The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, on Wednesday 17 April, in an intervention in the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, focused on cooperation with Parliament and on key principles, avoiding a real assessment of her mandate, which will end at the end of October 2019.
For almost two hours, Ms Mogherini had a good discussion on foreign and security policy. And whether or not she wanted the meeting to be "a session of mutual gratitude", that is the impression that emerges.
For Ana Gomes (S&D, Portugal), Ms Mogherini did "the impossible". "There are still great challenges ahead of us, but what you have achieved was already impossible", she said, while Patricia Lalonde (ALDE, French) said she was a "great admirer" of the High Representative's work and Victor Boștinaru (S&D, Romania) hoped that the next High Representative could do "as much" as Ms Mogherini, while having difficulty thinking that it would be possible.
All MEPs welcomed the good cooperation between the European Parliament and the High Representative. The latter also insisted on this point, considering that she had met her 2014 objectives in this area: ownership of the work by all or the need to work together, with the coordinated actions. She hoped that the partnership could be continued and strengthened.
Recalling also that 2,100 EEAS reports had been shared with the European Parliament since July 2016, Ms Mogherini announced that the Council of the EU had agreed to resume negotiations with a view to allowing Parliament to have access to documents classified as confidential. She also hoped that the Parliament would be more informed about each step of the negotiations for international agreements.
Broad generalities
The High Representative then detailed several main lines of action, "ideas for success, lessons learned" in recent years. She highlighted the work on European defence and strategic autonomy.
Ms Mogherini also detailed the support for multilateralism, with cooperation with the UN and support for UN agencies, but also the desire to bring together different actors and reach consensus, for example on Syria, the Middle East, Libya or Afghanistan.
The High Representative also stressed the importance of partnerships, particularly the new partnership with Africa. But she acknowledged that cooperation was difficult in a world in which the major powers are increasingly relying on spheres of influence.
Finally, Ms Mogherini highlighted the EU's work on conflict prevention and the management of its long-term effects and causes, as in Colombia and Afghanistan. She also highlighted EU investment in Ukraine, calling for the country not to be forgotten. "The crisis is not over. It is necessary to pay attention to what is happening and to keep Ukraine at the top of our agenda, and on the international agenda", the High Representative said, wondering why the subject was quickly downgraded.
No self-criticism
It took Ms Mogherini's very last intervention to get recognition of a complicated record. "There are many issues, crises where we have not achieved anything, where our impact is much less important than we would have liked", she said, pointing out that the world is not moving in the right direction. But beyond an EU failure, she recalled that neither the UN nor the major powers had succeeded.
According to her, if there is no lack of unity between the Member States, it is at least consistency on their part. "The real challenge is coherence", she concluded, that the things decided the day before are actually implemented the next day. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)