The European Union (EU) has expanded enormously in recent years, but its heart and mind have failed to relocate. Ask most Central and East Europeans about Brussels and they’ll say its mental map is stuck in the 20th century.
So the arrival of commissioners from the newer member states marked a significant moment of change as the EU’s executive arm began its new term on December 1. Among them is the Baltic triumvirate of three former prime ministers, one from each of the three states.
The appointment of the Estonian, Kaja Kallas, as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is the most eye-catching, but significant roles also go to Andrius Kubilius, the Lithuanian who will run the Commission defense portfolio, and Valdis Dombrovskis, who returns as economic commissioner.
“In a fusty world where voices from so-called Eastern Europe have struggled to be heard, Kallas and Kubilius will be not just a breath of fresh air but a typhoon,” says CEPA’s Edward Lucas.
The pair could hardly have been better chosen as the bloc faces a darkening situation on its eastern borders. “People who grew up under communism take freedom more seriously than those who never had to worry about it,” Lucas says.
Kallas’s understanding of the job and the threat facing the continent will only be sharpened by her history and that of her country. She is the first EU foreign policy chief whose arrest is sought by the Kremlin, and the first whose family was shoved into cattle cars for deportation to Siberia. The walls of her old office in Tallinn carried the names of the 66 Estonian premiers and government ministers murdered by Russia. She has accused West European counterparts of naivete in their dealings with Putin’s regime.
All of which was underlined by Kallas’s decision to spend her first day as High Representative in Ukraine where she stated that the EU wants the country to win its war.
She has been charged with coordinating 27 sets of interests and projecting an “assertive, strategic, and united Europe” amid complex geopolitical rivalries — a jigsaw puzzle her predecessor, Spain’s Josep Borrell, struggled to piece together.
“Kallas actually knows something about foreign affairs, something the big member states have not wanted until now lest the person upstage their egotistical need to be ‘statesmen,’” says former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a CEPA Distinguished Fellow. “That will, I hope, change with Kallas.”
Eloquent and pragmatic, the 47-year-old liberal brings significant political experience as a largely successful prime minister. This record will strengthen her credibility when dealing with world leaders, according to James Moran, Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies. A fervent and vocal critic of the Kremlin, she will at the very least change the tone of EU responses to Putin’s aggression.
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Her arrival could hardly come at a more important moment. With Donald Trump returning to the White House in January and Ukrainian forces in retreat, it is wholly unclear what may now happen to US support for Ukraine. In extremis, the EU may be forced into a terrible choice — find the considerable sums to support Ukraine alone, or leave Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people to their fate.
Either would have profound consequences, not least finding the required billions through increased debt or spending cuts on the one hand, or accepting many millions of new refugees and a victorious Russia on the NATO/EU eastern border on the other.
There’s little question Kallas will argue for the first option — as Estonia’s Prime Minister, she ramped up her country’s defense spending above 3% of GDP in 2023 and became Ukraine’s second-biggest donor by GDP contribution.
In other words, she will not waver in the way that her predecessor did. Borrell’s February 2021 trip to Moscow was a diplomatic fiasco that underscored the perception of EU weakness soon after the jailing of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. He later described the trip as “eye-opening,” words that are unimaginable from Kallas.
While she is likely to be clearer and more consistent than Borrell, Kallas has her own hurdles to overcome. She will need to prove her diplomacy goes beyond the EU’s eastern flank and ensure she doesn’t concentrate all her efforts on the Russian threat, according to Pablo del Amo, Research Associate at the Madrid-based Elcano Royal Institute.
“She needs to coordinate her experience and discursive trajectory against Moscow with other perspectives and interests,” he said. “Including those of China, the Middle East, and the Global South, where China and Russia seek to exert influence.”
Kallas has pledged to “safeguard the EU’s geopolitical and economic security” in the face of Beijing’s broadened support for Russia’s assault on Ukraine and unfair trade competition with the EU. Her position signals a more confrontational posture.
Kallas’ harder line on China could prove helpful in easing differences with the US and fostering cooperation on a common transatlantic approach to Beijing, especially after Trump’s return to the White House. But it may unsettle some within the EU.
She will also inherit the EU’s fragmented approach to the Middle East, where the 27 members are badly split between pro- and anti-Israeli positions.
Finding joint positions on the growing range of urgent international issues will be a tough ask.
“The strongest protection we have against Russia’s aggression, and for Europe’s position in the world, is European unity” Kallas said. Her challenge is to build it.
Natalia Hidalgo Martinez is a Spanish-based freelance writer covering transatlantic relations between the US and Europe, European security, and geoeconomics.
Francis Harris is CEPA’s Managing Editor.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Europe’s Edge
CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America.