advocates of the EEAS, it is true, ask that it be remembered that the service is still very young and, for example, cannot be compared to a French diplomatic corps with a century of experience. However, it is worth discussing whether this institution is maturing.