Coronavirus: World leaders reboot face-to-face diplomacy

Four months of virtual meetings saved time and money but officials say the personal touch is needed for successful diplomacy

Angela Merkel, left, welcomes Emmanuel Macron at the German government's guest house Meseberg Castle in Gransee near Berlin. Picture: AP

After months of virtual interactions, world leaders are cautiously restarting face-to-face meetings amid growing frustration at the limits of remote diplomacy.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron of France were among the first in Europe to return to face-to-face meetings on Tuesday (AEST). The two met outside Berlin to discuss their proposal for a recovery fund to prop up European countries affected by the lockdown-induced economic downturn.

Government officials across the world said cancelling physical meetings had saved millions in travel costs since February as leaders, ministers and their aides stopped jetting around the world. Some diplomats also said the pandemic had revealed which non-essential gatherings might be dispensed with in the future.

But they said the lockdown had also complicated political deal-making. The lack of confidentiality inherent in video-conferencing — when anyone could be hiding outside the frame — has undermined trust while physical distance had gummed up negotiations and complicated compromise-building, according to officials and diplomats in Europe and the US.

Nowhere has the absence of tête-à-tête diplomacy been more disrupting than in the EU, a bloc of 27 nations that runs on finely calibrated compromises often forged during marathon nightly negotiations in Brussels.

Angela Merkel, left and Emmanuel Macron talk in the garden of Meseberg Castle. Picture: AP

After four months of video conferences, Ms Merkel and Mr Macron, leaders of the bloc’s two largest economies, kicked off their meeting with a conversation in the gardens of Schloss Meseberg, an 18th Century castle that serves as the German government’s guesthouse.

The two have been in frequent contact with one another and with other leaders via telephone and Cisco System’s WebEx’s video-conferencing service. But officials in both countries said the top-level diplomacy had tested the limits of the technology.

“A summit per videolink is leaky, hundreds of people are involved and things get passed on to reporters in real time,” said one German official in reference to a recent virtual European summit of 27 leaders, which normally takes place behind closed doors at the European Council’s headquarters in Brussels.

“No one speaks openly, and politics is forged in confidential conversations. But what also matters is the emotion, the body language, the personal exchanges between leaders,” the official said.

US President Donald Trump has also restarted bilateral meetings, last week hosting his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Mr Trump also sought to convene a meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations at Camp David in the US in a bid to reboot international summit diplomacy, according to an official familiar with the invitation.

The initiative failed when Ms Merkel refused to travel to the US because of the pandemic.

Ms Merkel also cancelled a meeting of EU leaders with Chinese President Xi Jinxing that was due to take place in Leipzig, Germany, in the northern autumn. The meeting, according to a spokesman, would have violated a pandemic-related German ban on large events.

Emmanuel Macron, left, and Angela Merkel with a waitress in the garden of Schloss Meseberg. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Macron said he was honoured to be Ms Merkel’s first guest since much of Europe went into lockdown. The French leader has shown a fondness for using elaborate state occasions — with Paris as a majestic backdrop — as a tool of diplomacy, hosting Mr Trump for a military parade and a dinner atop of the Eiffel Tower.

On Friday, Mr Macron held a video conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine, Libya and Syria, among other issues. At one point during the two-hour call, Mr Putin asked that the two be left alone to discuss an item, according to an aide to Mr Macron.

Mr Macron, Ms Merkel and other European leaders plan to travel to Brussels on July 17 for the first real-life summit of EU leaders since the beginning of the pandemic. The delegations will be much smaller than usual, according to officials, to reduce the potential for infection.

Barend Leyts, spokesman for Charles Michel, the former Belgian premier who now chairs the EU summits, said a physical gathering would be key in breaching a deep gulf between EU member states on how to shape a pandemic relief fund. Other delicate issues on the table include discussion on a trade agreement with Britain, which left the bloc in January.

Physical talks between Britain and the EU on how to shape the future trade regime between the two restarted this week, with the British delegation visiting their EU counterparts in Brussels for the first time since February.

Britain’s lead Brexit negotiator, David Frost, has complained about not being able to talk with his European counterparts face-to-face, saying it was “hard to replicate the atmospherics” of a negotiation over video conference, according to one official.

In Britain itself, the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to rely on video-conferencing even for internal consultations after Mr Johnson and some of his ministers became infected with COVID-19.

Unlike their European counterparts, the British government used the Zoom conferencing software, which EU officials said failed to meet their security standards. Mr Johnson came under fire on March 31 when he tweeted a picture of a virtual cabinet meeting, revealing the access code and the usernames of some of his ministers.

The Wall Street Journal