Borrell scolded his diplomats: ‘I learned more about what’s going on by reading the media, not your report’

This Ambassador meeting (held regularly in each country) are social events, greet colleagues in person you hardly see at other times of the year, and create a sense of community and nationality. They also serve the boss (the president or the foreign minister), congratulate his diplomats on their work, and set priorities and strategies to follow for new courses.

EU welcomes My own 2022 annual meeting this week, the first in-person event since the onset of the pandemic, brought together representatives from more than 140 EU delegations and offices around the world. But in his inaugural address it was Monday, Josep Borrell completely bypasses traditional diplomatic conventions He has devoted himself to berating his subordinates (without using euphemisms) for not doing their job well and being slow and arrogant.

“This is not when I’m going to send flowers to everyone saying they’re handsome, they work greatwe’re happy, we’re a great family, etc.”, Borrell snapped at the ambassador at the start. The way my delegation works, and to send a clear message on how I want them to improve,” he said.

[Borrell avisa de que la lucha por la energía definirá el nuevo equilibrio de poderes en el mundo]

Borrell’s central thesis is that We live in ‘a world of uncertainty’ Among them “the speed and scope of change is extraordinary”. “Events that we thought would never happen are happening one after the other. At this rate, black swans will be the majority. There will be no more white swans, they will all be blackbecause piece by piece of things happened, those things are unlikely to happen, but they have happened and have had a very strong impact,” he said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was one of those “black swans,” as was Kyiv’s unexpected resistance. The escalation of Taiwan tensions between the US and China, the energy crisis and all the central banks accelerated rate hikes after the Fed was put on the European agenda. “It’s a perfect storm. Everyone is rushing to raise rates, which will lead to a global recession,” he said.

lazy ambassador

Borrell blamed EU ambassadors around the world for failing to meet these challenges: they are hanging out They cannot deal with this chain of crises in real time. “I need a quick, real-time look at what’s going on in your country. I want to know what’s going on in your country, not from the media. Sometimes I know more about what’s going on somewhere by reading the newspaper than yours Reports. Your reports sometimes come too late,” complained European foreign affairs chiefs.

“I wish they were more responsive 24 hours a day. We are living in crisis and we must be in crisis mode. Explain what’s going on: quickly, immediately. Even if you don’t have complete information within the first few hours, show that you’re there,” Borrell asked his subordinates.

“The whole world has you, Should be the most knowledgeable man in the world, at least as much as any foreign minister. I am “European Foreign Minister”. Act like you’re at the embassy: send telegrams, telegrams, mails quickly. Quick, please, respond,” the senior representative insisted.

Another criticism Borrell made of his subordinates was They gave up on the communications war, and Beijing or Moscow really know what to do“I’m surprised that in some delegations they don’t seem to give enough thought to our communications, they don’t tweet and retweet the information we’re preparing from the center. They have to be a network repeat, pass, persist”, Someone complained.

conquer people’s hearts

“It’s a fight that we didn’t win because we didn’t fight hard enough. We didn’t understand what a fight was. In addition to conquering space, you must conquer thought. The Russians and the Chinese are very good at this,” the senior representative said.

But to “win hearts and minds”, European ambassadors must abandon their sometimes opinionated tone. “we need to hear more. We need to practice more “listening patterns” with the rest of the world. We must have more empathy. We tend to overestimate rational arguments. ‘We are the land of reason’. We think we know the interests of others bestBorrell said.

How to correct all these problems? So what should the EU ambassador do? The head of golden diplomacy sums it up with this golden rule: “Take more initiative. Be prepared to be bold.”

Russian-Ukrainian War

Follow topics of interest to you