Austria’s ambassador to the United States discussed the evolving nature of diplomacy and diplomatic communication between the two countries at the School of Media & Public Affairs’ television studio on Wednesday.
Ambassador Petra Schneebauer spoke about diplomacy’s changes due to technology and Austria’s current relationship with the United States. This discussion was the third in an international ambassador series hosted by the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, with moderators Qёndrim Gashi, the former ambassador of Kosovo to France and Joe Wierichs, the Department of State’s public diplomacy fellow at the IPDGC.
Schneebauer said English is the dominant language in diplomacy but that it’s “always good” to speak as many languages as possible as a diplomat as you often speak to people from around the world.
She highlighted the importance of speaking multiple languages through an example of Austrian politics during 2015 and 2016, when many migrants from Syria and Afghanistan came to Austria. In 2015, Austria counted the third-highest per capita rate of asylum applications in the European Union, with more than 88,000 applications coming from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.
“It is good if you speak, for example, Arabic, and we don’t have so many people speaking Arabic in our foreign ministry,” she said.
Gashi asked Schneebauer how diplomacy has changed in the past 25 to 30 years and he added that in the modern day, it would not be strange for two diplomats to message each other over WhatsApp, an instant messenger, which changes what it means to be a diplomat completely as it used to take much longer to contact a fellow diplomat.
Schneebauer said Austria has had a diplomatic relationship with the United States for more than 185 years and said online media has become a helpful source to obtain information as it has become accessible for everybody.
She said it is “normal nowadays” for the 25 ministers for foreign affairs within the European Union, to exchange information via communication platforms such as WhatsApp as it’s very quick to call each other on the app.
She said instant communication may be easier for a state like Austria to utilize, as the foreign ministry is relatively small in comparison to the United States where there are thousands of State Department diplomats.
Toward the end of the discussion, a question and answer session was held in which an audience member asked about future relations between Austria and the United States’ given the new administration under President Donald Trump.
Schneebauer said there was lots of speculation around the world when Trump’s inaugural address did not mention Europe. She said “the fact is” that the relationship between the United States and Europe is very strong.
“I think it’s such an important part of a bilateral relationship, the economic relationship — and the economic relationship between the United States and Europe is the tightest relationship we can have,” she said.
She also said the Austrian embassy does not know the future and that Trump is “very determined” on what he plans to do on the global stage.
“We will have to discuss the question of tariffs when they are here,” Schneebauer said. “I think this will be coming, but we will see how everything has to work out in detail. I think what we have done from the European side, I mean, it was very clear, also from our side. And as I mentioned before, we will work with the U.S. administration. It’s very clear.”