Mart Laanemäe
Ambassador, Estonian Embassy in Berlin

“Let’s close down our embassies in other European Union countries, everything is decided in Brussels anyway” is a prevalent mantra in the EU. It is true that EU-wide issues are decided at collective meetings that mostly take place in Brussels and include “capital format” meetings, where important people based in capitals all travel to Brussels to meet together. So bilateral embassies have a hard time providing added value in EU topics. Who needs them anyway? If Karl is responsible for his country’s sugar beet policy and needs to talk to his counterpart Charles in another capital, he can do it directly either in Brussels or over the phone, without asking his country’s embassy for help.

This is only one reason for why embassies are becoming more and more irrelevant in classical bilateral and multilateral relations. It isn’t only the EU that promotes direct contacts between the representatives of different countries – almost everywhere, people know their counterparts in other countries and talk with them directly.

Bilateral relations in the traditional sense are relatively simple – one state represents one set of people and has bilateral relations with another state representing another set of people. The embassy represents one state in another state and yet has no direct contact with the other set of people. A special form of bilateral relations is “public diplomacy”, in which the focus is on bilateral relations with people rather than governments. If a group of states has direct relations, it requires multiple bilateral (sometimes called plurilateral) relations.

Once upon a time not so long ago, there were really only two types of direct plurilateral relations. One was the “Sherpa method” used by large countries to co-ordinate issues in the G7 and similar formats. The “Sherpas” knew each other very well and could speak directly for their heads of state and government. The other was the Nordic co-operation model in Scandinavia, where people at all levels knew their counterparts in other countries and could deal with all sorts of issues horizontally (or should that be laterally?) without having to bother others.

The 21st century has seen an increase in the number of special representatives, ambassadors at large and the like who meet each other to discuss different issues of interest. Not every country has a representative for everything, but modern diplomacy tends to prefer this system. It brings together the people who are doing the actual work regarding a particular issue.

But all this does not mean that the G7 countries or Nordic countries have closed embassies in each others’ capitals. On the contrary, the creation of so many different fora for special representatives allows embassies to take on new challenges, above all the growing need for public diplomacy and addressing people rather than governments.

The new form of relations is transactional (or in human language “people-to-people”) and is much more complex and numerous than bilateral relations. Since the number of people involved is much larger than in standard bilateral relations, there is even more work for embassies – albeit a different kind of work. Chilling out with other diplomats on the golf course or at a cocktail party is no longer the most efficient way to get things done – these events are important for exchanging information, but most of the information is available elsewhere and usually you don’t have to be in the country to get it. Indeed, the information value of the golf course can probably be outsourced overseas without any great losses.

In this context, Estonia’s relations with its Nordic and Baltic neighbours have already reached a high level of transactionality. But this is not all. Germany, of all places, seems to be in the process of becoming the next transactional country for Estonia.

In Northern Europe, co-operation occurs between people who have similar responsibilities. All the countries are governed in a similar way (major differences exist at the level of head of state but most of them, whether hereditary or elected, have similar functions). The countries are all of the same order of magnitude in terms of population, Iceland being the notable exception.

Germany has a much larger population and is much more federal than all of Northern Europe. This diverse country has 17 governments and 18 parliaments, all involved in governing one of the classic “rule of law” societies in history. An Estonian official usually has one or two counterparts in each of the seven other Nordic and Baltic countries, but in Germany alone it could be 17 or more. Obviously, a Nordic co-operation model with Germany isn’t realistic. At the same time, the size of Germany makes relations transactional.

In Germany, there is general agreement on very few issues and policy-making is based on compromise. In very important cases, the chancellor may indicate the general direction for policy or present the German position at a European Council meeting. Each of the German states has a different profile, different interests and problems. Policy is made from the bottom up, which means that German civil servants usually create the policy. Since the beginning, Germans have been accustomed to working in committees in Brussels. The German representative at the table at an EU meeting is usually the one making German policy.

In this sense, Germany policy-making resembles Nordic co-operation. To maintain successful relations, a small country must use transactional relations with Germany. In many ways, this approach is already succeeding. From the German perspective, of course, Estonia is barely visible for the most part. There isn’t much that can be done about that. But from the Estonian perspective, in many fields there is individual co-operation on a level approaching that of co-operation with the Nordic countries. It’s very easy to find German colleagues in any field of interest. The number of actual contacts seems much larger than the number of inquiries to the embassy regarding possible future contacts. Often the embassy hears about interesting contacts long after they have been made and it is always a surprise to meet new people who have long-standing close relations with Germany.

Even large countries have trouble keeping abreast of all the developments in Germany. Estonia’s embassy in Berlin is well-staffed, but Germany is still much too big to cover extensively. Germany’s embassy in Tallinn is also reasonably large for the task at hand, but the same applies – it is not the role of an embassy to deal with every possible form of relations between the people in two countries, but rather to facilitate useful contacts.

Often the most important thing is not thinking of new ideas but supporting the ideas of other people. Just because somebody has a good idea does not mean it is sustainable – sometimes good ideas need extra care and nourishment. Sometimes different networks don’t realise they could benefit from interaction.

All of these areas are where embassies can try to be useful. They can be impartial observers and also initiators of contacts if necessary. But embassies should avoid maintaining a monopoly on ideas or contacts and they should be careful not to always set priorities based on their own needs. The priorities of embassies are usually 1) the visits of VIPs in one direction or the other; 2) various events they organise themselves; 3) events organised by other embassies; and 4) events organised by other outside institutions. In transactional relations, the last point should probably be the first priority and the second priority should be working level exchanges of officials.

So is Germany becoming more like a Nordic country for Estonia? Up to a point, but actually it is becoming like a larger version of the whole Nordic-Baltic area for Estonia. For Germany, Estonia is still, as they say in German, an insider- tip. The advantage for Germany is of course that there is so much more to discover about Estonia and in Estonia, while every Estonian can find something in Germany. Keeping abreast of these opportunities is the most important job in that respect and this is something embassies are traditionally good at, so let’s not, at least for the moment, consider closing them all down.
http://www.vm.ee/?q=en/node/10943