Thread by @AMFChina

What's wrong with European diplomacy? Here I look at some of the structural and organisational issues which may help explain the sorry state of modern diplomacy in general and #EuropeanSheepDiplomacy at the @EU_EEAS in particular. 1/26

diplomacy.edu/resources/gene…

In recent weeks the European External Action Service @EU_EEAS has been criticised for whitewashing its disinfo report. To make matters worse, EU Ambassador @NChapuis accepted Communist Party censorship of an open letter published by China Daily. 2/26

cnn.com/2020/05/08/chi…

Such dynamics of complacency & self-censorship were captured by @MaxRogerTaylor in his research on value mainstreaming in EU-China dialogues. He bemoaned a failure to assert the EU's values in a systematic, yet reflexive and diplomatic manner. 3/26

https://twitter.com/MaxRogerTaylor/status/1254671825247838208?s=20

How did we get here? While the EEAS claims to "try and bring coherence and coordinating to the European Union's international role" the PR disasters of the past few weeks suggest that we are dealing with wider structural and organisational issues. 4/26

eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/h…

The European External Action Service was launched on 1 December 2010. Its staff consists of "officials from the General Secretariat of the Council and from the Commission, as well as personnel coming from the diplomatic services of the Member States" 5/26

eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/…

Murdoch, Trondal & Gänzle (2013) have argued that the establishment of the EEAS is "yet another example of the creeping transformation of Europe’s political order in which EU institutions acquire relative independence from member-state governments". 6/26

ideas.repec.org/p/erp/arenax/p…

Thomas E Henökl (2014) on the other hand has pointed out that the work of the @EU_EEAS is hampered by "system fragmentation, incomplete contracts, asymmetrical information and diverging (or even opposing) preferences among the principals". 7/26

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache…

When looking at the recent missteps of the @EU_EEAS, a key question is to look at the role of European diplomats in the 21st century. What does it mean to be a European diplomat and how can they contribute to more coherent European international role? 8/26

Over the past eighteen years and during my consultancy work in mainland China I have frequently interacted with German, British, US and EU diplomats. While my personal experiences where always positive, they also showed me a profession in transition. 9/26

https://twitter.com/AMFChina/status/1249218449412407299?s=20

In my role as advisor to the China Association for NGO Cooperation I worked with colleagues from the German Embassy. I recall a conversation with a senior diplomat in 2005. I had helped her set up several meetings between German politicians & Chinese NGO practitioners. 10/26

She expressed envy that I could regularly meet Chinese academics and NGO practitioners, implement workshops & facilitate community meetings. Reflecting on the many reports she had to write for the Foreign Office in Berlin she asked me "Who actually reads our reports?" 11/26

A retired British diplomat also reflected on increasing formalism among diplomats stationed abroad. When speaking to my students he asked whether they had in fact become "glorified postmen", who are now tasked to convey foreign office HQ statements to their counterparts. 12/26

In his highly thought-provoking book "What's Wrong With Diplomacy" former British diplomat Kerry Brown @Bkerrychina similarly raised doubts about current diplomatic practices. 13/26

penguin.com.au/books/whats-wr…

“The world of social media and transparency, instantaneous news and mobility, has left august institutions like the British Foreign Office ... the US State Department and their global networks of embassies and consulates under almost permanent siege.” Brown wrote. 14/26

He further explained that "they are in danger of being reduced to high-level political travel organisers and crisis centres. Many of the long-established functions of diplomacy in its traditional sense - connecting people, gathering information, seeking critical insights". 15/26

"and making sense of them - are now being dramatically reconfigured and better supplied elsewhere. The intellectual function of embassies is in danger of being eradicated, and they have become glum, unimaginative places." 16/26

It is not an exaggeration to say that we are now living in a single information environment, where non-state actors often know as much or even more than our institutional diplomats. So what is the competitive advantage of institutional diplomats? 17/26

What Kerry Brown describes is nothing short of a paradox. On the one hand institutional diplomats can read classified information and also enjoy privileged access to counterparts from around the world. At the same time they are notably absent from the public debate. 18/26

I have noticed that are more and more European diplomats who are on Twitter. But very seldom do they actually join our conversation on a reformed European China policy. I suppose this is because they are not authorised to speak in official capacity. 19/26

I also understand that due to instructions by email & frequent online meetings, foreign office HQs in Europe now have much more control over what seconded diplomats can or can't do. The flip side of the coin is that overbearing principals may strip diplomats of their agency 20/26

In any public administration principal-agent conflicts are a fact of life. But senior managers are also running the danger of de-professionalising our diplomatic service by stripping diplomats stationed abroad of even the smallest amount of professional autonomy. 21/26

Of course there must also be a minimal amount of supervision of European Ambassadors, as the sorry saga of the open letter by EU Ambassador @NChapuis has shown. Or think of Swedish Ambassador Anna Lindstedt who went rogue over the Gui Minhai case. 22/26

smh.com.au/world/asia/sec…

In order to support what Henökl has called an "evolution of a distinct EU diplomatic esprit de corps or EEAS organizational culture" @vonderleyen & @josepborrellF need to make it very clear that the @EU_EEAS asserts *European* values and promotes *European* interests. 23/26

The European Parliament @Europarl_EN will also need to continue to hold both the @EU_Commission and the @EU_EEAS to account. Members of the European Parliament should always ask how the EEAS intends to put the principles of the Lisbon Treaty's Article 21 into practice. 24/26

Another way out of the current impasse would be a new European China policy which marries the strength of state-centric top-down public diplomacy with the advantages of society-centric bottom-up citizen diplomacy (see explainer video). 25/26

vimeo.com/280683083

European citizen diplomats have already shown that it is possible to engage China critically, creatively & constructively. Such civic leadership is the shot in the arm that institutional diplomacy badly needs to overcome #EuropeanSheepDiplomacy /End

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…