After a little less than a year and a half as Spanish foreign minister, Josep Borrell has left the post to take responsibility for the European Union's foreign and security policies this Friday. Undoubtedly, the 74-year-old Borrell could not have climbed any higher than the position he has achieved after the atrocities he has committed as head of international policy for Pedro Sánchez's government. But neither could the flawed bodies of European integration have set their sights any lower. The European Commission, whose make up has for many years been based on patch-ups and member states' interests in sharing out power, has placed as its head of diplomacy a true political pyromaniac who has done more than enough to disqualify himself from the position.
At the same time, Borrell has risen above all the doubts by draping himself in a Spanish flag and continually cracking a whip at the Catalan independence movement. Thanks to this, he has achieved a position above his errors and, when necessary, the Popular Party and Ciudadanos have come out in his defence with an energy and drive rarely deployed by politicians that are theoretically his adversaries. With meritocratic considerations thus pushed aside, Borrell has ridden roughshod over his mistakes while provoking one international incident after another.
It does not cease to be remarkable that what he has failed to do in Spain has become an asset for his incorporation into a position in Europe. Because if foreign policy has been an area where recent Spanish governments have not made the grade - perhaps Josep Piqué was the last Spanish foreign minister who had any prestige in Europe - then, with Rajoy's last foreign minister Dastis, and now with Borrell, competence has fallen to levels difficult to explain. A lack of European policy, disappeared in South America, having no influence in North Africa and absent from the great Asian continent, foreign policy has been solely a tool used to fight against Catalan independence and prevent its arguments from gaining adherents. A goal that Spain has achieved with some governments by opening its wallet sufficiently, while at the same time turning the country into a lost cause in many other international bodies and for a significant part of international public opinion.
And the fact that, carrying baggage like this, Borrell is now installing himself in Europe is truly symptomatic.