Some gaps in the family photo in Bratislava
(B2) The family photo of the informal meeting of Defense Ministers on Tuesday (September 27) has some serious holes... This well-established tradition of European meetings of bringing together for a few minutes all the participants on a podium to immortalize, for posterity, suffered a slight miss in Bratislava on Tuesday (September 27). Certainly most of the ministers were present in the photo. But you will notice a certain void in the second row behind Jens Stoltenberg, Peter Gajdos and Federica Mogherini...
Eh yes ! Our mythical couple — the Frenchman Le Drian and the German von der Leyen — did not come to the photo. They were there, however, and very present. Were they retained elsewhere... or - particularly unhappy with the lack of enthusiasm met with for their initiative to strengthen European defense - did they shun the family photo? History will tell us. They weren't the only ones not flashed by photographers: Portuguese minister José Azeredo Lopes and his Polish alter-ego Antoni Macierewicz (1) weren't as present. The Pole having even taken to their heels.
I tried to locate all the names, I hope I haven't made an unfortunate mistake (even if I have a doubt about one or two)! Some countries were not, at the meeting, represented at the level of a minister but an ambassador or an official of the administration. This is the case of the two neutral countries (Austria, Ireland) as well as Lithuania (according to my information). Bulgaria was represented by its Deputy Minister. On the other hand, Denmark, which nevertheless benefits from an opt-out in military matters, was there.
As is also tradition, the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, was invited, as well as the Assistant Secretary General in charge of UN peacekeeping missions. We can notice that if the first was placed in the front of the stage, well in the center – the Slovak minister having taken care to find himself in the center of the photo alongside him –; the second was placed at the very back in a corner... The European Commission, represented by the Commissioner for Industry and the Internal Market, E. Bienkowska, was also present, as is the rule in all ministerial meetings (informal or formal).
Small precision, not without importance on the first row of the photo. It is mainly made up of countries that have assumed (the Netherlands) or will assume the presidency of the EU (Malta, Romania, Estonia, Finland), with one rather singular and symptomatic exception. We find Michael Fallon, whose country (the United Kingdom) should have assumed the presidency in 2017 but gave it up (Brexit obliges). A small protocol sprain which sometimes says just as much about diplomatic thought as words... The United Kingdom is for the moment still a member of the European Union and intends to remain so, fully, especially in terms of defence, to block anything that might constitute progress.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
(1) A Polish Minister, who can be described as a 'traitor', as his attitude was considered unconstructive. According to our information, Macierewicz never ceased, throughout the meeting, to criticize the Franco-German positions as well as to want to unravel the Community texts. This is not surprising in itself. But when we know that Poland is a member of the Weimar triangle and signed, in August, a rather ambitious paper on European foreign and defense policy (read: Alert! The 'Weimar' are getting ahead in terms of strategic thinking), it is rather inflated. Basically, Warsaw wants the butter and the money for the butter, the pot and the (rest) of the creamer but without any obligation or fidelity to its commitments. The Poles are no longer reliable allies...
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