Although it's only been a few weeks since Josep Borrell was appointed EU's High Representative for Foreign Policy, his eccentricity and his blunders are troubling Brussels and some EU countries. The former Spanish minister of foreign affairs started a true crisis when he ironically referred to 17-year-old Swedish climate campaign initiated by Greta Thunberg as the "Greta syndrome" and questioned young environmental activists.
He has been discredited by a spokesman for the European Commission and also by the Spanish minister of ecological transition Teresa Ribera - an awkward situation that would have led to his resignation. It is a very clumsy behaviour, and unfortunately none of this was unexpected from Borrell. It is worth saying that this Borrell, of which Europe is ashamed today, was extremely useful acting as a spearhead against the Catalan pro-independence movement. He is part of the generation of Catalans who have built their supposed prestige speaking badly of Catalonia, Albert Boadella and Albert Rivera being some of the recent examples of this.
The Financial Times, the most influential newspaper in Europe and one of the most prestigious in the world, compares Borrell's (72) attitude of contempt for Greta Thunberg (17) and youth environmental defence movements with that of Donald Trump (73) and other members of the US administration. Other influential European media have done the same thing. Borrell has had to apologise several times but everybody knows that these outbursts are going to happen again since, in recent years, they have been a constant issue in his public activity.
It is obvious that his appointment was a mistake and that Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez was wrong forcing his designation in the set of new officials for the European Commission at the summit of EU heads of state and government. But now, who will take care of this mess?