-By LeN Diplomatic Editor
(Lanka-e-News -27.May.2025, 11.40 AM) In the world of diplomacy, visits are rarely what they seem. They are equal parts policy, pantomime, and public relations. And when Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, steps off the tarmac at Bandaranaike International Airport on 28 May, he will bring with him not just the weight of the European Union’s geopolitical apparatus but also a bundle of Oxford nostalgia, Cold War scars, and a curious fondness for Sri Lanka that predates the country’s modern WiFi.
It’s not every day that the European Union sends a man who once dodged the KGB and shared pub rounds with Sri Lankan students in the dreaming spires of Oxford, to now forge strategic partnerships in Colombo's slightly less dreamy humidity. But diplomacy, much like old university friendships, has a way of resurfacing when it matters.
Sikorski, who represents the EU in his official capacity under the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, will be on the island until 31 May. He comes not merely as a Polish emissary but on behalf of the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the indomitable Kaja Kallas—who has, wisely or otherwise, delegated this tropical detour to her Polish colleague.
This visit isn’t just diplomatic box-ticking. It carries undertones of European repositioning in South Asia—a region where Western powers have often played chess but rarely sat down for tea. Sri Lanka, with its famed strategic location and historically stubborn independence, finds itself again being courted by the West, the East, and everyone in between—China with its debt diplomacy, India with its regional ambitions, and the EU with its PowerPoints.
Sikorski's visit signals that Brussels has decided it’s time to be more than a grumpy observer in the Indian Ocean’s increasingly crowded geopolitical theatre.
Sikorski is not your average Eurocrat. Long before he was donning Savile Row suits and quoting Tocqueville at international conferences, he was dodging Poland’s Communist authorities and writing dispatches for The Spectator as a war correspondent in Afghanistan—often while ducking bullets and dysentery in equal measure.
It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that he forged an unusual bond with Sri Lankan students during his time at Oxford—young men and women whose own experience of violence and authoritarianism in the 1980s mirrored his.
Fast-forward several decades, and here we are: two ex-student activists—Sikorski and Sri Lanka’s current Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath—meeting not in a college bar but in a mahogany-panelled ministry room, exchanging niceties over statecraft instead of student manifestos.
Herath himself is no stranger to anti-establishment credentials. As a student leader with the JVP-aligned Socialist Students Union, he was brutalised under the old UNP regime’s iron-fisted crackdown in the late 1980s, when politics in Sri Lanka was more Molotov than manifesto. That both men now occupy the foreign ministries of their respective countries is either a testament to youthful resilience or a sign that student politics is the most effective form of early career training for navigating bureaucracy.
In what has already been described by the EU as a “strategic visit,” Sikorski is expected to hold courtesy calls on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya—the dynamic duo of Sri Lanka’s political revolution.
Dissanayake, the firebrand former Marxist who now finds himself in the awkward position of enforcing fiscal discipline, and Amarasuriya, the soft-spoken academic who somehow became the island’s first female Prime Minister, represent a generational shift in Sri Lankan politics—one that Brussels, with its obsession for “values” and “civil society,” will find positively intoxicating.
The EU delegation, no doubt fresh from hours of PowerPoint presentations in Brussels on "regional synergies" and "post-colonial engagement models," will be treated to a Sri Lanka that’s simultaneously trying to fix its economy, heal its trauma, and fend off geopolitical suitors with the finesse of a tango dancer in flip-flops.
While official statements are predictably vague—“strengthening longstanding cooperation” and “mutually beneficial dialogue”—sources suggest the EU is interested in deepening trade ties under the GSP+ scheme, exploring clean energy cooperation, and possibly offering assistance with Sri Lanka’s ongoing debt restructuring.
China won’t be named in the press briefings, of course. But you can bet your last rupee that it will be whispered in the side rooms. Europe, it seems, has realised that letting Beijing hand out infrastructure loans with fewer strings than a broken violin wasn’t exactly a winning strategy. The EU now hopes to offer an alternative: smaller cheques, longer discussions, and vastly more paperwork.
But don’t expect the Sri Lankans to sign anything hastily. They’ve seen enough Memorandums of Understanding to know that most end up forgotten somewhere between the cocktail reception and the final communiqué.
Sikorski’s schedule is rumoured to include a few informal reunions with Sri Lankan classmates from his Oxford days—a nostalgic subplot that Ministry insiders are both amused and alarmed by. One unnamed diplomat joked that it would be “less of a bilateral visit and more of a post-colonial high-table reunion.”
But beneath the pleasantries and photo ops, Sikorski’s visit underscores a more subtle transformation in EU foreign policy: a desire to reclaim influence through soft power, historic relationships, and diplomatic charm rather than coercive economics. It's less "guns and butter" and more "books and biscuits."
In a region where India and China often conduct foreign policy with swaggering machismo, Brussels is experimenting with a different playbook: the polite gentleman in the room with a wallet, a conscience, and a taste for Darjeeling.
It’s tempting to romanticise the idea of two former student radicals—Sikorski and Herath—now wearing suits and navigating geopolitical minefields. But the symbolism is powerful.
Both men were once chased by riot police for daring to demand freedom and equality. Now they discuss trade quotas and regional security on official notepaper embossed with national crests. Somewhere between the Molotov cocktails and ministerial cocktails lies a story of survival, reinvention, and compromise.
And in this shared past, there may lie the seeds of future cooperation. Because unlike bureaucrats raised in conference rooms, men forged in the fires of real political struggle understand that behind every trade deal is a story of human pain, progress, and sometimes betrayal.
When the Sikorski delegation eventually leaves Colombo—sunburnt, overfed, and overloaded with Batik shirts—it will mark more than the end of a formal visit. It will signal the rekindling of a European effort to engage Sri Lanka not as a project, but as a partner.
Whether Brussels can deliver on that promise, however, remains to be seen. EU foreign policy is famously inconsistent—like a soufflé that collapses if stared at too long. But for now, the optics are good. There are cameras, commitments, and coffee. The communiqués will be read, the handshakes photographed, and the diplomatic diaries updated.
As for Sikorski, perhaps he’ll find a moment amid the diplomatic folderol to reflect on how far both he and Sri Lanka have come—from student barricades to bilateral negotiations.
And perhaps he’ll quietly toast that journey—not with champagne, but with a cup of strong Ceylon tea.
-By LeN Diplomatic Editor
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by (2025-05-27 06:11:37)
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