POLITICO: The European Commission plans to cut EU embassy staff worldwide

The European Commission is pushing plans to dramatically cut the number of people working at many of its embassies to beef up staffing in countries where it feels the bloc has a strategic interest, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.

That’s creating concern the European Union will lose diplomatic heft in regions like Africa and Latin America.

“We would be leaving a tiny delegation in places like Sudan or Niger, that’s just the wrong message, especially when we have a U.S. administration that seems less interested in the outside world,” an EU official, speaking on condition of being granted anonymity, said.

A second official said that in internal chats about this project “there are clear worries that Russia or China could fill any vacuum we create.”

“Maintaining the status quo is not an option,” said the document, marked “SENSITIVE.” It added: “The EU is in need of a Delegation Network that is better suited to the new political and policy priorities … This has to be achieved within a constrained budgetary context.”

The bloc has 145 delegation offices around the world that function as EU embassies. The goal is to focus on countries “where the EU’s primary interests lie.”

The EU’s civil servants have been cooking up ideas to have a more “targeted approach” toward its embassies. Brussels is thinking about countries aiming to join the EU or which lie in the bloc’s immediate neighborhood, G20 countries, emerging “political and economic powers” and countries where “instability poses a threat to the EU’s interests.”