Was with Mogherini yesterday at an apolitical function. She was very much at ease and at home in Berlaymont, very much comfortable in her own skin as a “natural” “true believer” in “European values”. She was not pretentious, gave no impression of having anything to prove, came across as a genuine person with some warmth and even a certain degree of easy grace. Yet it was clear that she is very much a careerist within the blinders of her ascribed political norms; thus limited in her vision conditioned by her limited experience, she also confirmed the impression of a naïvété and innocence that would be touching but for the gravity of the position that she occupies.

(As witness her recent response to Erdoǧan’s latest media crackdown, on the Gülen sector of the Turkish media, which occurred only days after her meeting with him in Turkey, and which I paraphrase: “I was very surprised, I thought that we had agreed common principles. I would not have prepared our meeting so carefully, had I expected this to happen.”)

My conclusion: On a personal basis, without reference to my critical evaluation of her policies, I should wish that her disappointments are minor; but I foresee a long and hard professional diplomatic education in her near future. At a seminar I attended in Moscow in November 1982, Stanley Hoffmann said of Reagan, then seen in some quarters as an uncompromising ideologue: “American presidents always end up as realists [in international politics]. The only question is how long this takes.” For Federika, I wish this fate overcome her gently yet definitively as soon as possible, thus to minimize her own shock and trauma at being mugged by reality; yet also I fear that Berlaymont may be so cozily insulating as to absorb every blow.

She talks a good talk but does not recognize the full implications of her discourse and would seem complacent that “Europe” is limited to “soft power”, not realizing that this limitation limits also the policy issues over which such power may be internationally projected, and failing to contextualize that limitation in the broader scheme of things. It would be a tragedy were she to end as a kinder, gentler Ashton yet the possibility is there, even if she lacks the depth of the latter’s personal vanity.