It's cool, I'm sure we'd accept a simple apology if Iran surrounded Air Force one with jets and forced it to land. Oh did I say simple apology? I meant missiles, lots of missiles.
Please be aware that the Austrians are weird with regard to these things. AFAIK, Austria is the only country where the activities of intelligence agencies, including foreign ones, are by law legal as long as they don't run contrary to the interests of the Austrian state.
The Austrians are very proud of the role they played as a spy-habitat during the cold war and many look back at this time with nostalgia. Anything that the Austrian president says in a context such as this might or might not be tongue-in-cheek.
What he should do now is get strong guarantees that this won't happen again, no matter what (maybe with a new EU resolution/law) - and then go and retrieve Snowden.
What are the EU countries going to do? Humiliate themselves twice? At least then we'll know just how much of a vassal relationship they have with US.
How do you know that they won't get at least something more meaningful out of this? Spain especially is very dependent on good relations with South-American countries, since Spain has a kind of diplomatic "gateway to South-America" role within the EU.
Bolivia lost all diplomatic credibility with Spain before this plane landing incident.
The Bolivian government unilaterally nationalised subsidiaries of Spanish private companies without any explanation, in exchange for nothing. I really doubt Bolivia will get the apology they believe they deserve at the EU level.
Well, if I become aware of them doing so, then I'll up my confidence in this method being more productive. But I can't, at least off hand, think of a time when this sort of approach has worked for a country that hasn't had fairly significant leverage.
I don't know about weak. It makes the other party look rather hypocritical if they should ever complain about being treated in kind. This can be manipulated to sway public opinion and that can at times be a powerful thing.
