Will Josep Borrell’s dirty laundry hinder his appointment by the European Parliament?

Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell will confront this afternoon with the European Parliament committees that have to approve his candidacy as Vice-President of the European Commission (CE) and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU.

Borrell will be examined by seventy-one MEPs of the Foreign Affairs Committee and about twenty that belong to those of Human Rights and Security and Defense. It will be about three hours of hearing in which they will have to analyse if the Spanish minister is the appropriate person for the position. It is not expected to be a smooth test, considering Borrell’s dirty laundry. He is famous not only for his radical stance against Catalonia’s independence, but also for other controversies and for his ability for being rather undiplomatic at some occasions.

Killing four Indians

One of the last controversies was when he stormed out of an interview with German public TV Deutsche Welle, claiming that journalist Tim Sebastian was “continuously lying” when questioning him about the desire for constitutional reform in Spain. After consulting with his aides, Borrell ended up going back to finish the interview, but asked Sebastian to “ask questions in a less biased way” the next time they spoke.

Borrell also made headlines in November of last year for stating, in reference to US independenceand the country’s levels of cohesiveness, that “all they did was kill four Indians”. “Why does the US have a higher level of political integration? Firstly, they all speak the same language. And secondly, they have very little history. They achieved independence with practically no history” he said at an event at a Madrid university.

Borrell has also been accused of insider trading and received a €30,000 fine in October 2018 by Spain’s securities regulator for the sale of €9,000 in shares since he had access to the company’s private information as a board member.