00:00Commercial vessels targeted in the Strait of Hormuz as the International Energy Agency
00:06agreeing to release a record 400 million barrels of oil stockpiles to soothe the jitters on world markets.
00:15France's president arguing against a return to Russian oil.
00:20A sentiment shared by the European Commission president who says it would be a strategic blunder.
00:27Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke earlier before the EU Parliament in Strasbourg.
00:32Now, von der Leyen turned heads on Monday when she warned that of a rules-based order
00:39that's been put under a further strain by the war with Iran.
00:44But at the same time, these attempts to label today's world
00:51mask two tangible and structural realities which are far from important for Europe.
01:02The first is that Europe can no longer be a custodian of the old world order.
01:11For a world that has gone and will not return.
01:17We will always defend and uphold the rules-based system that we helped to build with our allies.
01:23But we can no longer rely on it as the only way to defend our interests.
01:30Europe can no longer be a custodian of the old order.
01:35That remark drew pushback this Wednesday from some EU lawmakers in Strasbourg.
01:42The question is simple.
01:45What is our interest as Europeans?
01:47Is it the law of the strongest or rules that are commonly established and that defend our own interests?
01:53Even those most cynical, once the bombings have stopped,
01:56will once again call for international law and diplomacy.
01:58Therefore, we must be uncompromising and unambiguous in respecting and defending international law.
02:07Well, joining us now, she's a former member of the European Parliament for the same Renew Europe group as Valérie
02:13Hallier,
02:14who you heard in that clip there.
02:16Sophie Intveld joins us from Ghent in Belgium.
02:19Thank you for being with us here on France 24.
02:23Thank you for inviting me.
02:25What Ursula von der Leyen said in that clip we heard earlier,
02:30is it a problem or is she just stating fact?
02:34Well, you know, if you refer to a radical and rapid change of the world order,
02:40I think that is stating a fact where she seems to suggest that Europe should no longer,
02:50let's say, respect the international law and the rules-based order.
02:55I think that is a big mistake.
02:57But what is, I think, more important here is to underline that it's essentially an academic debate,
03:03because the way that the European Union at the moment exercises its foreign policies is completely anachronistic.
03:14Europe is irrelevant.
03:16So all these debates are fairly, you know, academic, internal.
03:22We should be talking very urgently about how we can have a European Union that speaks with one voice.
03:28And then we can also argue about what that voice should say.
03:32But for the time being, it's just a cacophony, you know.
03:36And we are irrelevant in geopolitics.
03:40Irrelevant in geopolitics when you see all those European ships now that are in the eastern Mediterranean
03:49and those that are rallying to support, for instance, Cyprus?
03:54Well, they're not European.
03:57They're national ships and there may be cooperation bilateral or multilateral between a number of member states
04:05or even with non-EU countries.
04:08But it's not EU.
04:10The European Union is not speaking with one voice.
04:13It's actually speaking with 27 plus voices.
04:17We see the huge differences between what the Spanish prime minister has said, who has condemned the attack on Iran.
04:25Then we have the Dutch prime minister who said, well, we condemn it, but or it's not in line with
04:31international law, but we understand.
04:33Then we have Friedrich Merz, who is wholeheartedly supporting it.
04:36He's changed his stance a little since then.
04:39Yes, but the point is, it's not about those individual views, because those views are irrelevant if they don't lead
04:46to action.
04:46And the point here is that, you know, I have a personal view.
04:53I mean, I'm more aligned with what Sanchez said than Merz.
04:56But in the end, if you have 27 or 28 different views, then basically what you're doing is having an
05:03academic debate inside the European Union with zero impact on the world stage.
05:09What we are doing now is just commenting each time on the initiatives of Donald Trump.
05:14You know, each time we're scrambling to find a common response or something that resembles a common response.
05:21But there is no European strategy.
05:23There is no European foreign policy.
05:26We see that Kayakalas is basically, you know, abandoned by the member states.
05:31And, you know, in any democracy, of course, there is a plurality of views.
05:35That's normal.
05:36But when it's about Europe, we say, well, we're divided.
05:40No, we're only divided because we don't have a mechanism to decide on a common position.
05:45And we urgently need that.
05:47We cannot keep talking about, you know, how the world order is changing and how the European Union should become
05:53a geopolitical power.
05:55If we stick to a model that was designed for, at best, the 20th century, but more likely the 19th
06:03century.
06:04Let's say there were 25 nations in total agreement.
06:09You would still have Slovakia and Hungary.
06:12But that's that's always the case.
06:14There's always, you know, all it takes is one to disagree.
06:17And then and then you don't have a common position.
06:20Sorry, this is this is not workable anymore.
06:23And I think it is, you know, the government leaders who were criticizing Ursula von der Leyen.
06:29And I'm usually the first to criticize her for a number of things.
06:32But in this case, what they did by criticizing her for overstepping her powers was just putting the spotlight on
06:40their own failure to to agree on anything.
06:43They put the spotlight on the vacuum that she stepped into.
06:48So rather than criticizing her, maybe they should all sit down together and not leave the room anymore until they
06:54have reformed the European Union and at the very least abolish the vetoes in foreign policies.
07:02All right.
07:03So on Monday, the European Commission president, von der Leyen, taking part in a conference call with Mideast leaders alongside
07:10the European Council president, who he represents the bloc's 27 heads of state.
07:17What you're alluding to there is that it raised eyebrows in Brussels.
07:20Politico, which quotes diplomatics and lawmakers who criticize what they described as the European Commission president's diplomatic overreach.
07:29They have the feeling that she elbowed the EU foreign policy chief Kayakalas out of the way by being the
07:36one in the room with those Mideast leaders.
07:39You're saying now's not the time to criticize that?
07:43Oh, but that's not the point.
07:45Well, first of all, it made me smile because there is a degree of hypocrisy here because the European Council
07:51of Government Leaders is now systematically and grossly overstepping its treaty-based powers all the time.
07:59So it's a bit rich.
08:00But I firmly believe in a clear and robust constitutional framework that is respected by everyone.
08:10Now, it is true that the commission president does not have this role of being, let's say, the top diplomat
08:17on behalf of the European Union.
08:18That is supposed to be Kayakalas.
08:20The point is that Kayakalas' hands are tied because 27 national ministers or government leaders refuse, just refuse to take
08:30responsibility and agree on a common position.
08:33So they are leaving a vacuum, which is now filled by Mrs. von der Leyen.
08:37So rather than criticizing her, what they should be doing is talking about how we are going to very, very
08:43quickly reform the European Union because it's no longer fit for purpose.
08:48All right.
08:49So in Sophie Entfeld's revolution, how do you organize a response quickly when you have war in Iran, for instance?
09:01Well, it's nice to say revolution, because I do think we need a bit of a revolution in the European
09:06Union.
09:09But no, because it's all going too slow and all this.
09:12No, in, let's say, my ideal European Union, you have a European government, you know, with a European minister of
09:22foreign affairs and a European, let's say, prime minister and European minister of defense.
09:26So it's very clear who is in charge.
09:29And then, of course, you all consult.
09:32I mean, we're still a democratic society.
09:35But ultimately, there will be, let's say, in the current situation, Kayakas would be the European minister of foreign affairs,
09:43and she would speak on behalf of the European Union.
09:47Now, there may be, you know, the European minister of foreign affairs could take a position that I would agree
09:54with or not agree with.
09:55But that is democracy.
09:57I find it, you know, all this insistence on, oh, national sovereignty, sorry, national sovereignty has also become irrelevant in
10:05this kind of situations.
10:06Because now we're having an academic debate amongst Europeans about what is the better position and who is doing what.
10:13And ultimately, it is irrelevant, because Trump is doing whatever he pleases anyway.
10:18Europe has no strategy.
10:19We're only reacting to what he is doing.
10:22And I think it's pretty disastrous what is happening now in Iran and the Middle East.
10:28You say no strategy.
10:30It's true that when we saw last week the German chancellor at the White House, it was laid bare.
10:37He criticized the Spanish prime minister in front of Donald Trump.
10:43Since then, Friedrich Mertz has rolled it back.
10:45Today, we heard the Italian prime minister effectively aligning herself with the other big major European powers on this issue.
10:55Is that strategy coming together, even though it's being done in an informal way?
11:03Sorry, it's not a strategy.
11:05It is just a debate about, you know, how we view the actions of the American government.
11:10Yeah, OK, their messages.
11:12I'd like action.
11:13You know, European Union should not be following the whole time.
11:17Why?
11:18If we have a proper, let's say, European government, then we would have our own strategy for Iran, for the
11:24Middle East, for, you know, many, many regions in the world.
11:28Now we're only reactive.
11:31We're only responding or reacting, having an opinion, having a view on what Trump and his administration are doing.
11:38We don't have a strategy of our own.
11:41And I think that, too, is leaving a vacuum in the world.
11:46So it's high time that the European Union starts talking about, yeah, constitutional reform.
11:52We need that urgently.
11:54Sophie Enfeld, so many thanks for joining us from Ghent in Belgium.
11:59Pleasure.
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