EU: Envoy’s lowered status reversed

BRUSSELS — President Donald Trump’s administration downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union’s delegation to the United States last year without making a formal announcement or informing the bloc about the change, a European official said Tuesday.

After protest from Brussels and discussion between the EU and the Trump administration, the reclassification of the delegation and the consequent demotion of the ambassador, David O’Sullivan, is understood to have been reversed, at least temporarily, the official said.

Trump has been critical of multilateral institutions, and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, delivered a speech in Brussels on Dec. 4 in which he questioned the value of multinational organizations and institutions such as the United Nations and the EU. Pompeo then asked whether the EU was “ensuring that the interests of countries and their citizens are placed before those of bureaucrats here in Brussels.”

The next day, the EU’s demotion in status from a member state to an international organization became clear at the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush, when O’Sullivan’s name was not called in the expected order, as dictated by diplomatic protocols. The names of diplomats who had gathered in Washington to pay their respects were spoken, as is customary, from the longest-serving to the newest ambassador, an EU official told the German news agency Deutsche Welle.

“But he was called up as the last person,” the official said.

Before the demotion, O’Sullivan, who has been ambassador to Washington since 2014, would have been ranked among the first 20 or 30 ambassadors of the more than 150 foreign representatives in Washington.

“We understand there was a change in the way the diplomatic precedence list is implemented by the United States protocol, and we are currently discussing with relevant services in the administration possible implications for the EU delegation in Washington,” said Maja Kocijancic, the EU’s chief spokesman for foreign affairs. “But ultimately this question should be directed to the U.S. administration.”

The U.S. Embassy in Brussels said it would consult with Washington before responding.

Trump in July described the EU as a “foe” of the United States when it comes to trade.

As Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain was scrambling in November to win support for an agreement with the EU on her country’s withdrawal, Trump referred to the deal as “great” for the bloc and said it could prevent the United States from reaching a free-trade accord with Britain.

Those remarks came a month after Trump, in an interview on 60 Minutes, said, “The European Union was formed in order to take advantage of us on trade, and that’s what they’ve done.”

The EU is expected to select a new ambassador to Washington soon, and it is not yet clear what status that envoy will have.

“The downgrade symbolizes the contempt the U.S. president has shown for the EU and its supra-nationalist nature,” said Daniela Schwarzer, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

“In contrast to previous American administrations, the Trump administration has actively tried to undermine EU unity, on trade policy, for instance, which is a supranational EU competence,” Schwarzer said.

Trying to weaken the EU may seem to Trump as an “opportunity to maximize short-term gains for the U.S.,” she said. And as Brussels tries to strengthen its international role, again in reaction to Trump, she said, “a lack of recognition by key partners that the EU is more than just an international organization, or even a withdrawal of that recognition, undermines these efforts.”

Ian Lesser, director of the German Marshall Fund office in Brussels, characterized the decision as “the latest in a series of negative signals from the administration regarding the place of the EU in the international order.”

“It is very much in line with the tough language from Secretary Pompeo in his recent Brussels speech,” he said. “Washington focuses on states and national sovereignty, and the EU does not fit easily in this vision.”

The Trump administration has also been threatening a trade war with the EU and the 28 member states of the bloc, insisting that a trade deficit in goods of about $150 billion a year needs to be reduced sharply. The move may be a way to increase pressure on the EU to make more concessions in trade negotiations over steel, aluminum and cars.