00:00And now for The View from Finland. Coming up, we'll be joined by Ville Tavio, Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade
00:06and Development in Brussels today for talks with ministers from all across the EU.
00:11Ville Tavio is a member of the National Conservative Finns party and he's been active in national politics for several
00:17years.
00:18Good morning, Minister. Lovely to have you with us.
00:19Good morning. Great to be here.
00:20So first, we're of course looking at those pictures of the Indian head of state travelling all across Europe.
00:26This comes just after that big historic deal was signed. What's Finland's view here? What's your view here?
00:31Well, the Finnish president also had a state visit to India a couple of months ago.
00:37And it's absolutely one strategic partnership in order to diverse the trade.
00:43And tell me, it comes just a couple of days after India hosted BRICS foreign ministers.
00:48So is there anything the European Union can do to put pressure on India to help end the war in
00:53Ukraine?
00:55I really hope so, of course. And that's one of the reasons that Finland thinks it's important to have these
01:00close relations.
01:02But I would say that rather recently we've seen development in the trade and the quest in diversification of trade
01:12and China plus one mission instead of focusing only on these difficult topics.
01:19Because, of course, you had that drone incident on Friday, which seems to have been settled.
01:23But let's talk about this big week for the EU-US trade deal that could get over the line by
01:28June.
01:29But in the European Parliament, we're seeing a lot of different debates.
01:32There'll be trilogues this week, so negotiations on whether or not to put conditions on this deal that, of course,
01:37as you know, is pretty controversial.
01:40But putting conditions on it at this late stage, could that not anger President Donald Trump?
01:44What is your view here?
01:46Well, we are in favour of forcing what's agreed.
01:51And we see cautious optimism that the trilogues are moving very well, to my knowledge.
01:59So, after all, we want to create bridges and not to burn bridges.
02:04So, hopefully...
02:06But do you trust President Trump?
02:07He can be very unpredictable and cause a lot of stress for European businesses and Finnish businesses.
02:12We are not expecting predictability from him.
02:17But I think he's a hard negotiator.
02:20I think it's debatable whether USA has kind of benefited from his actions.
02:27Maybe we'll see that at the end of his term.
02:30But from the Europe's point of view, we want to keep on the trade growing.
02:36We want to build a steady trade.
02:38That's what the companies need.
02:40But if Donald Trump plays hardball, should the Europeans play hardball too?
02:44Yes.
02:45Me and several other ministers, we've taken stances before, whereas we think the European Union should have used the package
02:53we made in order to pressure USA more.
02:59But at this point, we are ready to move forward with the deal as agreed.
03:05And, of course, our requirement is that the USA also respects this deal.
03:10And a big week as well for the EU.
03:12They're heading to Mexico this week.
03:14Could a deal be signed there?
03:15We know the last EU-Mexico summit was back in 2015.
03:17Yes, we are looking for renewing the global treaty with the EU-Mexico.
03:24And that's also, I mean, it's a very important point.
03:27You know, we have the Mercosur trade deal already applied.
03:33So that doesn't include Mexico.
03:36So it's very good that we get a new deal with Mexico as well.
03:42It's our second largest partner in Latin America.
03:46And meanwhile, of course, big focus of your talks this week on the impact the ongoing war in the Middle
03:50East is having on Europeans.
03:52Do you think enough has been done by Brussels, i.e. the European Commission, in order to soften that blow
03:56on Europeans?
03:58Well, from the trade minister point of view, I can tell that the past three years that I've been a
04:04minister of trade,
04:06the security concerns have been rising all the time.
04:10So I think trade ministers are more dealing with the security concerns and increasingly involved in the security issues.
04:17So whether it's diversification of trade, but also energy, basic supply chains, now wartime discomforts.
04:27Okay, minister.
04:28Thank you so much for coming into us here today on Euronews and being our guest on Europe Today.
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