Kaja Kallas was prime minister of Estonia before becoming the EU's foreign-policy chief. She has been among the most vocal European leaders on the Russian threat, arguing in 2024 that an attack on NATO is "a question of when", not if. She has long lobbied for Europeans to equate all Russians with the regime they live under; in November 2025 the EU ended multiple-entry Schengen visas for Russian citizens, a policy she championed. In 2025 she warned that the EU is "ready to impose costs" on China for "malicious cyber activities" targeting EU commercial and political targets. After Britain, France and Germany triggered the JCPOA's snapback mechanism to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran, she met IAEA chief Rafael Grossi and maintained that "the window of diplomacy is still open".
She has raised fears that China could weaponise Arctic shipping routes and mineral supply chains.
As head of the European External Action Service (EEAS), she rules over what critics call a dysfunctional empire: the EU's 27 national governments jealously guard their right to their own foreign policy even as they pay lip service to the bloc speaking with a single voice. She was not personally implicated in a December 2025 Belgian police investigation into corruption at the EEAS relating to a diplomatic training academy, as the events under scrutiny predated her appointment.
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.