Coronavirus exacerbating ''disordered world'' warns EU's top diplomat

Coronavirus exacerbating ''disordered world'' warns EU's top diplomat
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By Euronews
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In an exclusive interview with Euronews, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell discusses a host of issues, including Europe's diplomatic ties with China, the US and the global impact of Covid-19.

Europe's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has warned that the coronavirus could exacerbate an already ''disordered world''.

In an exclusive interview with Euronews, which covered a host of issues including the COVID-19 pandemic and the EU's relationship with China and the US, Borrell called for the construction of a new multilateral system.

"It's clear that the world order today is not order. [It] is no longer according with the real distribution of power, which is very much different from the distribution of power at the end of the Second World War... I think that we live in a disordered world and we need to rebuild a new multilateralism in which the European Union can play an important role," he said.

Speaking to Euronews' Isabelle Kumar, the EU's top diplomat claimed the current crisis—especially claims by the Trump administration that the virus may have originated in a Chinese laboratory in the city of Wuhan—threatened to ''poison'' relations between Washington and Beijing. The EU's High Representative insisted he had no proof on how the virus originated but called on China to allow an international investigation led by the World Health Organization.

"Inter-institutional relationship, not a personal one"

Admitting that ''differences and disagreements'' did exist between Brussels and Washington, when questioned about the EU's relationship with US President Donald Trump, the Spaniard stressed that the bloc's relationship was with the United States, and not Trump.

"We don't have a relation [relationship] with Donald Trump. We have a relation [relationship] with the United States. It is an inter-institutional relationship, not a personal one. And everybody knows that between the States and Europe there are disagreements and we receive from the United States some remarks that we don't like or we don't agree. But this is the way it is and we try to build positive relations in spite of some differences and disagreements."

Constitutional collision course

Discussing issues closer to home, Borrel admitted a recent ruling by Germany's constitutional court posed potential problems for the future. Earlier this week the top German court ruled that the European Central Bank's mass bond-buying programme to stabilise the eurozone partly violated German constitutional law.

''Certainly, this sentence of the constitutional court poses a problem that we'll have to deal with,'' he said.

To watch the full interview, click on the video player above.

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