Sovereignty is so in right now.

While most of the foreign-affairs discussion centers on the incoming Trump administration’s distrust of international institutions, the European Union’s member nations are about to have their liberation day. EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell, a man who personifies the supranational authoritarianism at the heart of the mega-statist project, is about to step down and relieve Europe from the burden of his faux-command.

Contrary to the EU’s ostensible purpose, Borrell deplores consensus and the concept of individual national interest. On his way out the door he is trying to take one more shot at Israel—the hatred of which is the only thing that gets some bureaucrats out of bed in the morning—in a manner that is not only unpopular among EU states but practically imperial. He didn’t bother consulting those whom he supposedly represents.

According to AFP and the Times of Israel, Borrell “has written to member states to ask them to suspend the EU’s political dialogue with Israel — part of a wider agreement governing trade ties — ‘over alleged abuses’ in the Gaza conflict.”

When it comes to Israel, the diplomats are against diplomacy. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, and Greece were among those who immediately objected to Borrell’s harebrained scheme. When the seat of the International Criminal Court opposes your anti-Israel stunt, perhaps you have overstepped your mandate.

Borrell wasn’t surprised at the opposition to his idea, of course. The purpose was not to make it happen but to blow a spitball across the room at the Jewish state. This is the performative sneering of a man with more power than he should have ever been granted, even if it is less power than he thinks he was granted.

One might think that after the Amsterdam pogrom and the following riots, and with France trying to keep a lid on the boiling pot of anti-Zionism the day of a soccer match with Israel’s visiting national team, it would be poor timing to renew a public campaign of incitement against the Jewish state. And one would be right. But Josep Borrell isn’t interested in turning down the temperature.

Why would Borrell even expend the energy to do this? The likeliest explanation is that his successor isn’t the power-mad supra-nationalist that Borrell has been. Former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who resigned earlier this year in order to begin the transition to the EU’s foreign-policy office, will take the wheel. Deutsche Welle reports that, “According to EU lawmakers, Estonian experts and an Israeli insider DW spoke with, Kallas is expected to adopt a balanced approach and take the lead from member states instead of trying to own the policy.”

Estonia’s major preoccupation is with Russia, and for good reason. In June, Estonian courts convicted and sentenced a university professor for spying for Russia, “part of a campaign of sabotage, electronic warfare and information gathering” on the part of Moscow. In May, Russia removed the demarcations of its border with Estonia.

As Russia continued to wage its war of aggression in Ukraine, Estonia built its first new military base since 1991. That base will host U.S. military personnel beginning next year.

Last month, Deutsche Welle reported that Estonia has been running evacuation drills in the south of the country to prepare for a possible Russian attack. “It is not a secret, where we are living. We are not alone in the Baltic region,” Lt. Col. Raul Kütt, commander of the southern division of Estonia’s Defense League, told the paper. “The same applies to Latvia and Lithuania. And we don’t know what the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict will be. Can it spread? In order to be ready for the worst-case scenario, we still have time to exercise these kind of activities.”

For the European Union to have an incoming foreign-policy chief who is focused on the safety and security of Europe, rather than using his platform to cater to elite anti-Israel sentiment, would obviously be good for Europe. Israel is pretty happy about it too. “EU-Israel relations can only improve under the new leadership,” the American Jewish Committee’s Daniel Schwammenthal told DW. The paper also quoted an Austrian parliamentarian expressing his hope that Kallas “will be better than her predecessor.”

That last one is a low bar—but that’s nobody’s fault but Borrell’s.