A (3:54)

And clea over in France, there's been voting in recent weeks in municipal elections there. And the big narrative that we were watching was, was whether the far right would manage to take big cities. How did that go?

C (4:07)

Well, they didn't manage to take the big cities. That was the main takeaway. Now they're putting a positive spin in saying that they, you know, had a lot of local councillors who've made it into city councils. And they also say that they've taken a lot of smaller cities, but basically their big aim of taking Marseille in the south of France, Toulon failed. So other than Nice, they didn't manage to get many big towns. So this sort of opens up the field for, you know, the center right, the left, and they're hoping that there is a smidgen of a chance that they will be able to beat the current favorites of the next presidential election, which is obviously the far right and the National Rally.

A (4:51)

Well, so, yeah, I mean, given that the far right kind of was disappointed, does that mean that the center left did well in these local elections?

C (4:59)

Well, the left definitely did well. They took or held on to several big cities. Pacific Paris and Marseille. That's the first and second city in France. So that's good. But obviously what and people on the right will say is that, you know, what happens in the big cities is not what happens in the countryside and in France at large. And so therefore, if you look at the bigger picture, you know, it's not a great prospect for the left because they, you know, particularly the Socialists, the moderate left, are caught between a very hard left led by Jean Luc Melanchon, who's this firebrand character in France, and the centrist. And they. They're struggling to, you know, find a path there. Sometimes they're allied with the hard left, sometimes they're, you know, really at odds and, and fighting and insulting each other. And so it's quite a difficult picture for the left, right?

A (5:54)

Well, yeah. I mean, look, one bright spot for the center left was Paris. The Socialists retain control there, continuing as they have for the past 25 years. Does the victor there, Emmanuel Gregoire, is he a potential presidential candidate even for them?

C (6:08)

Not as we know of at the moment. Emmanuel Gregoire was a very unknown character before he started this campaign. He was a former deputy at the City Council of Paris for Ann Hidalgo, the predecessor. And their relationship was very difficult. She tried to torpedo his candidacy. So he's not a familiar figure in French political life. But this campaign has really propelled him forward. He had a very comfortable win. And so, as you say, Socialists who have been in power in Paris for the past 25 years will carry on. And what's interesting about that is that it really shows the divide in France between the capital, which is overwhelmingly to the left, and the country overwhelmingly to the right or to the far right. And politicians often mention this, that what's said in Paris is not what's said in. In marketplaces and in the bistro in small villages in France. And I think that political disconnect is something that came alive in these local elections.

A (7:16)

So looking ahead to 2027 in the presidential election, is there any credible center left candidate?

C (7:23)

Yes, there certainly are candidates. The problem is that there are too many candidates at the moment. There's Francois Hollande, the former president, who harbours, still harbours some presidential ambitions. There's Rafael Glucksman, who' more moderate left, Europhile, who's in the running, known here in Brussels as an mep. And then Olivier Faure, who's the head of the Socialist Party. And the whole problem in France is that there's so many candidates, but there's no way of choosing which candidate to run. And so several parties want to organize a primary, but that in the past has often failed to deliver a candidate that will attract a wider proportion of the electorate. So primaries on the left are seen as something that will lead to a failed candidacy. And you have to remember, for example, that an Hidalgo in the last election, last presidential election, got under 3% of the vote, which was very humiliating. And the nut of the issue as well is how the center left is going to deal with the hard left that's embraced a much more pugnacious at times, you know, very aggressive with Jean Luc Melanchon, their leader, flirting at times with what, you know, what appears to be anti Semitic comments. This is going to be the big obstacle that the left has to overcome in the next 12 months.

A (8:52)

So James, let's come to Germany. The SPD has been on a downward trajectory for a while and the latest result in Rhineland Palatinate looks painful. What happened?

D (9:04)

Well, it's part of a larger trend, as you pointed out. I mean, it started obviously last year with the snap election in Germany where the conservatives won and Mertz eventually became Chancellor. In that election, the SPD had its worst result since 1890. It is the oldest party in Germany. But in a national election this was, this was an all time low. And that's kind of the trend. It's sort of one historically bad result after another. Now in previous times the SPD would govern with perhaps another left wing party and try to form a coalition against the cdu. But now you have this kind of scenario where Mertz wins and then he will govern with the SPD because that's a good way to keep out the far right. And the coalition math kind of makes it the only logical choice. So you know, Merzk is governing with the spd, so they have their worst ever result, but yet they're in government. And then you had a similar situation happen in there were two state elections in March in Germany in the west of the country. And in the first one in Baden Wurtenburg, they had their worst result in a state election since World War II. It was like something like 5.5%, which is just above the threshold needed to make it into parliament. So there was a question of whether they would even make it. And this is, this was what you would call in Germany. This used to be a Volkspata, a big tent party where this kind of result of 5.5% would have been just unthinkable. And then a similar situation, I mean in, as you point out, and I can only say it in German, Weinland Falls is the German name for that state. It's a small state and they were actually in charge there for about 35, I think 35 years. But they lost that seat, they lost the premiership by dropping about 10, I think it was 10 percentage points. And so that went to the CDU. And again it's going to be a CDU SPD coalition. There's to block out the far right, which more than doubled in that state and in the previous state also about doubled. So you see big gains for the far right, big losses for the spd.

A (11:04)

What's kind of the big picture here? Is the SPD just kind of having some bad luck or is this a bigger, more structural issue?

D (11:14)

Yeah, definitely. Structural issues at play, the loss of their voter base, the decline of industry, the decline of labor. The pattern you see across Europe that this kind of working class union voter base is just eroding as manufacturing declines. And you know, in Germany that's definitely one issue you have, especially in eastern Germany, there's the issue of the fact that this was behind the Iron Curtain and these parties were not the big tent parties were not deeply entrenched in the eastern part of the country. So the SPD doesn't have deep roots across large swaths of eastern Germany. There are multiple reasons for it, but the key one is that, you know, as these parties are forced to govern together due to the coalition math, they do have a hard time distinguishing themselves from the CD or from the center right. This has caused some voters to defect to Die Linke, which is a more radical left party that has some of its roots in the East German Communist Party. But you know, this is, this is also Die Linka hasn't sort of supplanted the spd. It's just sort of that the SPD seems to have gotten a bit lost as the contest has moved from the centrists to the far right. And the centrists in this case is Mertz. And the conservatives seem to be the centrists there that are the main opponents of the far right AfD and those are the two most popular parties in the country right now, according to the polls.

A (12:38)

So itor, let's come back to you and to Spain briefly, because if Denmark and Germany look like the stories of pressure, Spain looks like something else. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez still seems to be one of the few centre left leaders in Europe who is looking assertive rather than defensive. What explains that?

B (12:55)

It's an interesting phenomenon because what we've seen with Sanchez and Frederickson are really two sides of a coin in that Frederikssen really bet on trending toward centrism and in many cases the center right. And Sanchez since coming to power in 2018 has really bet on forging ties with the far left. And the result of that have been policies like the universal basic income protection, to a certain extent, for homeowners when it comes to rent, especially during the COVID period, a lot of investment in social services and public services, the use of EU funds, for example, to restore housing. And that seems to be broadly paying off. Now. Does that mean that Santis is guaranteed to stay in power? No, because his Socialist party is part of a coalition with the far left, and the far left support has been dropping. So he may still have a very difficult, difficult time getting reelected next year. But ultimately, when we look at his core base of voters, they've remained faithful, which isn't the case in places like Germany and in the case of Denmark. What we're seeing is really the flip from the Spanish case. We're seeing a lot of historic voters telling Frederickson very forcefully, stop it with the centrist nonsense. We want you to partner with the left. We want you to go back to being the party that represented the interest of workers of the lower middle class, of people who are really trying to build up their lives and don't have access to the structures of privilege.

A (14:20)

Well, that's interesting, because I just read a piece by somebody named Rodrigo Vaz in Social Europe that's kind of a journal for this movement, and he argues that Europe's center left has chosen caution over conviction and that this could lead it towards collapse. His point is that these parties have become so broad and so afraid of offending one faction or another that they end up governing kind of timidly and inspiring no one. So what do you make of his case, and how do you see it playing out near you? James, let's start with you.

D (14:51)

So what you're seeing in Germany is increasingly a contest between the center right and the far right. And I do agree with Aitor that basically the dynamic is that you have a centrist party that sort of prevails and then sort of the far right on the other side. And you could see in sort of the state election in Baden Wurttemberg in southwestern Germany, which is a big state of 11 million people, you could see that, you know, there are local dynamics there, but, you know, ultimately it's the Greens and the CDU are going to govern together because they have no choice. That's the only possible coalition that blocks the. The far right. So this kind of dynamic seems to be benefiting the AfD because essentially it becomes a choice between. I mean, it's like people aren't necessarily voting for the AfD as much as they are voting against everybody else. So it's like a very easy kind of dynamic for the AfD to capitalize on when you have centrist parties that are forced to govern together and then they become, by virtue of that, more and more indistinguishable from one another.

C (15:56)

CLAIRE what I would say in France is that there's a definite issue on the left because as I just mentioned, but it is the main event is the rise of the hard left France and bowed party. And they have some very strong messages and even the left and the center right will say the thing about the extremes is they have a clear message, they have an ideology, they've been working on this. What we are offering is a kind of mishmash of stuff that's been used again and used in campaigns before. And we really need to work on our project before we launch into campaigns, presidential campaigns. And the difficulty for, for the left, for the socialists in France is that they are being drowned out basically by a much more expressive and combative element, more radical party on their own left.

B (16:55)

ITOR It's a really interesting situation because we also have to acknowledge that the Social Democrats across Europe are facing this broader identity crisis because their historic voting base has kind of disappeared. These are parties that rose to prominence based on union votes, based on the votes of industrial workers. And the reality is Europe's working landscape has changed pretty dramatically. So I think what we see are parties that are really struggling to figure out where they fit in all of that, in many cases to be more palatable. They've dropped a lot of the very classic workers rights slogans and so forth. And a complaint that we hear across Europe is that they're increasingly hard to differentiate from the center right. So a lot of times when the voter goes to the polls, they say, well then I'm going to go with a party that's going to offer me lower taxes at least, and they go down that route.

A (17:45)

I want to zero in on one issue that has sort of created an interesting juxtaposition into the countries that we're talking about and that's migration. Denmark's hard line on migration was really seen as an innovation by Fredriksen in recent years that she was a center left leader who still was taking a hard line here, and that was seen as part of her secret sauce. Spain has taken a radically different approach. Does the European centre left have a coherent answer on this at all? ITOR let's start with Spain and Denmark.

B (18:14)

It is a difficult one for them and certainly if we get into More doctrinaire left wing ideology. Marx was not a big fan of big migration movements.

A (18:23)

These are the socialists, not the communists.

B (18:24)

True, true, but ultimately we're talking about a common base. But you know, speaking of the current period, you're absolutely right that Denmark has taken a really, really, really strong position on this. Spain's position is totally different. And it's funny because this week the government has actually released this report with a series of projections kind of figuring out what Spain would look like if they cut down dramatically on migration. And the picture of the country in a couple of decades is one that is much poorer, that is not growing, that is really struggling in key sectors like agriculture. So, you know, the position from Sanchez has always been that this is a science based approach to, we're talking about a rapidly aging population, same conditions as in the rest of Europe, and that ultimately getting new people into the country is crucial for the country's survival.

D (19:09)

I mean, across the political landscape in Germany you see a hardening on migration stance and then it becomes a question of the degrees. Right? So the SPD has under the previous Chancellor Scholz, shifted to the right on migration, but then the CDU shifted to the right on migration and then the IFD is sort of the maximalist to the right on migration. So the question is then the SPD has tried sort of a bit more of the, the Danish model for the SPD to toughen on migration, but not to that degree. But it hasn't helped them sort of politically to do so because the conservatives have done that more. So.

A (19:46)

So to sum up, some listeners might be sitting here being like, you confidential, Are you on drugs? Like, how can you be saying this is a bad moment for the left? This week we've also seen hard right Prime Minister in Italy, Giorgia Meloni just have a huge symbolic loss. Right wing parties lost in recent Slovenian elections. And as we were saying, Marine Le Pen's National Rally Party really showed it's kind of hitting some limits in France. So is the kind of center and left having a comeback moment or is it a zombie movement? Like, can both these two things exist at once?

D (20:24)

Somewhere in between, I think. I mean they, they're not a zombie movement in that, like it's been a steady decline over time and we're seeing the effects of that now. But the central left still has the capacity to have victories. And even in the German sort of example, like they, they have pockets where they're doing relatively well. Even in one eastern German state, they're in second place. So it's, it's not a story of sort of singular and utter decline all at once. It's more of story of over time we're seeing this erosion, this undeniable erosion of the power of a once very powerful force, the force that defined, made social democracy in Europe as we know it. You know, these were the social democrats. So you know, social democracy is now, you know, it's taken as self evident that this will continue to exist. They've, they've lost a bit of their raison d', etre, but they're still, they're still here and can still, can still win. But the question is what the future holds for them.

B (21:21)

I think the key thing that we should keep in mind and with a degree of empathy towards these parties is that like the rest of parties in Europe, they have been struggling with a period that's just been one crisis after the other. I think the differentiating factor with the Spanish Socialists under Sanchez has been that rather than focusing on addressing the crisis and returning to normalcy, that party has really tried to put in place policies that it considers to be transformative and headed in the direction of the progressive policies that they believe in. Now you can agree with those policies or you can be against them, but ultimately they have had an effect. It hasn't been just a continuous return to the status quo and that is having a certain degree of success with certain voters.

C (22:06)

I would say that in France there's an opportunity, there's definitely an opportunity for the centre left. We saw during the budget debates, one of the issues that really grabbed the attention of the public, sort of got people talking was this idea of a tax, a Zukeman tax on the ultra witch. And that was something that spoke to people because there's this growing sense of, you know, a global elite, global competition and workers rights eroding and all that are issues that speak to everybody. However, as Aitel was mentioning earlier that there's, there's the problem of the center left that's becoming indistinguishable from the center right. And in France you're really seeing two lefts. You're seeing the moderate left and the hard left. And if they want to succeed, there will have to be some sort of reconciliation of those two, which right now seems very, very difficult.

A (23:04)

Yeah, and we also, we saw Fredriksen perhaps take a cue from the Zucman tax. She proposed a 5% tax on wealth above 2.3 million euros in Denmark. Unclear to what extent that helped her, but that's certainly kind of something that the left is looking at. So with that, Itura Klea. James, thanks so much.

E (23:24)

Thank you.

B (23:25)

Thanks.

C (23:26)

Thank you.

A (23:30)

Now, naturally, we wanted to get some perspective on this directly from the socialist officials in the trenches. We reached out to four senior center left politicians to join us this week, but they all declined. Consider it an open invitation, folks. All right, with that, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll switch gears. Our chief political correspondent for Europe, Tim Ross, was in Helsinki this week where he sat down for an exclusive interview with Finland's president Alexander Stubb. That was just before Stube hosted talks with northern leaders including Keir Starmer, Mark Carney and Meta Fredrickson to discuss regional security with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky. Even though Stube is often seen as having one of the best personal rapports with Trump out of any European leader, he's now warning that the war in Iran could trigger what he calls a, quote, self inflicted global recession. And in this interview, he also offers a remarkable behind the scenes look at how the world's most powerful people interact one on one. Stay with us.

D (24:36)

So good, so good, so good.

C (24:38)

New spring arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores. Now get ready to save big with up to 60% off rag and bone, Marc Jacobs, free people and more. How did I not know Rack has Adidas?

D (24:50)

Cause there's always something new.

C (24:51)

Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

A (25:08)

Okay. And now on to Tim Ross's interview with Finnish President Alexander Stump.

F (25:15)

I'm wondering about the opportunities. I mean, I think we spoke a short while ago about Ukraine potentially being able to contribute. You also said that you hoped that the Iran war might help persuade Donald Trump and the Americans that Russia is their nemesis. I think was your word that Ukraine can be a great ally?

E (25:37)

Yeah.

F (25:37)

Do you believe that's happening?

E (25:38)

I hope so. I mean, that's certainly what we're trying to, you know, convince to see that, you know, it is Russia that's enabling American soldiers to die by giving intelligence information to Iran and it is Ukraine that has the capacity to save American soldiers due to their capacity on air defense and drone warfare. So if this sort of realization takes place in the U.S. i think we'll all be better off.

F (26:07)

We talked again a little bit about your relationship with President Trump, and it's well known that you've shared a golfing connection. Are you in touch as much these days?

E (26:16)

As you have been probably a little bit less.

F (26:18)

A little bit less.

E (26:19)

But we have spoken, you know, since the war in Iran began a week ago Sunday, not about Ukraine, but about Iran. But again, for me, if I may, this might sound a bit harsh, but Iran is not my war. Ukraine is my war. And I try to help Ukraine as much as I can on that front. But I do discuss a lot with the US administration and with the different players there, as well as with, of course, the Ukrainian administration. But probably. Yeah, in touch, a little bit less than before.

F (26:50)

And when you. When you talk to him, it's interesting. Obviously, you have the formal calls.

E (26:55)

We don't do formal calls.

F (26:56)

You do formal calls.

E (26:57)

We do informal calls.

F (26:58)

How does that work? You on the mobile or something like that. Okay. And you sort of do WhatsApp messages as well? I don't do WhatsApp or texts or whatever it is. The text as well. Yeah. I mean, that's interesting to me. I'm also interested in the picture is changing with the West. And, you know, you've got a new book out talking about geopolitical alignments and how they're changing and what might come next. I was, as were other people, very struck by your jog in the park with Mark Carney in London and your respective wives as well, obviously. But he's someone who has quoted you in his Devil's speech. You've referred to him as well. Can you just tell us a bit about that friendship you have with Mark Carney? Why is it important to you, and what do you see potential there?

E (27:42)

I respect Mark a lot. You know, is one of the most intellectually astute world leaders we have right now. I think we have a fairly similar background. Difference being that he's an economist and I'm an international relations buff. We both have our PhDs in their. In our respective subjects, and we both share a love of ice hockey. You know, Canada and Finland have always been of similar minds, so I've been fortunate to land a good relationship with Mark. You know, we call each other a message quite frequently. We write to each other. We try to reflect what's going on in the world. It's that type of a friendship. And then we can go out on an occasional run as well, which is nice.

F (28:26)

But it wasn't a race, right?

E (28:28)

No. Anyone who does endurance sports understands that, you know, 20% of your training is hard, 80% is easy.

F (28:36)

Okay, that's interesting. There must be a metaphor in there somewhere for the. For the transatlantic alliance.

E (28:42)

No, but that's how you Sort of maximize your performance. I mean, to go, you have to go easy to go hard. Okay.

F (28:49)

I mean, in terms of the, you know, the future of that, the future of what used to be the west, what used to be the Global west, and you're, you're suggesting may now, I think, be the Global North. I think I just caught you saying so.

E (29:01)

When I wrote my book the Triangle of Power, Rebalancing the New World Order, the idea was that there would be the Global west led by the U.S. the Global east led by China, and the Global south led by the likes of India.

F (29:15)

Yeah.

E (29:16)

The thesis still holds that it's going to be the Global south that decides whether we go to a multipolar, conflictual transactional world or to a multilateral, institutional norms based world. And I argue in the book that this change in the order began with Russia's war of aggression four years ago. But now it's being accelerated with a change in the US administration, which has a different tack to international relations than we've seen previous US Administrations have. And I've told everyone to deal with the world as it is, not as you would wish it to BE. And the U.S. national Security Strategy and Defense Strategy has two pillars. One is MAGA, which is ideological. So anti globalization, anti European Union, anti liberal, you could say an anti liberal world order. And then you have America first, where there's a pecking order, the Western Hemisphere comes first, the Indo Pacific second, Europe third, the Middle east fourth, Africa fifth. Now that might have been a change in the pecking order. The Middle east sort of moves up. But that's why one could argue that we're probably seeing not a rupture, but a rift in the transatlantic partnership. And that's why I've talked about a rectangle of power. So the Global north takes the role of defending the liberal world order, where thus the Global west becomes the US that is more transactional. It's just a reality. But I'm also probably the most pro American and pro transatlanticist president in Europe, so I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don't think this is a full rupture. There are things where we can cooperate with the us, NATO, defense, icebreakers, minerals, technology. But then there are issues where we respectfully disagree, like climate change, for instance, or international institutions, rules and norms. I think Europe is huddling up. We're probably more united now than we've ever been because we feel the pressure coming from Russia and then to a certain extent, some headwinds coming on the Atlantic as well, from the West.

F (31:26)

I'm wondering if you think that, I mean, President Trump said he would like to be seen as the president of peace. Do you think that's a fair description of him?

E (31:36)

I think it's good that he has the peace inclination and he talks about peace through strength, and then it's a question of how you balance the strength. I think he has genuinely tried to get peace in Ukraine. You know, it's been an uphill battle. We don't have to agree on all the methods, but, you know, we support the efforts. You know, what he did between Azerbaijan and Armenia was peace. So there are elements of the peace president there, certainly, but probably the, you know, war in Iran changes the game a little bit.

F (32:05)

A little bit. I mean, thinking about Russia's role in Iran, which you've talked about before, in terms of intelligence being shared with the Iranians about targeting of Americans and also other allies in the region, do you see a risk stepping right back now for a global war, a third sort of world war?

E (32:27)

I want to tone down the language on that because to talk about a world war is big, probably too big for the human mind to understand at this stage in the development of international relations. What I can say is that after the Cold War, many of the conflicts were local, so they were within the boundaries of a country. Whereas now we're seeing an escalation to regional wars. Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Israel and the US versus Iran, Iran versus the Gulf. And what we need to do is to work 24, 7 to de escalate and make sure that these wars don't spill over further. The problem is that when you don't have international rules and norms guiding our behavior, conflict is always behind the corner. It's part of human nature, I'm afraid. And we need to contain it through institutions. And those institutions are not present enough. When a power vacuum emerges, someone is going to fill it. And peace mediation can't be transactional because transactions rarely last. They have to be based on a win win mentality, not a zero sum mentality. We've seen what happens when you defeat someone. They always come back. We need to find a new way of dealing with the world. So I would not like to talk about World War 3 yet.

F (33:51)

You've added the word yet there at the end. Do you see that there's a risk that things could. I mean, we're only after one year of President Trump in the White House. He's got until 2029. What kind of world will be left by then?

E (34:05)

We don't know. I think in my line of work I try to work every day and every week towards finding solutions towards de escalation.

F (34:14)

I'm interested in whether you think the world, and Europe in particular, since that's where we are, needs to face up to the very real prospect of a recession coming from the crisis in Iran.

E (34:27)

Well, I won't reveal my source, but someone who I respect enormously in the global south told me that this could be worse than Covid and I think it's something we need to keep in mind. If this is another oil crisis, it's going to be different from the oil crisis in the 1970s, but with the wisdom of hindsight we were able to see where that came from. And I think we're now in a, in a situation whereby this could be a self inflicted global recession. It shows you, you know what happens when you act outside the framework of international rules and norms. Everything is linked to everything. Oil price to gas, price to food, price to fertilizer, price to price of pharmaceuticals. List goes on.

A (35:20)

And that's all from us this week. Just a quick heads up, we'll be taking a spring break next week, so EU Confidential will be back with you on the 10th of April. In the meantime, the Brussels Playbook podcast will still be bringing daily morning updates, so make sure you're subscribed to that feed. It's the one you're hearing us on now. And as always, you can reach us on WhatsApp. The number is in the show notes or drop us an email@podcastolitico.eu thanks to Deanna Sturris, our senior audio producer, and Sagar Ringmar, our audio producer. I'm Sarah Wheaton. See you soon.