
The EU and Russia have announced plans to build a pipeline connecting Russia to Josep Borrell’s office in Brussels, to ensure a direct, uninterrupted supply of innocuous foreign policy positions without the need for costly and potentially embarrassing diplomatic trips.
In what observers are calling an unusually bold gambit to improve relations, the move comes after Borrell’s disastrous trip to Moscow, where he sat looking befuddled while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took potshots at the EU.
The public display was the coup de grace for Europe's Moscow-policy piñata, after Russia jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny and expelled three EU diplomats.
Amazingly, a blog post written by Borrell after the meeting concluded has failed to defuse the crisis.
“We have to be more proactive,” said one EU official. “Borrell sits in a big building on the Schuman Roundabout and nobody really knows what goes on in there. We’ve seen what kind of damage can be done by sending the High Representative on a trip. So maybe it’s better to just connect him directly and eliminate the possibility of humiliating photo opps.”
EEAS insiders have already dubbed the initiative “Nerd Stream”.
“This is the biggest project launched out of our Schuman headquarters since we reconfigured the sandwich menu at the Exki downstairs,” one EEAS source said. “And just like the Exki menu, it promises to be expensive and confusing, but weirdly successful?”
A Russian diplomat said the pipeline was a sign of improving relations.
“Well, we’ve always had good sources in the EU,” the source said. “But Borrell’s recent visit to Moscow puzzled us. We could have sworn he was coming to flex some of that famous EU ‘soft power’ muscle. But it turns out we underestimated how much we had overestimated Borrell.”
The Russian added with a laugh, “It’s called the ‘carrot-and-stick’ approach but that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to braise the carrot and eat the stick.”
Said one EU official, “When we appointed Borrell to be High Representative, we didn’t realise just how high he actually was.”
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