00:00Grazie a tutti.
00:31Grazie a tutti.
01:27Grazie a tutti.
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01:40Grazie a tutti.
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03:57Grazie a tutti.
03:58Grazie a tutti.
03:58Grazie a tutti.
03:59Grazie a tutti.
04:01Grazie a tutti.
04:03Grazie a tutti.
04:21Grazie a tutti.
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04:33Grazie a tutti.
04:39Grazie a tutti.
04:45Grazie a tutti.
04:57Grazie a tutti.
05:00Grazie a tutti.
05:27Grazie a tutti.
05:30Grazie a tutti.
05:47Grazie a tutti.
05:48Grazie a tutti.
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05:49Grazie a tutti.
05:50Grazie a tutti.
05:51Grazie a tutti.
05:52Grazie a tutti.
06:05There's a lot of anger and despair here
06:11But we have this very slight glimmer of hope since yesterday evening with this historic moment of first step of
06:22talks.
06:23I can't even say negotiations so far because it looks like more a staging of negotiations rather than real negotiations
06:30with timelines and objectives and mediators.
06:33But still, it's such a historic occasion and it's maybe our last chance to start on the good path for
06:43a future process leading to maybe peace and stability for the future.
06:47Rima, you speak of a glimmer of hope, but I guess the elephant in the room in these talks is
06:52Hezbollah because Israel's war is on that militia group, but it's negotiating with Lebanon.
06:59And does the Lebanese government have any cards to play in these talks?
07:04Of course, but the Lebanese government needs the support of the international community.
07:10France, Europe, the Gulf countries, we need support to the army to re-legitimate the army and give her means
07:20to undertake this long process of reducing Hezbollah's militia
07:28and transform it into a more classical political party because Hezbollah won't disappear completely.
07:36But as a militia armed by Iran and funded by Iran, this is not our wish for the future of
07:44Lebanon anyway.
07:45So that's very clear that the Lebanese government wants also to get rid of this Iranian occupation on our ground.
07:55And I know that you yourself fled Lebanon when you were just 10 years old, shortly after Israel occupied the
08:02south of the country.
08:03And do you fear that we could see a repeat of history here?
08:08Because we have seen Israel trying to expand what they call the buffer zone in the south.
08:13Yeah, behind me you have old editions of Florian Le Jour from 1978 when Israel invaded the south.
08:23And actually Hezbollah was created in 1982 in reaction, in opposition, in resistance, as they say, to the Israeli occupation.
08:32So history told us during more than 40 years that occupation leads to extremism, leads to fanatism, leads to war
08:40and violence.
08:41So this is why we are very much concerned about what is going on now.
08:46No ceasefire, but the negotiations are starting.
08:50No guarantee that Israel will not occupy the south again.
08:54So this is really not reassuring, because if we start by the same vicious circle again, no peace is possible.
09:05Okay, Rima Abdulmalak, thank you so much.
09:08And I know the reporters of L'Orient Le Jour are doing important work there on the ground documenting what
09:12is happening in Lebanon.
09:13Thank you for joining us this morning.
09:16Now, moving on now, Pakistan has proposed, as we mentioned earlier, a second round of talks between the U.S.
09:24and Iran after last weekend's negotiations in Islamabad ended in a standoff.
09:30Yesterday, our EU editor Maria Tadeo spoke to President Donald Trump's former special representative to Iran, Elliot Abrams,
09:38and started by asking him what would constitute a good deal for the U.S. in those talks.
09:43The president needs to get a better deal than Barack Obama got in 2015 in the JCPOA, because he has
09:52reviled that agreement, the worst agreement in world history.
09:56So he's got to get better than that.
09:59That deal put off for maybe 10 years or so the Iranian nuclear program, but it said nothing about support
10:08for proxies.
10:09And it's nothing about the ballistic missile program.
10:13So I think Iran has got to be willing to give on those, or else the president will be forced
10:20to do something more.
10:22He's got now the blockade.
10:24What he has not done and might be a next step would be taking an island in the Persian Gulf.
10:32But, again, I think for all sorts of obvious reasons, politics, the U.S. economy, the elections in November, I
10:40don't think he wants to do that.
10:42The question, I think, is who's making decisions in Tehran and how much responsibility do they have?
10:49And that is a good question.
10:51So who do you think that person is?
10:52And, of course, this is all playing out big time in the energy market.
10:56Yeah, I don't think there is one person.
11:00There was in the late Supreme Leader.
11:02He could actually make a decision, one person, and make it stick.
11:07His son, who is now Supreme Leader, may even be in a coma.
11:11We don't know.
11:13Even if he is not in a coma, he's not able to enforce his rule.
11:20He's too new, too young.
11:23So I think it's probably a ruling group, a group of three or five or seven or ten people who
11:30sit at a table.
11:32Well, maybe they don't sit at a table because they're afraid a table will be hit by a bomb.
11:36But who talk to each other somehow and figure out how far can we go here.
11:43I think that's going to be a real problem.
11:45Of course, there's talks now between the Israelis and the Lebanese government, too, when you talk about the proxies.
11:50What is the calculus that Israel is making?
11:55The Israeli calculus, I think, is, look, they were attacked by Hezbollah.
11:59They were, and the U.S. was in a war with Iran, not with Lebanon.
12:03And Hezbollah, presumably under instructions from Tehran, attacked Israel.
12:09So the Israelis are pushing back.
12:11The Lebanese government, the Lebanese army are doing nothing.
12:13So the Israelis are pushing back.
12:16On the Iran front, they will follow President Trump.
12:20That is, when he said—
12:22If President Trump says that's a good deal, will they accept it?
12:24You believe they will accept it?
12:26Absolutely.
12:27Yeah.
12:28And what makes you believe that?
12:30Pardon?
12:30What makes you believe that?
12:33There's many who think Israel will still want to continue.
12:35No, they may still want to, but they won't.
12:39They have a very close relationship with the United States under President Trump.
12:43Netanyahu and Trump have a close relationship.
12:45In the 12-day war last year, last June, when Trump said stop, they stopped.
12:50And I think they will hear, too.
12:52We've heard now the U.S. president repeat it multiple times, NATO did not help.
12:56NATO countries say this is a defensive alliance.
12:59He keeps saying NATO, and the Europeans in particular, it's a paper tiger.
13:03What ramifications in the medium term is this going to have?
13:07On the medium term, I would take it to be three years, meaning the Trump years.
13:11You've got three years to go.
13:12The relationship is not going to improve much.
13:15He won't get out of NATO.
13:16I don't think he has the ability to get out of NATO legally under U.S. law.
13:22It takes more than a year, and you need Congress.
13:25But the relationship is clearly weakened.
13:28To me, the real question is, who is our next president, and will he try to rebuild that relationship?
13:39Elliot Abrams there.
13:40Moving on now, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is on a whistle-tops tour of European
13:46capitals.
13:46He'll be in Rome later today after visits to Germany and Norway yesterday.
13:52To debrief us on his talks with the German Chancellor Friedrich Metz, we can bring in
13:56our correspondent, Laura Fleischmann, who's standing by for us in a sunny Berlin this morning.
14:03Good morning, Laura.
14:04Can you start by telling us what was achieved in that surprise visit by Zelensky to Berlin yesterday?
14:12Good morning to you, too.
14:14And the main headline to come out of this visit is likely going to be the strategic partnership
14:19that Germany and Ukraine want to work on that goes well beyond military aid.
14:24There were multiple agreements signed, one on working together in defense and another
14:29one on rebuilding Ukraine's industry.
14:32And those focused on working together regarding air defense, drones and joint development projects.
14:39But this visit was truly important and significant because those were the first government consultations
14:45between Ukraine and Germany in well over 20 years.
14:48Zelensky brought a big delegation with him alongside his defense minister.
14:52And they worked together on speaking about the EU loan, the 90 billion euro loan that has
15:00been blocked by Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban.
15:03And now with the opposition winning just last weekend, Merz, he sees a window of opportunity
15:07opening up to release this loan.
15:10And he pushed hard on releasing it.
15:12And Zelensky, during his visit, he stated that he still wants to join the EU.
15:16He wants to join NATO.
15:17He doesn't want a light EU or light NATO membership.
15:20But let's hear it from Zelensky himself what he actually had to say during his visit in Berlin.
15:28We simply do not have enough money.
15:30But today we have already talked about it.
15:32And we hope that Germany, as one of the leaders of the European Union, will help us to quickly
15:37unlock 90 billion euros and we will be able to replenish our Ukrainian products with investments.
15:42And then the total use of products on the battlefield will be even greater.
15:50And the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, will also host guests, including the NATO chief,
15:55Mark Rutte, in Berlin later today.
15:57Laura, what can we expect?
16:00Well, today the Ukraine defence contact group is coming together.
16:04It's a group consisting of well over 50 member states.
16:07They work on coordinating military aid for Ukraine.
16:10And what's likely going to be most interesting about today is that Ukraine plans on presenting
16:15its war plan on how to push Russia further towards peace.
16:19And this plan consists of three key elements.
16:21The first one is air defence.
16:23The second one, drone expansion.
16:24But the third one I find most fascinating, it's data exchange.
16:28Ukraine plans on exchanging real combat data with technology and with funding.
16:34So it wants to support its supporters.
16:37And yesterday and today showed that Berlin is cementing itself as the coordination hub
16:43for European defence support to Ukraine as the US steps down and the EU steps up.
16:49Laura in Berlin, thank you so much for bringing us up to speed there.
16:53Now moving on to Spain now.
16:56The leader, Pedro Sánchez, has gained a reputation on the international stage
17:00for its critical stance on the wars in Gaza and Iran.
17:04But at home, he faces a tough and polarising political environment
17:08as both government and opposition face damning allegations of corruption.
17:14Jakub Yanis takes a closer look.
17:17As some of you have possibly noticed,
17:20Pedro Sánchez is positioning himself as the ultimate progressive hero,
17:24famously defying Donald Trump over the war in Iran.
17:27Esta es la verdadera tragedia.
17:29Porque lo último que necesitaba el mundo es otra guerra.
17:33Y en esta ocasión una guerra ilegal.
17:36And his international popularity seems to be rising.
17:39But at home, the Spanish Prime Minister is fighting a completely different war.
17:44A massive wave of domestic corruption scandals.
17:47So what is going on there?
17:50First, the Prime Minister wife, Begonia Gómez,
17:54is facing now trial for influence peddling and embezzlement.
17:57accused of using her position to secure funding for her private university projects.
18:02But to make matters worse, Sánchez's inner circle is collapsing.
18:07Last June, his former senior aide, Santos Cerdán,
18:11was placed in a pretrial detention for alleged bribery.
18:14Then, in November, his former transport minister, José Luis Ábalos,
18:19and top aide, Caldo García,
18:21were placed in custody over the Caldo case.
18:25All right, all right, but in plain English,
18:27these officials allegedly took secret cash payouts
18:30for awarding lucrative government face mask contracts during the COVID pandemic.
18:35So they might have been in the business of covering people's faces.
18:38But if these accusations prove true,
18:41they did a terrible job of covering their own tracks.
18:45And naturally, the opposition Partido Popular
18:48is demanding the Prime Minister resign immediately.
18:51However, their outrage is complicated
18:53by their own historical scandals.
18:56Most notably, the Kitchen case,
18:58now in trial,
19:00where the party allegedly used state police
19:02to destroy evidence of illegal financing.
19:05So how bad is the systemic rot?
19:07According to Transparency International,
19:10in recent years, Spain has suffered a significant decline.
19:13Looking at the latest EU data,
19:15Spain is placed firmly in the lower half of the 27-member bloc.
19:19They are still doing better than Italy and Poland,
19:22but they are drifting uncomfortably close to the bottom of the table,
19:25where you will find Hungary and Bulgaria.
19:28So it seems Sánchez might be standing up to Washington,
19:31but his greatest challenge is surviving Madrid.
19:39Jakub Yanis there.
19:41And that brings this edition of Europe Today to an end.
19:43Thank you so much for tuning in.
19:45And if you have tips for us,
19:46you can get in touch on europetoday at euronews.com.
19:50We'd love to hear from you.
19:52We'll see you same place, same time tomorrow morning.
19:56See you soon here on Euronews.
20:01clientele.
20:01Bye.
20:01Bye.
20:02Bye.
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