The High Representative and the Covid-19 crisis

The system of government structuring EU foreign policy understood in a broad manner is characterized by multiple separations of decision-making power. While at the horizontal level there is a separation of power between the EU institutions participating in the decision-making process, at the vertical level such separation exists between the EU and the member states (Fabbrini, 2015). Within this system of government, the HR/VP finds itself at the cross-road between the supranational and the intergovernmental EU foreign policy regimes. In particular, at the horizontal level, the HR/VP participates in the decision-making process both as VP of the European Commission and as chair of the FAC. At the vertical level, in turn, the HR/VP is responsible for coordinating the EU external representation as well as the deployment of member states’ decentralized resources (Amadio Viceré, 2018). It is therefore important to devote special consideration to these multiple separations when examining the HR/VP’s tasks that might be relevant for addressing the EU response to Covid-19.

First, as VP of the European Commission, the HR/VP should guarantee the coordination among different instruments of EU’s external action (TEU, Art. 18.4). In this context, upon a 2014 decision of the then President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Junker, the HR/VP coordinates the work of the Commissioners’ Group on External Action (Blockmans & Russack, 2015), including the Commissioners for trade, development, humanitarian aid, enlargement and neighbourhood policies. However, existing studies show that the tight control member states exerted over EU foreign policy frequently hampered the role of the post-Lisbon HR as VP of the European Commission. The EU approach to the Middle Eastern and Northern African (MENA) region is a good case in point. In her response to the 2010–2011 political transition in this region, the first post-Lisbon HR/VP Catherine Ashton had announced her commitment to the promotion of a deep democracy (see High Representative, 2011) and revised the European Neighbourhood policy alongside the European Commission accordingly. Similarly, the 2016 EU Global Strategy, prepared by the second post-Lisbon HR/VP Federica Mogherini, listed societal resilience among the main EU priorities in the MENA region (EEAS, 2016). Nevertheless, member states often limited the HR/VP and the Commission’s discretionary power and turned them into their operational arms (Amadio Viceré & Fabbrini, 2017; Fabbrini, 2014). Eventually, to avoid the risks of state failure, the EU started again to support an authoritarian resilience in southern Mediterranean countries (Amadio Viceré & Frontini, 2019).

The third post-Lisbon HR/VP, Josep Borrell, seemed willing to counter the negative impact of the pandemic’s outbreak in Europe’s neighbourhood through his authority as VP of the European Commission. As reflected by the Commission’s declarations, this institution too was keen to play a key role in EU response to this crisis (see European Commission, 2020a; European Council, 2020a). Notably, member states appeared to share the HR/VP’s approach to this issue. Yet evidence suggests that, similarly to his predecessors, the current HR/VP found it hard to significantly influence EU external action as VP of the European Commission. Under the HR/VP’s leadership, the European Commission launched the Team Europe Package, a series of measures devised in coordination with member states to help the most vulnerable developing countries (European Commission, 2020b). However, this Package was mainly a reallocating exercise of already existing funding (European Commission, 2020c).

Added to this, HR/VP Borrell was not part of the Coronavirus Response Team launched by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the beginning of March 2020 (European Commission, 2020d). Certainly, this team included the five Commissioners holding the most relevant portfolios for the EU internal response to the crisis, including: Janez Lenarčič, who is in charge of crisis management; Stella Kyriakides, who holds the health and food safety’s portfolio; Ylva Johansson, who deals with home affairs; Adina Vălean, who is responsible for transport and mobility; and Paolo Gentiloni, who manages the economic effects of the pandemic. Nonetheless, one would have expected Borrell to be part of such team. In fact, be it under the label of “comprehensive approach” during HR/VP Ashton’s mandate, or of “joined-up approach” in the HR/VP Mogherini’s EU Global Strategy, the coordination of EU internal and external instruments was a key objective of the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions on crisis management (Koops & Tercovich, 2020; Schunz & Damro, 2020).

Second, the HR/VP chairs the Council of the EU’s meetings among member states’ foreign, defence, trade and development ministers (FAC). Existing scholarly literature mostly ascribes EU foreign policy’s inefficiencies to the pre-eminence of intergovernmental forums in EU foreign policy governance post-Lisbon.¹ The underlying argument is that, especially at times of crisis, member states are likely to exert tight control over EU foreign policy’s processes through the European Council and the FAC (Bickerton, Hodson, & Puetter, 2015; Fabbrini & Puetter, 2016). In EU approach to its Southern and Eastern neighbourhood, in particular, member states’ divergent strategic preferences within these forums hindered the EU consistency, and hence its effectiveness (Bremberg, 2016; 2020; Trauner, 2016; Whitman & Juncos, 2012). Not surprisingly, as these regional areas are marred by protracted crises and conflicts in the post-Lisbon era, the EU policy towards them has been at the centre of heated debates among both policy makers and analysts (Bicchi, 2014; Fouéré, 2019; Nitoiu & Sus, 2018).

Certainly, Covid-19 did not undermine the influence of the European Council and the FAC within EU foreign policy governance. These two intergovernmental forums have been the main drivers of EU response to the outbreak of the global pandemic. Although the European Council generally takes place once a month, from early March to June 2020 the heads of state and government met five times to discuss the EU approach to the Covid-19 outbreak (European Council, 2020b). At the same time, while the FAC meetings generally take place on a monthly basis, there have been fourteen of them from mid-March to mid-June 2020.² Perhaps most importantly, the Covid-19 crisis also influenced the FAC’s agenda. The focus of the FAC shifted away from Iraq, Libya and Syria, the situation in the Sahel and the Middle East Peace Process, as well as from discussions about the role of climate diplomacy – a priority for Commission of Ursula von der Leyen – . Covid-19 and its geopolitical consequences, in turn, have been the main topics on the table for discussion.

In light of this, as it is the HR/VP that sets the agenda within the FAC, one may reasonably believe that Borrell is influencing the EU response to the pandemic in Europe’s Southern and Eastern neighbourhood. Nonetheless, since it is the European Council that decides the EU foreign policy’s priorities and directions, member states’ preferences continue to represent a formidable – or rather 27 formidable – Swords of Damocle (s) over the HR’s activities, both in Europe’s Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood. As a matter of fact, to effectively address the medium-long term impact of the global pandemic in its southern neighbourhood, the EU will need to reshape its general approach to the MENA region. The oil prices’ fall caused by the pandemic are likely to foster the socio-economic and political weaknesses of the southern Mediterranean countries (Franza, 2020). In addition to this, the conflicts in Syria and Yemen may hinder the management of a health crisis, especially in the refugee camps (ICG, 2020). If that happened, and if the crisis were to break out in Sub-Saharan Africa as well, enhancing the control of the EU external borders would not be sufficient to temper the negative spillovers on the European continent. The recent decision to terminate the European Union Naval Force in the South-Central Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR-Med) Sophia and to replace it with EUNAVFOR-Med Irini epitomizes the EU pre-eminent focus on stability and security (EEAS, 2020). Yet, on the one hand, the border management too would be hindered by an outbreak of the virus in Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood. On the other, as the establishment of the so-called Islamic state demonstrated, in the medium-long term failed states provide fertile ground for organized crime, terrorist networks and human trafficking.

In the post-Lisbon era, member states’ divergent preferences also hampered the consistency of EU approach to the Western Balkans. For a long time, the EU enlargement policy has been considered the flagship of EU foreign policy. EU successes in the region mostly derived from its use of conditionality as a mode of integration (Börzel, Dimitrova, & Schimmelfennig, 2017). Ashton and Mogherini have made full use of such conditionality to initiate and mediate the Serbia-Kosovo talks (Amadio Viceré, 2016, 2020). However, the declaration by European Commission President Juncker that there would be no further enlargement during his mandate (EU Business, 2014) overshadowed the benefits the EU promised in return for such conditionality, and hence the effectiveness of its approach to the Western Balkans throughout HR/VP Mogherini's tenure. To some extent, the Berlin Process maintained the EU influence in the region (Marciacq, 2017). Furthermore, the EU decided to relaunch the enlargement process in February 2018. Still, the EU political and economic support to the Western Balkans through the above-discussed Team Europe Package launched by HR/VP Borrell might decide the fate of EU enlargement. Although at the recent Zagreb Summit EU member states reiterated their commitment to guarantee a European perspective to these countries (European Council, 2020c), the latter clearly lost trust in the EU enlargement process (Economides, 2020). Against this backdrop, the pandemic is likely to spur the Western Balkans’ political backsliding and enduring poverty (see Bonomi, 2020; Bonomi, Hackaj, & Reljić, 2020).

 Third, the HR/VP represents the EU in international meetings, alongside the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission. In principle, this institutional actor can embody the EU’s formal commitment to multilateralism while doing so (Laatikainen & Smith, 2006; Smith, 2011). The EU has generally boasted of such commitment, not least in the 2016 EU Global Strategy. In the words of HR/VP Borrell, the pandemic “blow up the model of multilateral governance that was tottering already over the past few years” (High Representative, 2020a). Over the first half of 2020, the HR/VP maintained contacts with international actors and organizations to participate in the coordination of the international response to Covid-19. For instance, Borrell called for a temporary suspension of US regime’ sanctions to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Iran and Venezuela, and lobbied for more support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for most vulnerable countries at risk. The HR/VP was also quite vocal about President Trump’s decision to withdraw US funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) (High Representative, 2020b), as well as about the American President’s decision to authorize sanctions against the International Criminal Court (High Representative, 2020c). In the meantime, fighting misinformation and narratives that aim at diminishing the EU role in response to the crisis within and outside the EU seemed to be high on the HR/VP’s list of priorities. Not only did Borrell repeatedly address this issue in public (High Representative, 2020d), but he also coined the term “info-demic” (High Representative, 2020e). Yet, as demonstrated by Viktor Orbán’s decision to suspend the Hungarian parliament and by the strict surveillance imposed by Aleksandar Vučić on Serbian citizens, an illiberal model of governance, which counters the one – at least formally – pursued by the EU through its multilateral activities, seems to have established itself in the management of the health crisis (Smith, 2018; Vuksanovic, 2020).

Fourth, the HR/VP is also in charge of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Empirical evidence shows that member states’ preferences significantly influenced the HR/VP’s ability to promote integration in the security and defence sector (Calcara, 2020). While CSDP had been considered the Achille’s heel of HR/VP Ashton’s mandate, defence cooperation seemed to have gained momentum under HR/VP Mogherini’s leadership (Tocci, 2018). However, the budgetary cuts that member states might adopt because of the economic recession generated by the pandemic are likely to hinder the recent advancements in this regard. In fact, national resources devoted to initiatives such as the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) or the European Defence Fund (EDF) could be significantly reduced because of the economic recession (Fiott, Terlikowski, & Schütz, 2020).

The HR/VP seemed aware of these risks. Borrell tried to convince member states to continue the cooperation not “despite of”, but rather “because of” the pandemic. On the one hand, he publicly argued that the pandemic showed how military cooperation and coordination provide an important asset to the civilian response. On the other hand, HR/VP Borrell asked member states to secure their support to PESCO’s projects with the argument that the pandemic will inevitably cause a deterioration of the security environment (High Representative, 2020f). Within this context, during the crisis’s outbreak, CSDP operations and missions remained operational, although their work has been limited in some situations (High Representative, 2020g). On some occasions, the main focus of these missions was adjusted to the local situation to support the response to the virus in the field (e.g. Somalia and Mali). If the temporary changes generated by these extraordinary circumstances will continue, new debates on CSDP will inevitably start among national governments in the intergovernmental forums.

Finally, the HR/VP directs the European External Action Service (EEAS; TEU, Art. 27). The latter, which essentially represents the EU diplomatic corps, includes the over 140 EU delegations and the eighteen CSDP – civilian and military – missions around the world. Both post-Lisbon HR/VPs dealt with the development of the EEAS as a crisis management institution. HR/VP Ashton built the EEAS as a completely new institution, while HR/VP Mogherini consolidated and fine-tuned it (Koops & Tercovich, 2020). The EEAS was particularly busy in facing the Covid-19 crisis. By supporting the repatriation of 500.000 EU citizens, for example, it made an extraordinary and unprecedented effort in the EU consular cooperation field. While Covid-19 poses new challenges to the EEAS as a service in support to the HR/VP, the pandemic is likely to steer further organizational development. Whether and how Borrell will foster this development remains of course open to question.

Meanwhile, the global pandemic also set fertile ground for a further development and enhancement of EU’s strategic communication. Since the entry into force of the LT the use of new means of communication evolved considerably. Ashton paid limited attention to this aspect during her tenure. Mogherini, in turn, opted for a communication style that was inclusive and targeted a broad audience (Aggestam & Hedling, 2020). While doing so, she engaged in reinforcing the EEAS’ strategic communication’ assets. In 2015, she launched the East StratCom Task Force to address Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns (EEAS, 2018). In March 2020 the European Council tasked HR/VP Borrell and relevant services within the Commission to come up with a proposal to take a step further in fighting disinformation (European Council, 2020c). The request resulted in the publication of a Joint Communication containing a set of quick actions to fight disinformation campaigns. Here disinformation is pictured as “weapon of state and non-state actors [that] in times of the coronavirus can kill” (European Commission, 2020e), a change of language that underlines the sense of urgency and the high priority that this topic gained in the HR/VP agenda. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect a development in the organizational structure upon which the EU bases its communication within the EEAS and the Commission to take place under the current HR/VP’s direction.