00:00Well, very sobering. Thank you very much for that introductory thought.
00:05Prime Minister Deweyver, of course, Europe's under pressure from two sides.
00:08Russia, but also we have Donald Trump arriving tomorrow demanding Greenland, part of a European Union country.
00:15I noticed.
00:15Yeah.
00:16So the question, people keep asking me in the corridors, do you think Europe will stay united?
00:24A lot of people saying, you know, Europe's going to fold in the end, that's what they do.
00:28Europe won't be able to push back.
00:31How confident are you that Europe can, as von der Leyen said, stay united, proportional and respond?
00:37It's a very good question, actually.
00:39I wonder about this myself.
00:40We're under a lot of pressure.
00:41We're 27 countries.
00:43And if you're under pressure, two things can happen.
00:45If you have outside pressure, you can come together or you can explode in any possible direction.
00:52And I think Europe is at a crossroads where it has to decide.
00:54Until now, we tried to appease the new president in the White House.
01:01We were very lenient, also with the tariffs.
01:03We were lenient, hoping to get his support for the Ukraine war.
01:07We are in a very bad position at the moment.
01:09We're dependent on the United States.
01:11So we chose to be lenient.
01:13But now, so many red lines are being crossed that you have the choice between your self-respect.
01:21Being a happy vassal is one thing.
01:23Being a miserable slave is something else.
01:25If you back down now, you're going to lose your dignity.
01:30And that's probably the most precious thing you can have in a democracy.
01:33It's your dignity.
01:34So we should unite and we should say to Donald Trump, I'm going to meet him tomorrow.
01:40The meeting was fixed before the Greenland issue.
01:42Looking forward to it?
01:43Oh, yeah.
01:44Yeah, I'm looking forward.
01:45The king will accompany me on the...
01:48I'm looking at the queen who's sitting in the front row.
01:51Our king will accompany me at the meeting.
01:53But it will have a different character than we had planned.
01:57It will probably be the message that we have to send.
01:59You're crossing red lines here.
02:01We either stand together or we will stand divided.
02:04And if we are divided, there is the end of an era of 80 years of Atlantism is really drawing to a close.
02:12And, you know, as Gramsci said, if the old is dying and the new is not yet born, you live in a time of monsters.
02:18And it's up to him to decide if he wants to be a monster, yes or no.
02:23Very good.
02:24Before I move on to Prime Minister Plenkovich, I just wanted to ask you about the aftermath of the whole EuroClear argument,
02:30which you were absolutely in the center of.
02:33And I think you must have been reasonably happy, if not with the argument, with the outcome.
02:36But some people will say, well, that whole episode just told you about Europe's problems.
02:43Here's Europe.
02:44We say we're going to do this big thing.
02:46And then we all sit around arguing.
02:48And then we do a little thing.
02:49And everybody says, oh, look, they can't get it together.
02:52I'm going to try to be a little bit optimistic.
02:56Otherwise, it's going to be a very depressing session here.
02:59At the end of the day, we decided to aid Ukraine with 90 billion euros.
03:04And that was the thing we had to do, keep Ukraine in the fight.
03:07Because the United States is no longer supporting them.
03:10They're on their own.
03:11It's not looking good.
03:12Was Europe able to say, we're going to do whatever it takes to keep you in the fight?
03:16And at the end, we did.
03:18The way in which we did it, the discussions we had, maybe, are not an example of the best
03:25governance you can imagine.
03:26But at the end of the day, there was a result.
03:28But of course, we are in a bad position.
03:30We didn't do our homework.
03:32We stayed believing in the United West.
03:35But the writing was already on the wall when Obama said, I'm the first Pacific president.
03:41The burden shift from the United States towards China.
03:43We chose to ignore it and to keep enjoying the peace dividends.
03:47We didn't rearm.
03:48We didn't strengthen ourselves.
03:49Now we're in a weak position.
03:51But I think, having said that, that we made the choice to support Ukraine.
03:57Only we learned a lesson the hard way with the Euroclear and the reparation loan debate that
04:03there is no such thing as free money.
04:05There's nothing like the Alibaba cave that opens and you can simply take the gold and get
04:10away with it.
04:10That was an illusion that existed for a few months at the European table.
04:15But I think we managed to put an end to it for the moment.
04:20Okay.
04:20Prime Minister Plenkovich, I'm interested in your take.
04:24Again, to quote the president of the commission, she said, Europe's response will be unflinching,
04:29united and proportional.
04:32There's a European Council meeting on Thursday night.
04:34What kinds of things will Croatia be arguing for, that Europe should respond to, from these
04:40twin challenges, Russia and the United States now?
04:43Yes.
04:44First of all, thank you for being here again for the 10th season in a row as the Prime Minister
04:49of Croatia.
04:50My first point is regarding what we were discussing in December in Brussels.
04:56I think whatever the outcome was, pending option A, option B, using the Russian Central Bank frozen
05:05assets or the loan, the good outcome that we have found 90 billion euros to finance Ukraine
05:11for 26 and 27, both functioning of the state, the entire, I would say, blood flow of the
05:18financial system and also helping Ukraine to defend itself.
05:23This was the key political objective.
05:25How we got objective, how we got to it was basically a technique.
05:29I think the outcome which came out was a little bit more secure when it comes to the legal
05:35certainty and therefore Bart has managed to convince the majority of us that his arguments
05:41were fine.
05:42When it comes to the two pressures, one coming from Russia with a brutal violation of international
05:48law and the aggression against Ukraine after other episodes in the part of Europe, which
05:54was formerly a neighborhood, now it's more into the enlargement basket, I mean here, Moldova
06:00and Georgia, which do have basically frozen territories, I think that the key aspect is to remain vigorously
06:08on the side of the Ukrainians and on the side of freedom, democracy and international law.
06:13This is what we stand for.
06:15This is why we have supported so strongly Ukraine over the past four years.
06:19I think many of us will be heading to Kyiv on the 24th of February to extend further support.
06:26And I think we should a little bit revisit what we discussed a few days ago and that is the peace plan.
06:33Now the Greenland has taken us the entire debate into a different direction, a bit odd, unexpected,
06:39but these are the realities of a change in global order.
06:43We are, as we have seen recently, in the situation where the international organizations, international law, global governance,
06:52as we knew it is changing so rapidly that we need to position ourselves.
06:56So I think the only safe way for the European Union to remain an actor is to try to be as united as possible.
07:02Not necessarily all the governments are singing the same tune.
07:08And if that is visible from someone who would like to see a little bit more divisions on the EU side,
07:15then that will be exactly the weak spot and the weak link which will be emphasized.
07:19So I guess that this meeting on Thursday night is supposed to strengthen our position on supporting Denmark, obviously.
07:27That is a very logical way to do it, but also maintaining sensible, reasonable, expected, good transatlantic ties with the United States.
07:37I mean, for all of us, despite all the, let's say, noise in the communications channel,
07:42I mean, the United States is an ally and a friend.
07:44I don't know anybody among 27 who has altered that position.
07:48So we need to talk to each other more, maybe be less abrupt in being faced with fait accompli propositions,
07:55but more talking to each other and finding solutions for the global order.
07:59This is our position and this is a line of Croatia that has been very clear for the last 10 years.
08:06Thank you very much.
08:07Marguerite, you run a big European bank.
08:12And both things, I guess, are important to you.
08:15You're European, you're also a banker.
08:17How do you navigate these geopolitical waters?
08:21I was quite struck that the European Business Roundtable issued a statement saying,
08:26you know, OK, it's enough with America, we need to get tough,
08:28which is not the normal thing that you expect business people to say.
08:33So how do you see it?
08:36You're right.
08:37As my accent probably betrays me, I'm French.
08:40And at the same time, you know, I live in Amsterdam, running, you know, a Dutch bank.
08:45So I would define myself as passionately European.
08:50And when I try to think about what, you know, what are all European values,
08:56I would say that, you know, this is about, you know, the rule of law.
08:59This is about human dignity.
09:01This is about democracy.
09:02This is about also reason, reason and truth.
09:05And all these values of cooperation have serviced well in the past decades,
09:14you know, and helped us build a Europe-free war.
09:19Right now, we feel challenges from all fronts outside of Europe,
09:26you know, with wars, with authoritarian regimes,
09:31and also, in fairness, within Europe,
09:34with, I would say, added polarization,
09:39sometimes the erosion of truth in our internal debate,
09:43and sometimes also political instability and fragmentation.
09:48And right now, looking at Europe, we sometimes feel,
09:53hey, are we a herbivore in a world of carnivores?
Comments