''Despite the EU’s difficulties to get its voice
heard on the Syria crisis, Pierre Vimont argues that the 28-country bloc
should not underestimate its soft power footprint: “I don’t pretend
that we’re doing as much as we’d like, but we’re as active as possible,
at least in our neighbourhood.”
Pierre Vimont is the executive
secretary general of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the
EU's diplomatic service. He spoke to EurActiv’s Laurens Cerulus.
You mentioned earlier that “we shouldn’t be ashamed of our
efforts in Syria and elsewhere”. Are there many reasons for Europe to be
proud of its impact?
I wanted to react to everyone saying that Europe is absent from the
Syrian issue. Or that Europe is absent from Mali and what not.
Sure, there are shortcomings to our actions and there are more things
we could and should do. And that is what we are trying to achieve at
the moment. But at the same time, we shouldn’t be ashamed of what we’ve
done so far. We shouldn’t underestimate the EU’s efforts; it is not a
fair assessment of what we’ve achieved..''
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