Category: Foreign policy

A trip to Tripoli

February 17, 2011 4:16 pm by Stanley Pignal

With Libya at risk of becoming the latest North African country to be destabilised by a popular uprising, the European Union’s diplomatic service faces a problem: Tripoli has long been the only capital in Europe’s neighbourhood without an EU diplomatic representation.

Sources in the diplomatic service say that is about to change.

The European Union is to open a representative office in Libya as part of its burgeoning European External Action Service network, they say.

Tripoli has been a gaping hole in EU diplomacy thus far, the only country in the European neighbourhood where its diplomatic service doesn’t have a base.

Continue reading: “A trip to Tripoli”

As Ashton heads to Egypt, sniping continues

February 14, 2011 10:09 am by Peter Spiegel

Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, heads off for a tour of the Middle East and North Africa today – a trip that’s expected to include both Tunisia and Egypt – after coming under quite a bit of criticism for her handling of the upheaval in the region.

But the criticism has not all been in one direction. Ahead of her trip, a senior EU official briefed the Brussels press corps and laid some of the blame for the frequently discordant European reaction to recent events in the laps of national foreign ministers.

“One of the difficulties that we have is making sure that we not only speak with one voice but act with one voice,” the official said. “I mean, how many foreign ministers are in the Middle East now? It’s a bit complicated. The high representative wants to go, but can she go the same day or the day after when three foreign minsters have been? To do what? It’s a real problem.”

Continue reading: “As Ashton heads to Egypt, sniping continues”

Tags: Catherine Ashton, Egypt, WikiLeaks
Posted in EU, Foreign policy, Trade | Permalink

One last note on the Hungarian carpet (for now)

February 9, 2011 2:11 pm by Peter Spiegel

For those who might not have noticed, Marton Hajdu, an affable and always reliable spokesman for Hungary’s EU presidency, has taken issue with our Brussels Blog item from last week about the covering put over the controversial Hungarian carpet during Friday’s European summit here in Brussels.

In a posting in the comments section of our blog, Marton gently prods us for constantly writing about the carpet issue to begin with – admittedly a somewhat tangential issue, but what’s a blog for if not to occasionally write about tangential issues?

Importantly, however, Marton says there’s a more prosaic reason for why the carpet – which includes a map of Hungary in 1848, riling Slovaks and Romanians, since parts of their countries were Hungarian at the time – was covered during the summit: “presidency decoration” is no longer allowed at the Justis Lipsius building during EU summits.

Continue reading: “One last note on the Hungarian carpet (for now)”

Tags: EU presidency, Hungary
Posted in EU, Foreign policy | Permalink

EU summit: Cameron on Egypt

February 4, 2011 8:50 pm by Joshua Chaffin

Implicit in suggestions today from Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, that Hosni Mubarak should not be rushed out the door was this: A fear of what could come after the long-ruling Egyptian president. Chief among them is the possibility that Mr Mubarak would be replaced by an Islamist government hostile to the west.

But to David Cameron, the UK prime minister, Egypt’s future should not be cast in such binary terms. “I simply don’t accept that there is just a choice in life between, on the one hand, having a regime that does not respect rights and democracy and on the other hand having Islamic extremism,” Mr Cameron said, pointing to the example of well functioning democracies in Muslim countries such as Turkey and Indonesia.

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Tags: David Cameron, Egypt
Posted in EU, Foreign policy | Permalink

EU summit: Egypt added to the agenda

February 3, 2011 10:20 am by Peter Spiegel

Friday’s summit of European heads of government has long been signposted as one of European Council president Herman Van Rompuy’s new interim conclaves to deal with a policy issue of crucial importance to Europe, in this case energy security.

But as many diplomats predicted, energy is increasingly getting drowned out by other, more pressing demands.

First, José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, called on the summit to be used to hash out an overhaul of the eurozone’s €440bn sovereign debt bail-out fund so it’s able to more flexibly deal with bond market assaults on struggling “peripheral” economies.

Although that won’t happen, Van Rompuy has agreed to turn over the summit’s traditional working lunch to the eurozone crisis, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has decided to use the opportunity to float a new plan for greater coordination in economic and fiscal policies among eurozone countries.

Now, it seems, the afternoon is being taken over by yet another crisis: Egypt.

Continue reading: “EU summit: Egypt added to the agenda”

Tags: energy security, EU summit, Herman Van Rompuy
Posted in Energy, EU, Foreign policy | Permalink

Latest on the Hungarian media law…and The Carpet

February 1, 2011 11:19 am by Peter Spiegel

As we reported last week following an interview with Hungary’s foreign minister, the government in Budapest appears to be willing to diffuse the dust-up over its controversial media law, which critics charge is intended to stifle press opposition.

In a letter sent to the European Commission Monday, and posted by our colleagues at the Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag, Hungary’s deputy prime minister and justice minister Tibor Navracsics said his government was willing to amend the law, if the Commission deemed it necessary. (English translation of letter here.)

My half-hour interview with Janos Martonyi wasn’t all about the media law, however. We talked about his desire to see Friday’s summit of EU heads of government focus on energy issues – as originally planned – and not get overshadowed by the ongoing eurozone debt crisis.

And we also talked about The Carpet.

Continue reading: “Latest on the Hungarian media law…and The Carpet”

Tags: Hungary, media standards, Viktor Orban
Posted in EU, EU Commission, Foreign policy | Permalink

WikiLeaks and the EU: Beggaring thy neighbours

December 9, 2010 9:29 am by Peter Spiegel

Among the more revealing EU-related disclosures in the WikiLeaks trove are not about Washington’s view of the European Union, but rather about how members of the EU view each other.

One of the more colourful dispatches that have come out thus far is an April 2004 account of an otherwise dull Brussels evening event in which a US official was seated at a table with the featured speaker: Chris Patten, the high-profile British diplomat who at the time was the EU’s foreign affairs commissioner.

Labeled “Dining with Chris: Random Thoughts from Relex” – relex is Euro-speak for the foreign policy, or “external relations,” portfolio – the cable offers Patten’s vivid views on everything from Romania (a “feral nation”) to then-Russian President Vladimir Putin (when discussing Chechnya, “Putin’s eyes turn to those of a killer”).

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Tags: Cyprus, Iran, WikiLeaks
Posted in EU, EU Commission, Foreign policy | Permalink

WikiLeaks and the EU: Why was Obama summit scrapped?

December 8, 2010 11:44 am by Peter Spiegel

One of the most high-profile dust-ups between the US and the European Union since President Barack Obama took office was a White House decision to skip out on a May summit with the EU that was to be held in Madrid during Spain’s turn at the bloc’s rotating presidency.

The decision was seen by many Europeans as a snub, and hurt feelings have persisted for months. The issue was raised anew just last month when Obama finally agreed to an EU summit, this time tacked onto a Nato gathering in Lisbon, with the US continuing to insist that the only reason the Spanish summit was scrapped was because of Obama’s already heavy European travel schedule.

But two cables made public as part of the WikiLeaks dump this week present a more complicated picture of the White House decision-making. They make clear that senior US officials believed that there simply was not enough substance to the agenda to make the meeting worthwhile.

Continue reading: “WikiLeaks and the EU: Why was Obama summit scrapped?”

Tags: WikiLeaks, Zapatero
Posted in EU, Foreign policy | Permalink

WikiLeaks and the EU: A tale of two presidents

December 6, 2010 6:50 am by Peter Spiegel

Among the hundreds of confidential US diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks thus far, very few have dealt with Washington’s relations with the EU. But occasionally, EU leaders have popped up in summaries of other international events in which they have only tangentially been involved.

The most pointed EU-related revelation to be released thus far comes in a 2008 cable from the American embassy in Moscow following French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s heated September 8 confrontation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the Kremlin’s invasion of Georgia.

The US account of the “at times…openly hostile” meeting, where Sarkozy “at one point grabbed FM Lavrov by the lapels and called him a liar in very strong terms,” has been reported widely. Less noticed, however, was Moscow’s reception of José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president.

In a section labeled secret and “noforn,” meaning it was not to be shown to non-American officials, an unnamed French source retells how “the Russians treated Barroso harshly and condescendingly, and tried to exclude him from many of the sessions.”

Continue reading: “WikiLeaks and the EU: A tale of two presidents”

Tags: Herman Van Rompuy, Jose Manuel Barroso, WikiLeaks
Posted in Environment, EU, Foreign policy | Permalink