Pierre Vimont was the first Executive Secretary-General of the European External Action Service (EEAS). As such, he worked with the previous EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton. He is now a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Europe think tank. He spoke to FRANCE 24’s Christophe Robeet about the EU’s delicate relations with Russia, the migrant crisis, but also the UK referendum on EU membership.

On the migrant crisis, Pierre Vimont welcomes the European Commission’s plans for a quota-like system to distribute refugees across the EU. "The idea is to try for all member states to show a little bit more solidarity", he says.
However, on the subject of economic migrants, he calls for the problem to be dealt with "at the source". "We have to go to Africa and see how we can help these countries to manage an economic development that will keep their own people there". Regarding asylum seekers who are fleeing countries like Syria or Iraq, he says "we need to put more diplomatic efforts into trying to find a solution".
On the subject of the UK referendum on whether or not to stay in the EU, he underlines the difficulty of revising EU treaties. Vimont say he sees "no appetite among member states" to go down that road.
However, "if there is goodwill on both sides, there are ways of accommodating the British request", he believes.

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