INTERVIEW: The unity of our union is much stronger than perceived, says EU’s Federica Mogherini

Federica Mogherini, High representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy
Updated 28 December 2018
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INTERVIEW: The unity of our union is much stronger than perceived, says EU’s Federica Mogherini

  • Our greatest enemy is a lack of trust in the means at our disposal
  • If we want to play a decisive role, not only in our region but also globally, we have all the right instruments to do so

Federica Mogherini has overseen EU foreign and security policy since November 2014. With her term coming to an end in 2019, Mark Leonard of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a pan-European think tank, interviewed Mogherini about the state of European security and the future of the international order, arms control and migration, among other issues.

Leonard (ML) So far, the EU has maintained its unity over key issues, such as Brexit and post-Crimea sanctions on Russia. Is this unity likely to hold in 2019, particularly given the looming EU parliamentary elections and changes at the top of the European Commission and European Council?

Mogherini (FM) The unity of our union is much stronger than is often perceived. What I see in my daily work is an EU that makes decisions jointly, implements them together and — especially in the field of foreign and security policy — acts as one. 

Many complain about a lack of unity, but my impression is that these complaints derive more from a comfortable cliche that is repeated on the basis of past experiences rather than from a realistic reflection on the situation today.

We need to define what we mean by unity. It does not mean uniformity. We number 28 — soon 27 — which is still a lot. With 500 million people, the EU is the largest integration project ever realized. 

It is the biggest market in the world and the second-largest economy. It comprises many different cultures, languages and politics. History and geography have given us different backgrounds. It is only natural that this translates into different views, opinions and voices, even within each of our democratic societies.

I have always refused to use the expression: “The EU must sing with one voice.” We need to use all the different voices we have, because our plurality is our point of strength. But we need to sing the same song, in a coordinated manner, like a choir. And in my daily work, I see unity of purpose, common decisions and coordinated action happening. I do not see this trend being challenged.

ML You have called for Europe to defend its sovereignty by, for example, creating new structures that would allow it to continue to adhere to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. Will these structures work, and could the special-purpose vehicle to maintain trade with Iran be used to counter other US sanctions?

FM We are working, as a union of 28 member states and with the rest of the international community, to preserve a nuclear agreement that has so far been implemented in full, as certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 13 consecutive reports. We do this because of our collective security: We do not want to see Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and the JCPOA is delivering precisely on that purpose. 

I often hear that, on this issue, Europe is motivated mainly by economic or trade considerations. That is not the case. We do this to prevent a nuclear non-proliferation agreement that is working from being dismantled, and to prevent a major security crisis in the Middle East.

ML Why has Europe’s weight in its neighborhood decreased, especially when it comes to shaping events in Turkey, Libya and Syria? Is this an indication that Europe will not be one of the great powers of the 21st century?

FM Our destiny is in our own hands. If we want to play a decisive role, not only in our region but also globally, we have all the right instruments to do so, and we have the weight to do so. This is also what our partners around the world expect from us, particularly in these difficult times. To play such a role, Europeans need to realize how big and powerful they are when they act together as a union, and focus more on the responsibility we can exercise on the global scene if we resist the temptation of inward-looking policies — or rather, politics.  

Our greatest enemy is a lack of trust in the means at our disposal. The EU has unparalleled “soft” power — in economic, diplomatic and cultural terms — and we are increasingly active as a global security provider, building our “hard” power as never before. In Syria and Libya, we are not a military player, and I am proud of this. Violence has brought more violence, while we have always worked for peaceful and negotiated solutions.

Does this mean we are powerless? Quite the contrary. At the UN General Assembly this year, more than 50 countries and organizations took part in the discussion we initiated on Syria to support the difficult work the UN is doing there. Everyone understands that the EU’s role in Syria and Libya is unique and irreplaceable.

ML What impact will Brexit have on the EU’s security strategy? Will it help forge a stronger consensus?

FM I have no doubt that our future is one of close partnership and cooperation. If you look at what has happened since the Brexit referendum in 2016, we are still making unanimous decisions on foreign, security and defense policies. 

We reacted as one to the nerve-agent attack in Salisbury, England, earlier this year. We continue to work together when it comes to preserving the Iran nuclear deal. And we are pursuing shared objectives in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar
and elsewhere.

In the coming months, I will present a proposal for a new way of collaborating with non-EU countries and international organizations that are involved in EU civilian and military operations, or that are otherwise associated with our security and defense policies. 

This will also be an essential part of our future relationship with the UK. We will seek ways for non-EU countries to participate in defense projects launched under the Permanent Structured Cooperation framework.

ML What do you believe foreign policy can and should do to fight populism?

FM I do not like the expression “populism.” I believe a lot of people have lost trust in institutions — all of them. But in most European countries, the EU is more trusted than national institutions. 

The reaction coming from some political forces is to shift the blame and find a scapegoat. Governments come to Brussels, make decisions by unanimity, then blame the results on the EU. But the union is what we make of it. We have a collective responsibility to make it work. It is a reflection of our own collective political will.

In these past few years, our foreign policy has advanced and protected Europeans’ interests and values in a way that no member state could have achieved alone. In today’s world, even the bigger member states are small, such that national sovereignty can be effectively exercised only through the EU. We show this every day in our foreign policy. We are more effective at negotiating trade deals as the world’s largest market than as 28 separate countries. 

ML If there is a populist surge in the upcoming European Parliament elections, what lessons should Brussels take from it, and what new course would you advocate?

FM Whatever the result of the election, the lessons will have to be taken not so much in Brussels but everywhere around the union, and most of all in member states’ capitals. EU policies and actions are defined through our collective work, which is the result of our political will. If it works, it is a collective success for all of us. If it fails, it is a collective responsibility and a problem for all. No one is excluded.

I believe that Europeans need their union, and need to change some of the policies that the EU has put in place. This is something we have begun to do in recent years, deepening European integration on security and defense, establishing a strong and united external policy to govern migration flows, and launching the largest ever investment plan for Europe and Africa.

Some want to change EU policies to improve them — even radically — but others just want to destroy the union. We have to be very careful because in times of frustration, destruction can sound fascinating for many. Yet the secret of change is to focus not on destroying the old but on building the new. I hope this will be possible in 2019.

ML Do recent developments in the EU’s external approach to migration in places such as Africa and the Middle East signal a move away from emergency responses toward long-term solutions?

FM Not just recent developments. This has been the goal of our external action on migration since the very beginning. Let me remind you of the situation three years ago: Hundreds of people were dying almost every day in the Mediterranean and in the North African desert. Until then, the EU had been indifferent to a phenomenon that it considered to be outside its competence and under the exclusive purview of individual member states. 

This has changed, finally. We had to create an emergency response to end the carnage, and we did it with Operation Sophia at sea and the Emergency Trust Fund to finance our work with Africa. 

At the same time, we started to work on a better system to manage migration flows and address their long-term causes. We started to train local security forces; we worked on voluntary returns for migrants, with the opportunity to start a new life; and we established our investment plan for Africa and Europe’s neighborhood.

 


Pakistan police arrest 149, including 48 Chinese, in scam center raid

Updated 5 sec ago
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Pakistan police arrest 149, including 48 Chinese, in scam center raid

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan police arrested 149 people — including 71 foreigners, mostly Chinese — in a raid on a scam call center, the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency said Thursday.
“During the raid, a large call center was uncovered, which was involved in Ponzi schemes and investment fraud,” the agency said in a statement.
“Through this fraudulent network, the public was being deceived and vast sums of money were being illegally collected.”
The agency said they were acting on a tip-off about the network, operating in the city of Faisalabad, a manufacturing center in the east of the country.
It said the raid was at the residence of Tasheen Awan, the son of the former chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority, a government agency.
All those arrested were in custody, including 78 Pakistanis and 48 Chinese, as well as citizens from Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.
Some 18 of the 149 were women, it added.

China says ‘verifying’ case of citizens held for alleged spying in Ukraine

Updated 28 min 11 sec ago
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China says ‘verifying’ case of citizens held for alleged spying in Ukraine

  • Ukraine’s SBU security service said the son was a 24 year old former student of a technical university in Kyiv, and that the father, who lives in China, had traveled to Ukraine to coordinate his son’s “espionage activities”

BEIJING: Beijing said Thursday it was still “verifying” the case of a Chinese father and son detained by Ukraine for allegedly trying to smuggle navy missile technology out of the war-torn country.
“If Chinese citizens are involved, we will... safeguard Chinese citizens’ legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Relations between Kyiv and Beijing, a key Russian ally, are strained.
Ukraine and the West accuse China of enabling the Russian invasion through trade and of supplying technology, including for deadly drone attacks.
Ukraine also says dozens of Chinese citizens have been recruited by Russia’s army and sent to fight.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said Wednesday the son was a 24-year-old former student of a technical university in Kyiv, and that the father, who lives in China, had traveled to Ukraine to coordinate his son’s “espionage activities.”
The two were “attempting to illegally export secret documentation on the Ukrainian RK-360MC Neptune missile system to China,” the agency said.
Moscow and Beijing struck a “no limits” partnership on the eve of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, and have since deepened political, military and economic cooperation.


Hundreds of migrants moved from Crete to Greek mainland as island struggles with Libya arrivals

Updated 49 min 58 sec ago
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Hundreds of migrants moved from Crete to Greek mainland as island struggles with Libya arrivals

  • EU officials earlier this week were turned away from eastern Libya following an apparent disagreement on the format of talks planned on curbing crossings

LAVRIO: More than 500 migrants arrived at the port of Lavrio near Athens Thursday after being intercepted south of the island of Crete, as Greece implements emergency measures to address a surge in Mediterranean crossings from Libya.
The migrants, consisting mostly of young men, were transferred overnight aboard a bulk carrier after their fishing trawler was intercepted by Greek authorities. Service vessels helped bring them ashore at the mainland port. They will be sent to detention facilities near the capital.
Their transfer to the mainland was ordered because makeshift reception centers on Crete have reached capacity, with roughly 500 news arrivals per day on the Mediterranean island since the weekend.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced Wednesday that Greece would suspend asylum processing for migrants arriving by sea from North Africa for three months. The measure targets arrivals on Crete and was taken during a diplomatic strain between the European Union and Libya over migration cooperation. EU officials earlier this week were turned away from eastern Libya following an apparent disagreement on the format of talks planned on curbing crossings.
Authorities on Crete are struggling to provide basic services, using temporary facilities to house migrants, primarily from Somalia, Sudan, Egypt and Morocco, according to island officials.


Ukraine to launch Starlink mobile Internet in 2026, becoming Europe’s first, Kyivstar says

Updated 10 July 2025
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Ukraine to launch Starlink mobile Internet in 2026, becoming Europe’s first, Kyivstar says

ROME: Ukraine will become the first European nation to offer Starlink mobile services when leading operator Kyivstar launches messaging by year-end and mobile satellite broadband in mid-2026, Chief Executive Oleksandr Komarov said.
Field tests have begun under an end-2024 deal with Space X’s commercial broadband constellation to allow tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company to launch direct-to-cell services in the war-torn country.
Direct-to-cell devices connect to satellites equipped with modems that function like a cellphone tower, beaming telephone signals from space directly to smartphones.
“The first phase is over-the-top (OTT) messaging ... so messaging via WhatsApp, Signal, and other systems ... it will be in place at the end of this year,” Komarov told Reuters in Rome.
“And probably at the beginning of 2026, let’s be on the safe side, Q2 2026, we will be able to propose mobile satellite broadband data ... and voice.”
SpaceX did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
US carrier T-Mobile will introduce a data service on its satellite-to-cell network, powered by Starlink, at the start of October, the company said in June.
Komarov was speaking ahead of a Ukraine recovery conference Italy is hosting three years after the Russian invasion, with President Volodymyr Zelensky also due to attend.
He said his main aim at the conference, the fourth since the war began in February 2022, was to support the Ukrainian government and establish new business ties, some with Italian firms willing to expand in the country.
Kyivstar, owned by telecoms group VEON, is also working toward a US listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Komarov said the project was “moving forward” and hoped to finalize it in the third quarter of this year.
“I think it will be an exemplary move,” he added. “The first in history, the direct placement of (a) Ukrainian entity on the American stock exchange ... during the war.”
Komarov said Ukrainian telecom infrastructure was holding up well under Russia’s escalating assaults in recent weeks.
Last year one of its attacks on power grids and transmission lines caused daily blackouts in major cities after it knocked out about half Ukraine’s available generation capacity.
“I think that we are much more resilient than we used to be in 2022. Right now we can run our fixed and mobile services up to 10 hours during the blackouts, even national blackouts.”


Benin bets on free vets, schools to turn people away from extremism

Updated 10 July 2025
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Benin bets on free vets, schools to turn people away from extremism

  • Besides fighting off the militants, the 3,000 Beninese soldiers deployed to the region have worked to win the trust of northern communities both threatened by the militants

COTONOU: In north Benin, the army is waging a campaign away from the front — a program of social projects, including free veterinary care, to tempt locals away from extremism.

Located just south of Niger and Burkina Faso — which together with neighboring Mali form the world’s terrorism epicenter — Benin’s north has come under increasing pressure from Islamist militants, many of them linked to Al-Qaeda.

Besides fighting off the militants, the 3,000 Beninese soldiers deployed to the region have worked to win the trust of northern communities both threatened by the militants’ advance and courted by well-funded Islamist groups.

In May, the army provided free treatment to more than 4,000 cattle belonging to herders in the Materi commune and delivered medical care to 1,700 patients in another village in the Atacora region bordering Burkina Faso.

“These projects show an obvious desire to restore trust between the defense forces and communities,” Lt. Doctor Mardochee Avlessi said in early June.

The army medic, who is in charge of a joint civilian-military committee in Materi, said the army wanted to work in the “spirit... of building security together.”

In this, the west African country hopes to learn from the errors of its neighbors in the Sahel — the army cannot root out extremism by itself.

Part of the problem is the lack of development in the region.

“The places which are the most insecure are the least developed in Benin,” Mathias Khalfaoui, a specialist in west African security, told AFP.

And as the United Nations points out, Benin’s north is the least developed part of the country.

Militants are winning over hard-up communities with cash, rather than ideological or religious arguments, a UN report dated May argued.

“In exchange for supplies and information, terrorist groups offer money to young locals,” the report found.

The most influential Islamist group in the north is the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, known by its Arabic acronym JNIM.

By exploiting local frustrations, the JNIM has managed to rally Beninese to its cause after years of working to establish itself in the north.

“If we do not bring a response from the state and public services in these regions, where there is already a local sentiment of sometimes feeling perhaps a bit abandoned, it’s sure that the fight against militancy will become impossible,” said Khalfaoui, the security researcher.

Besides militants putting down local roots, the suspension of military cooperation between Benin and Niger and Burkina Faso has helped fighters launch ever-increasing assaults.

Benin experienced its first militant raids in 2021.

Within three years, the deaths had piled up, with militants killing 173 people in 2024, according to the UN report.

To develop social projects in the north, Benin has also received help from the international community.

In Atacora and the neighboring Donga commune, the French Acting for Life charity trains young Beninese in masonry and eco-friendly construction to help them find work.

“To best occupy the young, you have to train them and above all bring them into working life,” Abdoulaziz Adebi, the executive director of the association in charge of the project, told AFP.

“I have a future with this training,” said Boukary Moudachirou, a young person supported by the charity who hails from Djougou, north Benin’s most Muslim commune.

“Now we know there are good things we can do and move away from certain things,” he told AFP.

But observers fear the state’s social initiatives and the army’s program of well-digging and school-building will be too small to fulfill the growing needs of the north’s people.

The army’s ability to fight militants will remain limited without effective collaboration with Niger and Burkina Faso, with both of whom Benin is locked in a diplomatic spat.

“No state authority is present at the border of Burkina Faso, where the territory is controlled by armed groups, while Niger has closed its borders with Benin,” the UN has warned, worried that deals between the neighbors allowing the army to pursue militants are no longer in force.

Of further concern, given what is happening on its other frontier with Nigeria, where militants and criminal gangs have committed murderous attacks, “Benin has a larger area to defend,” added security researcher Khalfaoui.

Another UN report from February found that the JNIM was looking to advance toward Nigeria from north Benin and had linked up with Ansaru, a Nigerian militant group which splintered off from Boko Haram.

Other countries in the region threatened by militants, such as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mauritania, have likewise looked to development as a means to stave off unrest.