British and Canadian bid to share embassies sparks controversy
The British press is reporting on a joint Britain-Canada initiative to share certain embassies and diplomatic facilities. Via the Guardian: Britain and Canada will establish joint diplomatic missions and share embassy offices abroad, the foreign secretary, William Hague, is set to announce. Hague will reveal more details of the plans when he meets his Canadian ...
The British press is reporting on a joint Britain-Canada initiative to share certain embassies and diplomatic facilities. Via the Guardian:
The British press is reporting on a joint Britain-Canada initiative to share certain embassies and diplomatic facilities. Via the Guardian:
Britain and Canada will establish joint diplomatic missions and share embassy offices abroad, the foreign secretary, William Hague, is set to announce.
Hague will reveal more details of the plans when he meets his Canadian counterpart, John Baird, in Ottawa on Monday, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
The proposals involve "co-locating" embassies and sharing consular services in countries where one of the nations does not have an embassy, the spokesman said.
Unsurprisingly, the Daily Mail presents the initiative as a response to the EU’s new External Action Service, which the British have viewed with skepticism:
The move by Eurosceptic Mr Hague is seen as a counter to the EU’s fast-expanding European External Action Service, which is setting up offices in the US and other major countries.
It is seen by some UK diplomats as a direct threat to Britain’s standing as a major world power.
Now Mr Hague is hitting back with plans to increase the number of British embassies by teaming up with the three Commonwealth allies.
Meanwhile, Canadian foreign minister John Baird is defending himself against accusations that he is sacrificing Canada’s independent foreign policy:
A plan for Canadian and British embassies to share lodgings and legwork has hit a storm of sensitivity about the Maple Leaf’s independence, leading Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird to try to dispel the notion that Canada is merging its foreign diplomacy with that of another country.
It was a reaction neither government expected – for them, it was a modest cost-cutting arrangement that will see the two countries share premises, and some consular services, in some places. But Mr. Baird, the anglophile minister who likes to play up the symbols of Canada’s independent character, found himself fending off fears that he is trading away a portion of Canada’s place on the world stage.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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