Carrying Out EU diplomacy by videoconference throughout the pandemic is “doable”, however legal and security restraints vexed the procedure, Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, has actually stated.

Linkevicius spoke with EUobserver by phone on Monday (23 March) after participating in his first- ever EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) through a computer screen from his office in Vilnius.

• Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevicius (r) with Borrell at a previous – regular – conference (Picture: consilium.europa.eu).

He nearly needed to do it from his private house due to self-isolation, which he had actually enforced as a preventative measure after having actually just recently taken a trip to the Western Balkans and Middle East.

However he entered to his ministry after his coronavirus test ended up unfavorable on Sunday.

The 27 EU ministers, all on their screens at home, exchanged remarks on Syria, the Sahel, and Operation Irene, an EU anti-arms smuggling marine objective.

They exchanged reports on the coronavirus circumstance in each other’s countries, with everybody voicing “solidarity and compassion” with Italy and Spain, where deaths were skyrocketing, Linkevicius kept in mind.

Some proposed developing “humanitarian corridors” so that stranded people might get home and food and medication might flow in spite of border closures, he stated.

Some likewise proposed “common purchasing of medical equipment” and required EU “public diplomacy” to counter a Russian campaign of “disinformation”.

However the ministers did not make any choices since, technically speaking, Monday’s FAC never ever took place.

“I understand we can’t take legally-binding decisions … so the meeting had to be a Gymnich-type one,” Linkevicius stated, utilizing an EU term for casual arguments.

” When ministers do not fulfill personally, the [EU] Council is, by meaning, not assembled and ministers can not take choices,” an EU official likewise informed thiswebsite

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The absence of quorum suggested EU states might just embrace things through “written procedure” – a system by which capitals sent out electronic files to Brussels on a protected ITsystem

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They utilized it on Monday to extend the required of an EU military operation in Mali up until 2024 and to concur its EUR1337 mbudget

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And they prepared to work that method more typically after just recently triggering a clause on “exceptional circumstances” in the EU Council’s “rules of procedure”.

The EU ought to attempt to “ensure to the maximum extent possible … national coordination, public transparency, and the involvement of national parliaments,” in spite of the unique circumstance, member states vowed.

However all that suggested the role of the video-councils, such as Monday’s FAC, was now decreased to supplying an “opportunity for debates at political level prior to the formal adoption of decisions”.

On the other hand, the reality the foreign ministers spoke on a shared audiovisual channel made it more difficult to cover concerns such as Africa or Middle East security, Linkeviciusadded

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“It means you cannot have restricted sessions … You can’t discuss sensitive or classified information on open channels,” he stated.

Body language

And while it worked to hear fellow ministers’ discuss Operation Irene, for example, the video-format made it more difficult to do the type of political bargaining that occurred when ministers and their entourages met inreality

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” It [the videoconference] is really useful. It’s workable. It works, however you can not change the live interaction that you generally get with people,” Linkevicius stated.

“When we meet face-to-face our delegations also hold fringe meetings. Ministers take each other aside for personal chats – there’s a lot of things that happen besides the official session,” he kept in mind.

Austria and Hungary have actually banned Operation Irene on premises it would wind up bringing migrants to Europe.

And “we could not actually tackle this concern [on Monday], so I do not believe their positions altered quite,” Linkevicius stated.

The minister’s cabinet in Vilnius likewise had less personnel due to people working from home, he stated.

And at a time of need for “public diplomacy”, EU Council representatives in Brussels, who typically listened to arguments in order to quick press later, were not able to do so.

Since there was not enough space for social-distancing in the listening spaces,

They had to remain put.

“We have to do all communication via press releases from now,” a representative stated.

State what?

The video-format has likewise had other problems.

Recently, for example, a transportation ministers’ conference lasted 2 hours longer than anticipated since of IT issues with synchronised analysis, so that ministers needed to wait to discover what their peers were stating.

However even if Monday was his first video-FAC, Linkevicius just recently participated in 2 comparable occasions as European diplomacy went virtual – a video-talk in between Germany and the Baltic states and one in between Nordic countries and Baltic countries.

“It’s the reality for now,” the minister informed EUobserver.

“We could become a source of the virus ourselves,” Linkevicius stated, describing the EU’s forever-travelling diplomatic corps.

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