Nothing better epitomized the meaning of “ivory tower” than the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers near Stockholm yesterday, i.e., of a ruling class totally decoupled from their constituencies and the real world. They did, indeed, choose to meet in a tower, which was built out of bricks, in a 17th-century castle outside of the Swedish capital. Their talks were characterized by the absence of any device or means, such as smartphones, that could endanger the secrecy of their proceedings.
Something, however, did leak. It came out that EU countries are divided on the new anti-China paper presented by EU foreign policy representative Josep Borrell. In order to camouflage the split, he said that “The 27 are united behind the music of this text,” which is bad news already, given that the music is cacophonous.
But Euractiv reported that diplomats told it that there is a split among members on how to lay out the policy of “de-risking” with China. One diplomat said that there are “diametrically opposed positions between China hawks and ‘the usual suspects’ such as Hungary.” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis was in tune with Borrell. “It is desirable to hear the EU27 choir singing in unison, but on this China paper, it seems that we are still a few octaves apart,” said Landsbergis.
