The EU’s head diplomat, High Representative Josep Borrell, who appears to have woken up to the cold, hard world of geopolitics and come to grips with Europe’s naïveté, is warning European diplomats of their impending irrelevance on the global stage. 

Mr. Borell’s remarks — a long dirge of self-criticism — opened the EU ambassadors annual conference, which gathers delegations from around the world and from the 27 EU member states. This year’s conference, which is being held virtually, ends today at Brussels.

“This is not a moment when we are going to send flowers to all of you…. This is a moment to talk among ourselves about what we do [not do] well enough,” Mr. Borrell said. The Spaniard intimated that he and his colleagues had been foolish. 

Many things they thought would “never happen” have happened, he said, such as, “we did not believe that the war was coming … [despite] the Americans telling us, ‘They will attack, they will attack.’ … We had not foreseen either the capacity of [Vladimir] Putin to escalate [with regard to] the level of mass mobilization and open nuclear threats.”

The Europeans, Mr. Borrell suggested, have been naive in allowing themselves to be far too dependent on Russia and China. “Our prosperity has been based on cheap energy coming from Russia. Russian gas — cheap and supposedly affordable, secure, and stable … [as well as] access to the big China market, for exports and imports, for technological transfers, for investments, for having cheap goods.” 

This “clearly” needs to change, he said, and “we should not change one dependency for another. The best energy is the one that you produce at home.”

Mr. Borrell added: “We are happy that we are importing a lot of liquefied natural gas from the United States — at a high price, by the way — and substituting Russian gas for American and Norwegian gas, or Azerbaijani gas…. But what would happen tomorrow if the United States, with a new president, decided not to be so friendly with the Europeans?”

He also posed the question of what might happen were Europe unable to obtain rare materials, such as cobalt, from the Congo, South America, or Afghanistan, noting that such materials can be as “critical for us as oil and gas.”

Europe has also been too externally dependent for security as well, Mr. Borrell argued, “delegating” too much to the United States. The cooperation may be “excellent,” but “we need to shoulder more responsibilities ourselves.” He suggested a more strategic review of Europe’s predicament.

The attitude, “‘You — the United States — take care of our security. You — China and Russia — provide the basis of our prosperity,’ no longer works,” he argued. “This is a world that is no longer there. The old recipes do not work anymore.”

We must accept reality, and see the world for what it is, Mr. Borrell continued. 

Inflation is rising and the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates. “Everybody,” he said, “has to follow, because otherwise their currency will be devalued…. This will bring us to a world recession.” 

He also stated that the “world is being structured around” the American-Chinese competition, “like it or not,” with a large dose of “messy multipolarity” on the side. There are “multiple players and poles, each one looking for their interest and values. Look at Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia.”

These countries, Mr. Borrell continued, “are not there following us because they blame us … they feel that the global system does not deliver, and they are not receiving their part.”

Mr. Borrell’s continued his dirge by blaming the European countries themselves. Europe, he suggested, was too focused “internally,” on itself. “We have to be much more in ‘listening mode,’” he argued, because the “other side” is the “rest of the world.”

“Remember this sentence,” he urged EU diplomats: “‘It is the identity, stupid.’ It is no longer the economy, it is the identity.”

“This is a battle that we are not winning,” Mr. Borrell argued, because “we do not understand that it is a fight.”

“We are too much Kantians and not enough Hobbesians,” he concluded in a reference to the German philosopher of transcendental ideals, Emmanuel Kant, and the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, who wrote “Leviathan” and reasoned out the role of states. 

“Let’s try to understand the world the way it is and bring the voice of Europe,” Mr. Borrell said. “Otherwise, our model will perish.”