In one country in Europe, a dictator routinely falsifies the election - and the European Union looks on, embarrassed. The dictator has his protesting citizens shot, imprisoned and tortured - and the EU finds this "unacceptable". It takes and continues until the EU finally takes a cautious decision after ten days: It does not recognize the election result in Belarus and threatens sanctions.
It took Europe's heads of state and government a long time to make this symbolic decision, which has no concrete impact. In fairness it has to be said that the EU is in a difficult position in Belarus - it wants to support the demonstrators without giving Russia's President Vladimir Putin the pretext for intervention. The long silence is still embarrassing. It is an expression of a much larger problem: the Union appears impotent in terms of foreign policy, even if the conflicts take place in its direct neighborhood. It doesn't know what it wants, far too often the EU states even work against each other.
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