Vienna, January 15, 2022
by Edward Steen, General-Secretary
In an interview with AEJ honorary president Otmar Lahodynsky in NewEurope, the head of the century-old Austrian Pan-Europa movement, ex-MEP Karl von Habsburg said openly what is quietly obvious about the EU’s High Representative for foreign affairs, Vice-President Josep Borrell, 74. “The old slogan of the German publicist William S. Schlamm still applies”, veteran European Habsburg said in the interview. “For a domestic policy, you need good accountants; for foreign policy, you need statesmen. Borrell does not have this geostrategic eye, as he showed during his ill-fated visit to Moscow last year.
“Everyone advised him against making the visit, then he was literally paraded in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. This also showed how Russia sees us [in Europe] amidst this fragmentation.”
Habsburg also spoke eloquently on the issue of Europe as a power, and what is to be done, at a Pan-Europa meeting in Ukraine last September.
What is becoming clear as the Cold War inexorably returns is that the EU is still playing by the lazy, essentially apolitical good-times rules, accepting at the top inadequate and time-expired placemen chosen by national capitals. Who are they? Why is the socialist Borrell, a vain and elderly Catalan who heeds little advice, bizarrely proud of having, in 2019, acquired dual Spanish-Argentinian citzenship? Is such vacuity actually typical in Brussels?
In the past, some, like the failed Labour leader Neil Kinnock, had been discredited and simply run out of political road at home. Rarely, Commissioners have been serious figures like the former Austrian Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler but inconveniently clever and too popular for his rivals at home.
That is the essence of Karl Habsburg’s interview with our former president, and veteran Brussels corr. Otmar Lahodynsky. “Letting Europe’s spirit free” is also the constant theme of Karl Habsburg’s recent appearances in the media (DE), as it was during the life of his late father Otto, son of the last Austro-Hungarian emperor and former president of the European Parliament.
Often underestimated and subject to a stupid reverse-snobbery, Habsburg, 61, has been deeply involved in independent media in eastern Europe, notably in Ukraine. His speech in Ukraine last September is strongly recommended and highly tropical.
LINKS:
♦ EU Observer 05/02/21 Humiliation in Moscow: Palmtrees in the snow?
♦ Karl Habsburg, 20/09/2021, III Paneuropa conference in Ukraine (video) – Without Ukraine Europe is not complete
♦ Euromaidan press 30/04/21 Habsburg prince who was killed by Soviets