EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell urged to quit over Moscow visit backfire

Europe’s foreign affairs chief faces calls to resign after a trip to Moscow that is widely seen as a humiliation for the EU.

European Union foreign affairs chief Joseph Borrell in Brussels. Picture: AFP

Europe’s foreign affairs chief faces calls to resign after a trip to Moscow that is widely seen as a humiliation for the European Union.

Josep Borrell, 73, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, has been ­accused of “pandering” to Russia and handing a propaganda coup to President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Borrell’s visit on Friday came in the week that Alexei ­Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, and thousands of his supporters were jailed. Mr Borrell was accused of failing to stand up to Russian bullying as Moscow marked his visit by announcing it was expelling several European diplomats for attending protests in support of Mr Navalny. Germany, Sweden, and Poland are each ­expelling a Russian diplomat in response.

The German foreign ministry said Moscow’s decision to expel the European diplomats “was not justified in any way”, insisting that the German embassy staffer had been acting within his rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Riho Terras, an Estonian MEP and former commander of his country’s military, described Mr Borrell’s visit as “humiliating” and “a masterclass in pandering to Russia”. He has written to Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, urging her to sack him.

“We believe the president of the European Commission should take action if Mr Borrell does not resign of his own accord,” he wrote in a letter that is being circulated among MEPs for signatures. Mr Borrell, Spain’s former foreign minister, has been forced to defend his “very complicated visit” with a blog post warning Russia of “consequences” after his diplomatic overtures were rebuffed.

“An aggressively staged press conference and the expulsion of three EU diplomats during my visit indicate that the Russian authorities did not want to seize this opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue with the EU,” he wrote. “This is regrettable and we will have to draw the consequences. It seems that Russia is progressively disconnecting itself from Europe.”

The Spanish socialist has been particularly criticised for a weak press conference appearance ­beside a hostile Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister. Mr Lavrov, 70, took control of the event, using it to denounce the EU as “an unreliable partner” while Mr Borrell failed to protest at the undiplomatic ­language.

At one point, Mr Borrell was drawn into joining Russian criticism of the US over its sanctions on Cuba. He went on to lavish praise on the Russian Sputnik coronavirus vaccine as “good for all mankind” — comments which were then used by the Russian foreign ministry in a propaganda video attacking Mr Navalny.

The commission said that Mr Borrell had “no regrets” about the visit and insisted that he had ­delivered a tough message behind the scenes. “He is a diplomat, and diplo­macy is about engaging,” the commission’s spokesman said. “A press conference is not the platform for confrontations. The substance, the content, is for the negotiations. He was very vocal in the negotiations.”

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister, said that the visit had been “appalling”. He added: “(It is) not just that Russia makes a fool of the EU but that we let it happen.”

The Times