The high representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, stated this Monday that the conflict between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas is already affecting Western policy towards Ukraine, which continues to defend itself from Russian aggression.
“Let’s be frank, the Middle East crisis is already having a lasting impact on our policy in Ukraine,” Borrell said in a speech during the annual conference of EU ambassadors.
The head of community diplomacy asked that the Union get as involved as it can in seeking a solution to the conflict in the Middle East because “it will be the most important geopolitical challenge for us” although “not the only one: let’s not forget Ukraine.”
“More than ever, Ukraine is fighting against the Russian invasion. If Ukraine loses, we lose. We have to maintain our unanimity and our unity in supporting Ukraine,” he concluded.
Borrell recalled that during his recent visit to Washington on the occasion of the last summit between the United States and the EU, he expressed “directly” to the American president, Joe Biden, and his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, his fear that support may falter. western to Kiev.
He spoke specifically of his “concern that our international support for Ukraine may erode in light of what is being seen as the practice of double standards” in both conflicts, which he considered “a serious problem.”
He recalled that for many countries in the Global South the Russian war in Ukraine is not a global problem but a Western one, and that they will even “take advantage of the crisis” between Israel and Hamas to “underline what they consider a contradiction in our positioning, or even a contradiction between Europeans”.
Borrell asked European ambassadors to “never make the mistake of framing global issues in terms of the fight against the West.”
“We have to reject this mental framework. It would be devastating for our perception in Asia, Latin America and Africa. We are not the outpost of the Western world. We are the guardians of global and shared values based on the United Nations Charter. And this is the alpha and omega of my message,” he stressed.
Borrell also referred to the expectations of the candidate countries to enter the EU, including Ukraine, on which the European Commission will issue on Wednesday the annual report on the progress they have made.
“Ukraine has arrived as a new candidate and is pushing the queue of the old candidates who are waiting for us, and the whole queue will move,” he commented, while ensuring that “we have to recover the time it took us in an endless process of accession”.