Next EU foreign policy chief warns of EU irrelevance

The European Union must learn to speak with one voice on the international stage and also develop a "military capacity to act" or slide into irrelevance, eclipsed by Washington and Beijing, its incoming foreign policy chief said on Monday.

The EU, with a total population of more than 500 million, accounts for more than 20 percent of global economic output and is the world's biggest aid donor, wielding considerable "soft power".

But its complex institutional arrangements and the competing priorities among its 28 member states have long checked its influence in foreign and security policy.

The decision of Britain to leave the EU, Washington's withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and Europe's failure to help stabilise neighbours from the Caucasus to the Sahara have further undermined the EU's global clout.

Josep Borrell, Spain's foreign minister who...