All the European snubs on the vaccination passport
How we discuss and divide in Europe on the vaccine passport
Among the many that are told – even in texts by accredited historians – about Vlad III Drâkulea, vulgo Dracula, there is the story of the two ambassadors of European sovereigns who find themselves having lunch, in fact, in the palace of the Balkan prince. Exquisite food and interesting conversation. There is only a small detail: in a corner of the dining room, hopefully spacious, a man has recently been impaled and it is known that some time must pass before that kind of torture ends in the death of the victim. It seems that Dracula enjoyed studying the reactions of his diners from civilized Europe in these demanding circumstances.
Although for centuries this type of eventuality has not been part of the professional risks of diplomats, that of the representatives of foreign states remains a job made for people able to face, without losing the aplomb, the most embarrassing and unpredictable situations.
Even if, probably, one of the greatest risks faced by the Brussels envoy to London, João Vale de Almeida, at least from a socio-culinary point of view, will be represented by the Kidney Pie, that kidney pie that is he uses to prepare with the kidney of cattle a little too advanced in years.
Or – and this is what may happen to Almeida's successor, who has been officiating since May last year – he will have to do without the privilege of delivering credentials to the Queen.
After the definitive exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, the diplomatic representation of Brussels was in fact degraded from the level due to the representatives of sovereign states to that of representatives – always diplomats – of an international organization, with the paradoxical consequence that the ambassador of the EU will have a lower protocol rank than the ambassadors of the member states. In short, a finger in the eye of the community bureaucracy, a finger inserted mercilessly into the incurable scourge of the EU, which claims to be treated as a great power but does not possess any of the main requisites of sovereign states, nor will it acquire such requisites in the foreseeable future.
Of course, the EU is something (or very much, depending on your point of view) more than an international organization, but the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations does not yet contemplate the distinction between international organizations and "communities" of sovereign states. The high representative of the EU for foreign policy Josep Borrel had to write to his British counterpart Dominic Raab to share his "serious concern" (where what is lacking, to the naked eye, is seriousness), and this "storm" will end , as is largely predictable, in a glass of water, but the fact remains that neither the Canton Ticino nor California, not even Bavaria, nor Rajastan, send their diplomatic representatives to foreign states. And the fact remains that the institutional leaders of the EU cannot afford, for objective reasons, not even a moment of humor, while His Majesty's government can.
After all, to confirm that the hybrid nature of the EU is a real problem, not just a pretext for petty teasing, the following exchange between Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, and some of his colleagues during the last virtual summit of the Twenty-seven . Mitsotakis invited colleagues to agree on the technical aspects of the vaccination certificate, and on the use that can be made of it. Shared by some Member States (Spain, Denmark, Hungary, Poland and Belgium), Athens' proposal to use the certificate as a "European passport" is opposed by Germany and France, so it will not pass. Faced with the objection, clearly truffle, that facilitating the movement of vaccinated people would be "discriminatory", Mitsotakis replied more or less in these terms: let's not fool ourselves, EU countries do nothing but discriminate, everyone applies different rules for travel and the restrictions related to the coronavirus, in spite of the continuous calls for coordination at EU level. Little diplomatic perhaps, but hardly contestable.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/tutti-gli-sgarbi-europei-sul-passaporto-vaccinale/ on Sat, 23 Jan 2021 06:06:19 +0000.