Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell has this advice for the bloc as he wraps up a five-year term: Get united and start taking decisions faster, or you won’t be taken seriously as a geopolitical player.
“If you are not united, you can’t show power … You cannot pretend to be a geopolitical power if you are taking weeks and months in order to act,” the Spanish diplomat told journalists on his way to chairing his last Foreign Affairs Council as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs.
“My last call to colleagues: Be more united, take decisions quicker. Events don’t wait for you.”
Borrell’s comments come as the European Union braces for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Russia ramps up its war against Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East rages on.
“At the beginning of my mandate I said we have to learn to use the language of power,” said Borrell. “In order to use the language of power, you have to be united.”
The top EU diplomat is using his final Foreign Affairs Council to present a proposal to penalize Israel over its war against Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon.
Borrell is due to be succeeded by former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, pending her confirmation by the European Parliament.
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