During its biannual presidency of the Council of the EU, in the first half of the year, Belgium presented the candidacy of Belgian diplomat Bernard Quintin for the post of special representative of the European Union for the Great Lakes (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo), vacant for years. Alas, the appointment of the Belgian, an expert in the region, was met with hostility from Rwanda led by Paul Kagame. Because Belgium criticizes Kigali’s military involvement in Congo, because Brussels refused in 2023 to accredit Vincent Karega as Rwandan ambassador to Belgium… Kigali’s hostility ended up derailing Quintin’s appointment.
The recruitment procedure was then extended and it is the current Swedish ambassador to Greece, Johann Borgstam, “with a solid Africanist background”, who should be appointed, indicates Wednesday B2, a site specializing in European defense and diplomacy (whose editor-in-chief Nicolas Gros-Verheyde has just published an in-depth work entitled European defense at the time of the war in Ukraine. Taboos fall, Ed. du Villard). “The decision will be recorded on Friday, at the end of a written procedure, launched this Wednesday by the permanent representatives of the Twenty-Seven,” adds B2. “He is scheduled to take office on September 1.” Johann Borgstam, specifies B2, was stationed in DR Congo from December 2008 to January 2011, in Kenya from 2012 to 2017 and was head of the EU delegation in Ethiopia from 2017 to 2021.
This article is originally published on lesoir.be
