A senior European Union official is doing damage control, pitching a hard-line policy on Russia after his excessive meekness during a recent trip to Moscow provoked a backlash in Brussels.
The former Spanish official’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was controversial even before his departure. European officials, angry over the imprisonment of anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, suspected that EU high representative Josep Borrell’s visit would look like acquiescence to such human rights abuses. His performance in Moscow, where he seemed anxious to avoid offending his Russian hosts while tolerating their public criticism of U.S. and European policies, confirmed those fears and put Borrell on the defensive upon his return home this week.
“This travel was taking place in a particularly tense context, and this visit presented obvious risks. I took them,” Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, told the European Parliament. “I had no illusions before this visit. I am even more worried after.”
Lavrov made a point not to indulge any illusions about Russia-EU relations, despite Borrell’s best efforts in their joint press conference. He dismissed the overture, saying that “the EU is not a reliable partner,” while state-run media teed up questions for Borrell that allowed the Russian envoy to portray U.S. and European sanction measures as “instruments from a colonial past.” Borrell failed to counter Lavrov’s slurs, an error that drew unfortunate comparisons to former President Donald Trump’s acquiescent display alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and outraged Russia hawks in Brussels.
“Mr. Borrell’s misjudgement in proactively deciding to visit Moscow, and his failure to stand for the interests and values of the European Union during his visit, have caused severe damage to the reputation of the EU,” Estonian European People’s Party MEP Riho Terras wrote in a letter signed by dozens of other members of the European Parliament. “We believe that the President of the European Commission should take action, if Mr. Borrell does not resign by his own accord.”
In the face of those rebukes, Borrell ditched his agreeable attitude in Moscow, where he congratulated Russia for developing a coronavirus vaccine that European regulators have yet to approve for safe use and claimed that “there is no proposal” for additional sanctions on Russia. Borrell maintained that he had a “heated’ private conversation with Lavrov about the mistreatment of Navalny.
“The discussion became heated,” Borrell said. “In my exchange, one thing became clear: There is no intention on the Russian side to engage in a constructive discussion if we address human rights and political freedoms.”
That attitude was not apparent in their joint press conference, from the perspective of Russia hawks in Europe. “I remember numerous public facepalms in Brussels when Trump walked into Putin’s trap in Helsinki,” Maksym Eristavi, a journalist in Ukraine, wrote on Twitter after their meeting last week. “But now you have your own ‘Helsinki moment,’ the EU. Congrats.”
The European Parliament lawmakers demanding his ouster put special emphasis on Borrell’s failure to stand up for the transatlantic alliance in the face of Lavrov’s attacks.
“Mr. Borrell did not defend the EU’s interests when Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov fiercely criticized the European Union and the United States,” they wrote. “Instead of standing up to Mr. Lavrov, Mr. Borrell attacked our principal ally, the United States, over Cuba.”
Borrell has decided to develop “concrete proposals” to punish Russian aggression at the next meeting of top diplomats from the countries that make up the European Union.
“It will be for the Member States to decide the next step, but yes, this could include sanctions,” he said. “Containment efforts should include combining robust action against disinformation, cyberattacks, and other possible hybrid challenges.”
The experience underscored that corruption within “the current power structure in Russia … leaves no opening for democratic rule of law,” according to Borrell, who said in Brussels that this phenomenon is the cause of tensions between Moscow and the West. “Russia is disconnecting from Europe, with little or no progress on conflicts in our common neighborhood,” the embattled EU official said. “They are disconnected because they consider our liberal democratic system as an existential threat for them.”
