Comment on The Politico Article
“ ‘A mess’: EU Commission accused of overstepping on foreign policy”
This was the title of an article in POLITICO (1.7.26) on an interview with former top EU diplomat Josep Borrell by by Jaccopo Barigazzi. It deserves noting at some length as it well illustrates the current state of governance in the EU:
“Former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has delivered his sharpest public criticism yet of the European Commission’s growing role in diplomacy and defense, arguing that it is straying beyond its treaty powers and creating confusion over who speaks for Europe on the world stage.
“In an interview with POLITICO, Borrell said the increasingly overlapping roles of the Commission and the European External Action Service [EEAS], the EU’s diplomatic arm, which he led from 2019 until late 2024, have created “quite a mess” within the bloc’s foreign policy machinery. “The Commission doesn’t speak representing the European Union; the Commission represents only the Commission”, Borrell said.”
The comments amount to the clearest public rebuke yet from a former EU top diplomat regarding a long-running institutional struggle that has simmered under Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. While current and former officials have privately complained that the Commission has steadily expanded its diplomatic footprint, Borrell is the first former high representative to argue so directly the case that the EU’s executive branch, the guardian of the Treaties, has actually crossed the line laid down in EU law.
A veteran politician—whose career included stints as Spain’s Foreign Minister and President of the European Parliament—Borrell preceded Kaja Kallas as head of the EEAS. Like Kallas, he also clashed with von der Leyen.
Borrell has rarely shied away from expressing strong opinions. He has often been an outspoken critic of Israel, accusing it of genocide and “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War”.
The Commission’s outreach to Israel continues to anger Borrell. He pointed to the example of Mediterranean Commissioner Dubravka Šuica, who last week met Israeli officials just days after Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar cut ties with Kallas over reports that she had compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to apartheid-era South Africa.
This, Borrell said, shows that the Commission is overreaching and stepping on the EEAS’s toes.
“With which authority a commissioner goes to Israel, to say that the EU and Israel love each other, and agree and celebrate the role of Israel on peace and stability, when at the same time the high representative of the EU for foreign policy is banned by Israel?” he said.
He cited the EU treaty, which states that the Commission “shall ensure the Union’s external representation” but “with the exception of the common foreign and security policy”.
For Borrell, there is a clear distinction between the external dimension of EU policies—which the Commission is in charge of—and EU foreign policy, which is in the hands of national capitals. As he said:
“Certainly the Commission has policies that have an external dimension. But this is one thing, and another thing is to pretend to set and define the position of the Union in the war against Iran, or on the Israel-Palestine conflict and other Middle East conflicts. This is not external relations. This is external policy… if you want to fix a common foreign policy position, then go to the Council” where the member countries have competence over foreign policy.
Under fire
Borrell was no stranger to criticism while serving as High Representative—the formal title of the EU’s top diplomat—including after a controversial visit to Moscow in 2021, when he failed to push back against Sergey Lavrov when the Russian Foreign Minister accused EU leaders of lying about the poisoning of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.
And, like Kallas, Borrell often had a difficult relationship with von der Leyen. The Spanish Socialist frequently took a critical stance on Israel, while critics accused the German conservative Commission President of being too closely aligned with Tel Aviv: “It was not easy, but we tried to manage it”, he said.
He recalled how, in 2021, von der Leyen and then-US President Joe Biden launched the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council, a forum for transatlantic coordination on trade and technology.
“From the U.S. side it was chaired by the Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken. On the side of the European Union, the high representative was not even a member.”
For Borrell, the same institutional tension is now emerging in defence policy:
“If I were today the high representative and I would be sitting at a table where someone is saying, “I am going to build the European Defence Union”, then I would feel a little bit uncomfortable” he said…
“That’s because, in his view, the Commission is also overstepping its role on defence, which, like foreign affairs, is a competence of the member countries.”
In 2024, von der Leyen appointed the first-ever Defence Commissioner, former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius. In her mission letter, she tasked him with building a European Defence Union.
This is further evidence that the Commission “has clearly expanded the will to be the one in charge of foreign and security policy”, Borrell said.
In theory, Kubilius is “only a commissioner for the defense industry”, which is in line with the Commission’s powers over policies, such as market regulation. But “apparently that’s not the case”, he said, referring to Kubilius’ mission of setting up a European Defence Union. “This is the task that the treaty gives to the high representative”, he said, pointing out the similarities between a European Defence Union and the Common Security and Defence Policy, the existing EU framework for defence and crisis management.
“If you start building this institutional setting, the conflict is there, it’s unavoidable”, he said, arguing that the system “has to be clarified”.
The right correct procedure is that:
“defence policy is an intergovernmental policy. Because this is reality. The Commission cannot pretend to be a shadow Pentagon.”
The Commission did not respond to a request for comment.”
Some Comments On Borrell’s Position
What Borrell says is perfectly true and has been obvious since von der Leyen began her second term. She has broken the most basic laws of the EU in a blatantly obvious way—as has been noted in this magazine. But her Empire Building was accepted: and indeed lauded by some of those responsible for allowing her to do so—the European Council, the political leaders of the EU.
What can be done about this situation? Borrell’s solution seems to be that von der Leyen should obey the law. But why should she start doing so? She has been allowed to do what she is doing by the people who are legally responsible for the laws of the EU?
The first rule of law—the laws of laws—is enforcement of the law!
If the law cannot be enforced, law and appeals to it become just hot air. And that permissive approach just encourages further law breaking!
That is what happens in another setting: there are so many appeal to Israel to obey the law which are just ignored. Such appeals carry no weight in the real world without the wherewithal to enforce them! In such circumstances, the law simply becomes a real ass!
This inability by the EU to enforce its own laws within its own structures reflects the deep malaise that has overcome the European project. “Ever closer union of the nations of Europe”—interpreted as the integration of the nations of Europe—was the original aim of the Union when it consisted of six members. They had concluded, on the basis of their own experience at national level, that such an over-arching ideal could be feasible if based on their own common experiences. The most important part of the common heritage consisted of a legacy of wars on each other, orchestrated by England’s Balance of Power strategy. The idea was that while European countries were focussed on mutual jockeying for position Britain would be safe!
That is why Britain was initially excluded by the original founding fathers. But the success of that initial approach meant following generation did not have any experience of British chicanery in fostering inter-European rivalries: so that lesson was forgotten. They allowed Britain to join. Prime Minister Edward Heath was possibly a genuine pro-European: but he was soon replaced by Margaret Thatcher. She, and her successors, changed the nature of the EU—capping the transformation by enrolling a plethora of anti-Russian East European states. Then Britain, after it had changed the nature of the EU, promptly left!
It had changed the EU—but to what?
Founding Father President De Gaulle had warned against such an enlargement. He had a vision of a “Union de Patries”, an association in which the nations of Europe and their identities, their “hearts and minds”, would be enhanced by membership—not be scarified for an abstract Europe and any such Europe would have to evolve to be more than just the mechanical sum of its parts.
When Britain joined the EU there were just nine member states!
Under British influence, the project trebled to 27 nations and may soon be 30. And the focus has moved from internal development of the member states, to a globalist agenda!
All these parvenues have different histories, traditions, cultures, and economies of massively varying sizes and interests—but all are considered to be of equal political standing. This egalitarian approach was an attempt to live up to an abstraction—something that did not yet exist.
In reality what could hold such disparate nations to together without a common demos? Given the fact that most of these nations have been in conflict with each others for centuries, it would take some overarching development that could only form the raison d’être of such a union.
Because of this diverse reality, the EU attempted—but gave up—trying to write a history of itself a few years ago. That was ominous. As the old adage has it —if you don’t know where you come from, you are not likely to know where you are going. Can an agreed history of Poland and Ukraine ever be written?
The very concept of Europe was a Christian creation and that was its demos for centuries. The Enlightenment was the next such demos and was the context for the creation of the main European nations.
Something like those uplifting movements is needed to create a demos for the EU project today.
Instead, what is being proposed by von der Leyen and the warmongers, to provide the key to developing a demos for their Europe includes provoking a contrived suicidal war with Russia.
Such a war with Russia is literally MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction, Editor) but without the M!
And, on top of that, the EU has made itself complicit in the most morally reprehensible military action so far this century, the continuing genocide in Gaza. And it has had nothing to say about the piecemeal acquisition of the Palestinian West Bank by Israeli settlers in complicity with the State.
Together these European policies constitute elements which might be best described as the very lowest common denominator as regards the aim and motivation of any political entity today.
The sooner the EU perishes, the better for all concerned.
Jack Lane
Reader’s Comment:
As far as the EU is concerned: Rules are there to be broken for a greater purpose!
Qualified Majority when it suits; Unanimity when necessary to prevent things.
Seems to me that the EU is corrupt beyond the point of redemption. Even The Irish Times is getting cynical! For instance, see this story in the Irish Times about EU foot-dragging on Israeli colonisation of Palestinian lands:
Momentum for EU action over Israeli settlements gets bogged down in procedural squabble
