Josep Borrell’s visit to Moscow was a painful and avoidable embarrassment. But Russia is not reading the EU right, either. A THREAD on what Moscow isn’t getting. /1

First of all, yes: Borrell’s visit was an absolute trainwreck and for this he is responsible. He didn’t pay heed to good advice, he was unprepared, he got little if anything in return. But I don’t want to repeat my rant. Read it here: /2 https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1357680481194676224

However, as the day progressed and with every hour the hapless HR/VP seemed to face a new embarrassment from Moscow, I started thinking that the Russian government may have overdone this – again. Let me explain. /3

I got some first-hand experience with Russia’s politics in Brussels when I worked in the European Parliament about a decade ago. Part of my job was attending various events having to do with Russia. Sometimes Russian diplomats were also present. /4

Russia’s NATO ambassador at the time was Dmitry Rogozin, a bumbling nationalist who today is the head of Roscosmos. He is the least diplomatic person you could imagine, who routinely used these events as well as his social media to troll the West and cause outrage. /5

Remember, this was only a couple of years after the Georgian War, an important point of rupture, which set a still-unreformed Russian army against an ally of the West. To me, Rogozin more or less perfectly represented Russia’s approach to NATO at the time: /6

NATO was an important and organization, but not one that Russia wanted to build any meaningful cooperation with, partly because it felt inferior to it. Instead, Rogozin found ways to kick at the alliance’s weaknesses all while keeping confrontation on the agenda. /7

I also met Russia’s EU ambassador, Vladimir Chizhov, a couple of times. Don’t quote me on this, but we might even have had coffee once (in a larger group). He was always polite and fairly unremarkable, as career diplomats often are. A bit like Lavrov. /8

Don’t get me wrong: he also came across as a wily and experienced man who knew exactly when and how to make his interlocutor uncomfortable when the situation so demanded, but all in all his demeanor and presence was almost Rogozin’s polar opposite. /9

It suggested to me that Russia found the Brussels bubble a great place to look cooperative and modern, but it expected the substance to get lost in the peculiar, partly dry, partly pompous gobbledygook of EU institutions. It didn’t take the EU seriously. It still doesn’t. /10

In a way, Russia is right: it’s easy to score goals against the EU’s own diplomatic machinery, because in many ways this institutional framework together with the High Representative, is a Potemkin village (and Russia sure knows how to spot those). /11

It was built under the assumption that if the institutions are there, member states will have no choice but to use them, and somehow a united, potent EU foreign policy will emerge from them. It didn’t. /12

Past HRs – Catherine Ashton and Federica Mogherini – ended up being huge disappointmentsm partly because they were incompetent, but also because they faced unrealistic expectations. Borrell, an altogether competent diplomat is well on track to become disappointment number 3. /13

Meanwhile, every momentous decision having to do with Russia, from the effective (sanctions) to the mixed (Minsk talks) to the disastrous (giving in to blackmail in the CoE) was driven by member states, mostly the big ones () and sometimes the smaller ones. /14

It is easy to score a goal against a High Representative and Russia knows this very well. What the Russian government gets wrong is the assumption that it stops there, either because the EU as a whole is like the High Representative, or because no one really cares. /15

In recent years, Russia has repeatedly underestimated the EU’s resilience and the adaptability. It bet on politicians that kept losing elections and were exposed as frauds, from Le Pen to Strache. (Orban is an exception but the Kremlin bought into him after he was elected). /16

The Russian government was caught off-guard by the post-2014 sanctions, by the coordinated expulsion of Russian diplomats following the Skripal case, it consistently overestimated member states’ appetite to follow Britain’s lead after Brexit. /17

I think this is partly because the Kremlin does not understand that while member states remain the most important decision-makers, especially in foreign policy, the EU is immensely valuable for them – even the ones like Orban – in several ways: /18

As a single market, as an open space for their citizens to work, travel and marry, as a framework in which they can elevate their sovereignty and power. EU politicians generally understand the connections between these functions. Russia never even tried. /19

It also doesn’t help that Russia’s foreign policy has, to a large extent, become subordinated to domestic political goals – look at the embassy accounts turned into twitter trolls – and this makes it easier to cut out feedback & go overboard, as it happened in Borrell’s case. /20

Thus the Russian government doesn’t consider that when it not only outsmarts but also humiliates Borrell, member state governments will also feel the humiliation, even if it was not done to them. And this makes it more likely that they’ll want to react. /21

The Russian government also often mistakenly believes that foreign capitals work more or less like Moscow. (It happens the other way, too, of course.) In this case, though, this belief may prevent Moscow from noticing that it’s easier for the EU to adjust course. /22

Borrell, quite deservedly, will face a bashing for this mistake at the next Council, he may even be forced to resign. Member state diplomats will complain to their superiors. This openness and bluntness are normal in democracies but rare in Russia. /23 https://twitter.com/edgarsrinkevics/status/1357755677062688772

Therefore if the functions as it should, if enough member states realize what a dangerous embarrassment this was & take over the issue from a toothless institution, Moscow may yet face its comeuppance sooner than it thinks. This is optimistic. It's also perfectly possible /end