Secretary of State Mike Pompeo downgraded EU Ambassador David O’Sullivan, but the international bloc doesn’t understand why its envoy’s status has been diminished.
O’Sullivan was surprised to learn that the State Department had recently reduced his diplomatic position to be on a par with other international organizations as opposed to treating him like a national ambassador. The State Department protocol team had elevated O’Sullivan, who will step down as EU ambassador later this spring, to a place among national diplomats in 2016.
“This decision by the United States’ Protocol Office was recently changed,” an EU official told the Washington Examiner. “The EU was not notified of this decision, but we have subsequently been in contact with the U.S. State Department on this issue. In the absence of new facts, we see no reason why the previous diplomatic practice should not continue to be observed.”
The protocol issue is a relatively minor irritant to the trans-Atlantic relationship, but the slight punctuates European allies’ perception that President Trump does not respect them.
“We are concerned about the increasingly harmful approach from the White House when it comes to transatlantic relations,” a trio of leading European Parliament members wrote to U.S. lawmakers Tuesday. “This is no way to treat partners, especially as neither the EU High Representative nor the EU Ambassador was formally notified of this change, as would be expected under customary diplomatic practice.”
The State Department did not reply to a request for comment.
The administration’s decision to treat O’Sullivan as an international representative did find some defenders.
“What is the problem? The EU *is* an international organization (albeit a supranational one),” the Heritage Foundation’s Luke Coffey, a former adviser to the United Kingdom’s defense ministry, tweeted Tuesday.
The ambassador’s placement among the ranks of national ambassadors reflects the EU’s ambitions for foreign policy unity.
“The EU Ambassador to the US was folded into the Diplomatic Corps Order of Precedence list according to the date when he presented his credentials, instead of always remaining at the bottom of the list,” the EU official said. “This follows the EU Member States via the Lisbon Treaty committing themselves to a common foreign and security policy, which the EU Ambassador to the United States represents.”
O’Sullivan will be stepping down in March, as Politico’s European affiliate first reported. But the move is not a response to the change in protocol.
“He is returning to Europe as part of the normal rotation,” an EU official told the Washington Examiner.
