Good morning.
Kaja Kallas is a Russia-hawk. Fine. But is she anything more than that?
It's a fair question, after reading her speech to the 140 or so EU ambassadors this week. By this point, the Estonian EU's foreign affairs chief had had 10 days to digest the US-Israeli attack on Iran, recalibrate, and rewrite her speech.
Instead, a good two-thirds of it is about Russia and Ukraine. Russia's "all-out war of aggression" against Ukraine is a breach of international law, but the Middle East is just "a crisis". No one broke international law there, apparently.
When she was appointed to head the European External Action Service (EEAS) in 2024, it seemed a good fit — a Russia-hawk and former PM of Estonia. The Baltics, along with Poland, being the most reliably anti-Moscow EU states.
But years of stonewalling and silence on Israel's genocide in Gaza, and now the evasion and elision of responsibility on Iran, leave Kallas looking blinkered at best, if not simply focusing on Russia to the exclusion of all else.
For Kallas, to the ambassadors: "Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, invaded its neighbour. With impunity." True.
The US, also a permanent member of the UN Security Council, launched an unprovoked, sorry "pre-emptive", attack on Iran, which risks turning the Middle East (and the rest of the world) into the Bible's Book of Revelations.
But that is just "a totally new situation in the Middle East," according to Kallas.
It's not often mentioned, but Kallas' father was also the Estonian prime minister. And he was also an EU commissioner. If this was Hollywood, rather than EU politics, she'd be accused of being a 'nepo-baby'. It’s time she showed she was up to the job.
Matt Tempest - comment editor
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