CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 4/2017

L’AUTRICHE DIPLOMATIC ACADEMY VIENNA
1010
wien / vienna
Emil Brix in seinem neuen Akademie-Büro im Interview mit CD-Autor Rainer Himmelfreundpointner.
Emil Brix in his new office at the Diplomatic Academy Vienna with CD-author Rainer Himmelfreundpointner.
will be “emotional intelligence“. Every diplomat
should know how to put himself into
the positions of his counterpart and to integrate
them into his own actions. Emotional
intelligence for a long time used to be considered
only as a soft skill, but in fact it has
become a hard skill today.
What else are you planning to focus on?
All aspects of social media and how to
handle them in modern diplomacy. Recent
election campaigns, not only in the United
States, have once again made clear the big
influence of social media. If the American
diplomacy seems to be dominated by
tweets of President Donald Trump, then
you have to deal with that and students of
diplomacy have to be prepared for it.
How does the Academy‘s curriculum in general
deal with the digital revolution?
Actually, this will be my third focus –
“Cyber Security“ and “Digital Diplomacy“.
Future diplomats must learn how to protect
themselves – at the end of the day even
all critical public infrastructure – and what
kind of threats they are facing in cyberspace.
Plus, they need to know how to navigate
and what they can possibly achieve in
the digital world and what not.
Can you give us an example?
In traditional diplomacy you normally
know whom you are talking to and most of
the time how your counterpart will behave
as well. But in cyberspace, you often do not
know that, or at least not immediately, but
have to find out the hard way who really
sits at the digital levers of power. Out of this
reason, Denmark, for example, has put itself
in a pioneer position in “Techplomacy“
and just recently the country has installed
Mr Caspar Klynge as the world‘s first “digital
ambassador“. Austria is considering
such a position as well.
What would the job description of a digital
ambassador be?
Oh, the area of his tasks is pretty vast. A
digital ambassador would negotiate with
the big technology companies like Facebook,
Google or Microsoft, since these
multinationals have become the dominant
digital players shaping our future. A digital
ambassador has to figure out their strategies,
plans or business steps they are going
to take. Then he or she has to carefully
weigh them against the national interests of
the respresented state and to clarify these
interests to these companies. Apart from
this, a digital ambassador should develop a
national digital strategy in order to present
his or her country on digital platforms and
in social media. And finally, a digital ambassador
would have to observe carefully
how other states are acting in cyberspace.
So, the diplomatic challenges we are facing
are huge. The Diplomatic Academy Vienna
has to prepare its students for these developments
with state of the art education.
Where do you get the expertise from?
On the one hand, we can rely on the
practical knowledge and experience of all
ambassadors of Austria who are supplying
their input in a variety of academic courses.
On the other hand, we are lucky to have
many “external“ diplomats holding lectures
at the academy. Just recently, we had the
honour of a lecture of the Turkish Ambassador
H.E. Ertuğrul Apakan, the Chief Monitor
of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission
to Ukraine, who has reported about
the digital apects of his work. We also have
invited Mr Leigh Turner, the British Ambassador
to Austria, for lecturing. Actually,
he is a bit of a star amongst Vienna‘s diplomats
when it comes to managing social
media performance since his very personal
blog-report about his accident with a wild
boar last fall. And let us not forget the
many experts we have here in all the international
organisations located in Vienna.
Unfortunately, their expertise is often not
used as much as it could be. But we will
take advantage of their expertise in digital
matters for a number of courses as well as
to strengthen the role of the Diplomatic
Academy Vienna as a think tank.
Will you also offer academic preperation for
Austria‘s Presidency of the Council of the
European Union in the second half of 2018?
Of course we have adjusted our curriculum
to the Presidency with a number of
lectures – dealing with questions protocol
or negotiation management within the EU.
The time of Austria‘s Presidency will coinside
with an important phase of final Brexit
negotiations and our country will be judged
by its ability to handle them.
FOTOS: RALPH MANFREDA
living with fabulous view
extraordinary estates in three viennese districts:
in historical 1 st i in renown 19 th i in green 14 th
1190
wien / vienna
1140
wien / vienna
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+43 (0)2236 865 068 or www.seestebau.com
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70 Cercle Diplomatique 4/2017