B2 Brussels2 The Blog

Political and defence Europe (by Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

EU Defense (Doctrine)

coincidence

Emergency TerminalSeineParis204a(BRUSSELS2) To meet heads of mission of European crisis management missions, and interview them, you sometimes have to play cat and mouse with the spokesperson service of Catherine Ashton, whose job this is normally . Here is a small example from everyday life. It's trivial, of no real importance, but it testifies to a certain climate...

Affirmative

Taking advantage of the presence, recently, of almost all the heads of mission, recently, in Brussels, I ask if we can interview them. The essence of my job. No response (neither positive nor negative) will be received. So I come back to the charge, a day later, in person, by refocusing my request on a name. I am told that, in fact, this head of mission was not present… What a shame! I insist a little. In the most affirmative way possible, I was told: “ No, he's not here ". Bad luck for said spokesperson! I leave the press room two minutes later to go to lunch. And I come face to face with the head of mission in question who is just waiting for said spokesperson to introduce him to the VR floors. What a coincidence !

coincidence

I don't hesitate to approach him. And, very courteous, this head of mission sees no problem in granting me an interview, as soon as he has finished his series of meetings. The spokesperson stammers that he was not aware. A pale excuse... which reveals either a notorious lack of preparation, or a lack of will to communicate. I lean towards the latter hypothesis. Because I dare not imagine that a spokesperson would not take seriously. But also because a head of mission (especially a military one) does not come from the depths of Africa unannounced. This illustrates well the prevailing state of mind: above all, do not make waves, do the minimum of promotion of the CSDP, especially military crisis management. At 36 Quai des Orfèvres, this is called a "flag" 😉 (or "flagrant delicto" for those who are not initiated into spoken Parisian).

And this is just an example… We could open a guestbook!

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).