Josep Borrell

There are 3 posts tagged Josep Borrell (this is page 1 of 1).

I voted to leave the EU, not for a right-wing government to drive us off a cliff

Three years or so ago I was one of over seventeen million people who voted to leave the European Union.

I have for as long as I have been interested in politics been a eurosceptic, and at the risk of falling foul of the unashamedly pro-EU party I am proud to be a member of, I still am. But, in the event, I finally chose to vote to leave because I believed the rhetoric that we would agree a mutually-beneificial deal and depart with some semblance of economic security. What a fool I was.

Fundamentally, the EU is not a socialist paradise built for the enhancement of individuals, but an economic trading bloc designed around protecting member states and the movement of goods and services. For all the many advantages membership of the EU brings, the rights of free citizens and advancement of liberty cannot be counted among them, for the European elite would cast the individual aside without a second thought if the common goal of frictionless trade in a united Europe were at stake.

In October 2017, during the independence referendum in Catalonia, the EU remained silent while one of its member states ordered riot police to violently attack peaceful voters. Whatever the legality (or otherwise) of the referendum in question, such an attack on peaceful European citizens is unacceptable from a member of an organisation which wishes to present itself as the defender of individual rights, and the lack of public admonishment from the EU is shameful, to say the least.

Continue reading →

For the good of Europe, we need to #StopBorrell

According to Wikipedia, Josep Borrell Fontelles is a Spanish or Catalan politician (depending on which language you are reading in), member of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and, since June 2018, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation in the Spanish Government.

With a long and colourful career behind him, Borrell looks set to add another top job to his CV, as it was announced this week that he was the European Council’s choice for the role of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in the 2019-2024 European Commission.

The high representative is the head of the European Union’s diplomatic corps, the 28 member states’ collective representative on the world stage. Initially created in 1999 under the Treaty of Amsterdam, with an enlarged portfolio under the Treaty of Lisbon, Borrell is set to become the fourth person to hold the post, the second from the Iberian Peninsula, following in the footsteps of Spain’s Javier Solana (1999-2009), the UK’s Catherine Ashton (2009-2014) and the incumbent Federica Mogherini of Italy (2014-).

As Charlemagne notes in The Economist, “Borrell will be the most heavyweight figure to serve as high representative”, by implication adding to the prestige of the position. And yet, paradoxically, if the European Union is serious about listening to the popular impetus for change expressed in May’s elections, if they want to be taken seriously in global diplomatic circles, and if they are serious about cleaning their image, it is imperative Josep Borrell is not appointed to the role of high representative.

It is imperative we #StopBorrell

Continue reading →

VilaWeb: Diplomatic tension between Spain and Belgium: Borrell summons the Belgian ambassador

The is a translation of an article from Catalan newspaper VilaWeb entitled “Tensió diplomàtica entre Espanya i Bèlgica: Borrell convoca a l’ambaixador belga“. VilaWeb publishes some of their own articles in English here.

The diplomatic tension between Spain and Belgium continues growing. After refusing European Arrest Warrants and opening a trial against [Spanish judge] Llarena, a new front has opened in the diplomatic relations between Brussels and Madrid. The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, has called the Belgian ambassador in Madrid to answer questions, immediately after Jan Peumans (N-VA), president of the Flemish Parliament, sent a letter to Carme Forcadell at the Mas d’Enric prison. The Spanish authorities considered that the content of the missive is an insult to the state, according to the newspaper De Tijd.

In the letter, Peumans regrets ‘that democracy in Catalonia has been violently crushed’ and assures that the Spanish state ‘doesn’t meet the minimum requirements for being a member of the European Union’. Peumans is the first politician of note from the EU who has spoken in these terms against the Spanish state. It must be taken into account that recently the European Parliament has set in motion the mechanism to activate Article 7 of the EU against Hungary for the authoritarianism of Viktor Orban’s government.

The N-VA MEP Mark Demesmaeker was the one who handed the letter to Forcadell on 7 September. He also published it on Twitter:

The Spanish Government has told the Belgian ambassador, Marc Calcown, that it is disappointed by the content of Peumans’ letter. ‘The official letter of the president of the regional parliament is considered an insult to Spain’, Calcoen explained in a report addressed to the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In addition, according to De Tijd, the Spanish Authorities want the Minister to contact Peumans to make it clear that ‘the content of the letter is totally unacceptable’. In fact, the Spanish Government told the president of the Flemish Parliament that the letter was ‘a hositle gesture’.