Josep Borrell (La Pobla de Segur, Catalonia, 1947), Spanish-Argentine because his father was born in Mendoza, faces his last month as European ‘chancellor’ with a very busy agenda that will make him travel halfway around the world. “It is the longest month, an intense month”count to Clarion in his bright office of the External Action Service of the European Union, in the European quarter of Brussels. More than an hour of conversation that allows us to talk about trips, frustrations, conflicts of competence between European institutions, lost causes and even the dogs of Argentine President Javier Milei.
While his press chief, his shadow in these years, Colombian by origin and European by adoption, looks into the infinity while so many trips are turning in his head, Borrell speaks: “It will be the longest month, an intense month.”
He started this Wednesday night flying to South Korea and Japan, where he will sign Defense and Security agreements, and in 30 days he will go to a European summit in Budapest with the results of the US elections on the table, to Ecuador for the EU summit. -Latin America with the Mercosur agreement on the verge of candy, due to several meetings in Brussels, in the West Bank, Lebanon, Ukraine and is still looking for how to fit in a visit to Turkey. Borrell is leaving and will leave his office to the Estonian Kaja Kallas. But unlike other outgoing commissioners, who are already thinking about other things, the Spanish-Argentine is accelerating because he wants to leave the maximum work done.
The relationship with Latin America has been taking leaps in recent years due to personal disputes between leaders, such as that of Macron with Bolsonaro and that of Pedro Sánchez with Javier Milei. Borrell believes that “in essence the relationship is much more personal because we have much more similarities, the same religion, the same language, we share an important part of history, they are like family problems. The relationship with Southeast Asia, for example, is much more professional.” Thus, he says that “the discussion between Bolsonaro and Macron was almost a discussion between neighbors and the one between Spain and Mexico now. “It’s an old wives’ discussion.”
With Argentina he sees it something different: “The fight with Milei is ideological and breaks the relationship with Spain. For the first time, Spain does not have an ambassador in Argentina (it appointed him just the afternoon after the interview).” Borrell contrasts the bad relationship with Argentina (remember that Milei even said that socialism, which in Europe is one of the great political families, governs in Spain and Germany and is Borrell’s party, is “a disease of the soul”) with Chili. He speaks highly of President Boric: “We must thank Chile for its behavior, it plays an extraordinary role in balancing a left-wing position. “The Latin American left has in Chile an example of balance, of defense of International Law.”
The interview goes through the crisis situation in Georgia, where the European Union and Russia are playing another piece that could well fall on either side, but it immediately jumps to the Middle East. The Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023 triggered an Israeli military response that does not appear to have many limitations.
Borrell says that “There is a clear desire for collective punishment. “We are facing a massacre of a population abandoned to their fate in Gaza and it is an unbearable situation that is not justified by the right to defense.” The chancellor looks in his papers for a recent FAO report: “350,000 people will die of hunger in the coming months.” He looks up from the paper and continues: “The inhabitants of Gaza do not know where to go, humanitarian aid does not reach them, there is nothing left in the hospitals and they cannot leave Gaza because Egypt does not want them.”
When asked why Europe can’t do more, he argues that it can’t “because the EU is divided, as is the international community. Persuasion has failed and no one wants to use coercion against Israel. The EU has recognized Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with International Humanitarian Law. But does Israel respect International Law? Not wanting to answer this question (which is what European chancellors do) leaves us in rhetoric.”
Borrell recalls that Spain and Ireland are asking the European Commission to analyze whether Israel is complying with the human rights protocols that are mandatory as part of the agreements with the European Union: “The request has reached the Commission, but it does not respond.” It is an obvious criticism of the president of the organization, the German Ursula Von der Leyen, who assumed powers after the Hamas attacks that she does not have to promise Israel that the EU was on its side when the official policy of the bloc is to demand respect for United Nations resolutions and the two-state solution.
Borrell believes that Ukraine would be much better off if the Europeans, instead of handing out weapons in dribs and drabs, They would have put in kyiv, already in 2022, everything that the Ukrainians asked for. As he had asked the chancellors. They did not pay attention to him and military aid has always arrived late and in insufficient quantities: “We have hesitated too much. It has taken months of discussions and vacillations to supply roadblocks, missiles, air defenses and fighter planes. “If we had sent all possible support to Ukraine as soon as the invasion began, that could have changed the situation.”
Borrell fears that an eventual return of Donald Trump to the White House will bring down Ukraine: “He will cut military aid and that would unbalance our immediate security. Europeans cannot take the place of Americans. “That would mean doubling our military aid and we don’t have the physical capacity.” Borrell believes that if Trump wins, the problem for Europeans will no longer be, as in the previous mandate, whether he imposes tariffs or unleashes a trade war. It will be more serious: “It will be a security problem because it will cut military aid to Ukraine. He will tell Netanyahu to do what he wants, but he already does it, he will tell him that he will not set limits, but if he leaves Ukraine defenseless against Russia it is a bigger problem for us. We have financial capacity, but people do not go to war with bank notes.”