← Brussels Playbook Podcast
Brussels Playbook Podcast
EU's sweaty summer — what you missed (and what matters)
00:33:18
Just when we thought we could get a break for the summer, geopolitics had other plans.
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- [00:02]
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Gabriel Gavin
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- [01:04]
Sarah Wheaton
We're back. And I gotta be honest, folks, I am not feeling very rested. This podcast took a break, but the news certainly did not. If anything, I'm glad about the coming rentree, because at least everyone will be back at their desk rather than trying to zoom in from the beach or get a signal from the top of a mountain. Political leaders and journalists hoping to sneak away to a quiet retreat were surely disappointed. The news leapfrogged from Alaska to Washington. A tariff truce was inked on a Scottish fairway. And Gaza's grief kept mounting while Europe argued over its voice. So before we head back to school, here's a brisk refresher on the slow summer that wasn't after Trump's negotiations. What, if anything, shifted on the war in Ukraine? Was there any substance or just choreography? Does the EU US Trade deal end the tariff war? And is anybody actually happy with the terms? Meanwhile, Brussels is relying on deal making as a way to influence the humanitarian situation in Gaza. But do those agreements matter if capitals won't enforce them? I'm Sarah Wheaton, host of EU Confidential. To break it all down, I've drafted colleagues who've been baking here in Brussels. Most of the reporter, Gabriel Gavin, who seems to know every diplomat in town, Jordan Dahl, our mobility reporter, and Janczynski, our defense expert. All right, well, it's been a totally bonkers summer. Usually we kind of have a bit of a news break, so we all try to escape, but it's been really hard this year. Jan, did you get any time off.
- [03:08]
Jan Janczynski
At the very end of July? I had a little bit of time off, but I would disagree. I think every year we go into August thinking, okay, it's time to relax, put on the short pants, and go to the sun. Every single year, something crazy happens, and we end up being super busy. And so I think this year was busier than usual, but August is a surprisingly busy time of year.
- [03:29]
Sarah Wheaton
Yeah, well, I mean, we can work in short pants. Gabriel, did you. Did you manage to get away at all?
- [03:33]
Gabriel Gavin
Well, I'm actually wearing short pants as we speak. Not to tantalize listeners too much, but I'm trying to catch the end of a bit of a summer holiday in Spain, probably not far from where Jan's sitting actually, as well.
- [03:45]
Sarah Wheaton
All right, well, sitting here in the studio with me is Jordan Dahl. And, Jordan, we know that you didn't get to make it all the way home this summer, but it would have actually been a pretty eventful reporting trip. We probably would have recruited you to interrupt your vacation if you'd gone because Putin was in Anchorage. What were you hearing from folks back home about the vibe?
- [04:06]
Jordan Dahl
Yeah, I was disappointed not to be able to go. People back home were really excited about it, but they're quite pragmatic. So from their perspective, this is going to be a really big bump in tourism because the Alaskan economy has not been in a good place for a number of years, and any kind of oomph to get people spending money and people going to Alaska is always a really big thing. There was a little bit of controversy about the meeting. I'm sure Jan will get into the optics of it later. But the fact that you have Russian president coming to Alaskan soil, where we have a base designed to basically help fortify American forces against Russian encroachment, the optics of it, you really couldn't even make up. So people were very much aware of that. But it should be noted that this is not the first time that world leaders have met with American presidents. In Anchorage. In 1971, President Nixon met with Emperor Hirohito of Japan, and then in the 1980s, Reagan met with Pope John Paul II, also in Anchorage. So it's a rarity, but not impossible.
- [05:15]
Sarah Wheaton
Okay, so you can go to Alaska for the bears and the spectacular wildlife or to. To geek out on geopolitical history. Thank you for that, Jordan.
- [05:25]
Jordan Dahl
Exactly.
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Sarah Wheaton
The Alaska Tourism Board thanks you.
- [05:27]
Jordan Dahl
I'm expecting my check.
- [05:29]
Sarah Wheaton
All right, moving on. To talk a little bit more about the substance of that geopolitics and whatever history may or may not happen there. Jan, can you give us a quick refresher what happened there? And how did both Trump and Putin frame the outcome of the meeting that took place a week ago.
- [05:47]
Jan Janczynski
Yeah, this was last Friday. Trump invited Putin for a meeting, suggested Alaska and Putin seized on that initiative. The general read is that Putin gained an enormous amount from this meeting. His international isolation was broken. This is a guy who is facing international criminal charges for the way that he's conducted the war against Ukraine. He's a pariah in most countries, would be arrested if he showed up. And so he's treated as a major power. The Russians always have this chip on their shoulder that the other major powers disregard them, that they're not treated as one of the top bunch. And so for Putin and for the Russians in general, this was huge. To have Trump standing on the red carpet, applauding, waiting for him, warm handshake, driving the beast, the big presidential limo, one on one chats. So Putin felt treated as an equal to the President of the United States. And you could certainly see that in the way that the Russian media played the meeting afterward. They saw this as an enormous victory for Russia on Trump's side. Trump is. It's always difficult to get his clear motivation, but he does sincerely seem to be wanting to end the war in Ukraine, to end the killing. Whether that leads to a just outcome to the war or not is entirely different. And there is this sort of overriding issue that Trump is really hungry to get the Nobel Peace Prize. So that colors part of that as well. But basically Trump got nothing from Putin. He gave up his threats of economic sanctions. He didn't put any pressure on the Russian president. They had a meeting abbreviated. It wasn't even a press conference, just sort of a briefing. And so Putin left the meeting on a high. Trump, even Fox News and the pro Trump media were playing it as a mess. That didn't really come out the way that Trump had hoped.
- [07:46]
Sarah Wheaton
Yeah. And so it's fair to say that after this meeting, I think there was sort of some despondence in Europe and certainly some alarm. European leaders weren't there. They had clearly failed to influence it from the sidelines. But the one consolation was that they then were going to get to have their own meeting at the White House with Trump and with Zelensky. That was on Monday. How did that one go?
- [08:10]
Jan Janczynski
Yeah. So I think that the Ukrainians especially went into the Alaska summit terrified that Trump was going to pull a Munich 1938, that Trump and Putin would strike some sort of a really unfavorable agreement. Putin would say, this is the way to end the war. I want to have this. I'm ready to Sign. And then Trump would come down really hard on Zelenskyy, saying, you must agree to these terms. That didn't happen. So for the Ukrainians, they averted the worst. However, right after the meeting, reports started coming out that what Trump basically agreed with Putin was that he would press the Ukrainians to give up the whole of two of the regions that the Russians partially control, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, and in return wouldn't seize more of the other two Ukrainian regions that they're fighting for. The issue with that is that the one quarter of Donetsk controlled by the Ukrainians is a massive chain of fortified cities which the Russians have been unable to break through, and they're suffering huge casualties. Attacking that and giving those fortresses up would open Ukraine up to future attack. In a story that we did a few days ago, we compared it to what happened to Czechoslovakia in 1938 that gave away its border fortresses a few months later. Then the Germans just walked right in and took over the country. So in light of that, there was this emergency meeting that Zelenskyy went to the White House and there was sort of the magnificent seven of European leaders running alongside him. We had the leaders of France, Britain, Italy, Finland, Germany, the European Commission and NATO. So all of them were there also showing in the past where the US Was treated as an ally and one of the club. This would have been inconceivable. The only reason that those seven were there is to run interference for Zelenskyy. So there was no repeat of that horrendous February, the mauling that he took in the Oval Office, and to be sure that Trump didn't sell him down the river. And so they sort of shored it up. The meeting also was not a disaster. Both the one on one with Trump and Zelenskyy and then the Europeans, plus Trump after that. Trump did agree to some form of security guarantee for Ukraine, although he continually does not reiterate that he does not want Ukraine in NATO. And he clarified later that that does not mean any American troops in Ukraine, but it does open the way for some sort of a European presence in Ukraine. And that is a must for Ukraine. They will not agree to any kind of a peace agreement with Russia without some sort of ironclad security guarantee. Much more than a piece of paper. The Ukrainians had lots of pieces of paper from Russia and other countries, and none of that has been useful for them.
- [11:07]
Sarah Wheaton
Well, yeah, I mean, I have to admit, I just watching what was happening over the past week, I'm just reminded of this sort of key to understanding Trump that he seems to just go along with whatever the last person he talked to wants. So, you know, with Putin, he dropped the whole idea of a ceasefire, which was the main thing Putin really didn't want with Ukraine and the Europeans. Apparently the whole idea of land swaps, which was the big, big talking point in his Putin talk, just didn't come up with them at all. So I'm taking all of this with a grain of salt. But just for a little thought exercise, Yan, staying with you once more, just pretend that maybe these security guarantees might sort of happen. What form in this magical future world would they take?
- [11:50]
Jan Janczynski
This is what everybody is talking about because the politicians sort of dumbfounded the military people by talking about these security guarantees in a more serious way. So military plan, defense ministers, military chiefs are scrambling to try to figure out exactly what this would be. None of this will happen without a peace agreement. No one is talking about sending troops into Ukraine. With the war, with the fighting war still continuing, it would look like some type of European troop presence in Ukraine. That's something Russia said earlier this week. It will not allow or it will not countenance NATO troops in Ukraine. Big problem right there. Then it's who stumps up the troops. The British and the French have talked about it, but their armies are pretty small. They're underfunded. The Germans have a large land army, but it's also dramatically underfunded and stretched to the limit. And so the Germans are kind of waffling. The Poles have the largest army in the eu, but they've ruled out sending anybody to Ukraine. Some of the Scandinavians might be up for it, but it's going to be pretty difficult to cobble together a mission. And basically this sort of a mission would need enough troops, firepower and backing from the United States that if the Russians attacked, they would be facing not just the Ukrainians by themselves, but very well armed, well defended Western military forces inside Ukraine. And we're very, very far from figuring out how that would work.
- [13:19]
Sarah Wheaton
Yeah, and that is where you get into sort of the question about NATO and if the US would still follow through on Article 5. If there are even small Europe troops in Ukraine and they were attacked, then conceivably that's when the US would have to step in under Article 5. But, Gabriel, let me move on to you. You've been, you know, in touch with diplomats, hearing their reactions, including people from capitals that weren't in the room. How are people feeling about the talks that happened in D.C. are we seeing unity in the capitals as far as, you know, still insisting on a ceasefire first and supporting these security guarantees, or are you seeing divisions?
- [13:58]
Gabriel Gavin
Well, I think what we've seen on both sides of the Atlantic is an extraordinary amount of communication between both the Trump administration and European allies, NATO partners. Going into the meeting, we know for a fact that Trump reached out to the Europeans. He tested some ideas, he spoke to them, he asked questions, he asked for their input. I think the real question was whether he would actually end up listening to any of them or paying any heed to what they thought. But actually, since then, it's been a real scramble for Western capitals to kind of work out what to do next, how to play this. And we saw this extraordinary delegation of half a dozen heads of state and government going with Zelenskyy to Washington, assembled kind of a really late notice put together by NATO's Mark Rutter and Finland's Alexander Stubb. Obviously, it was only a small group, and particularly Western European countries that were involved in. Jan has pointed out that some of the countries that would be involved in any potential security guarantees, be involved in some kind of troop deployment weren't represented. You know, the countries that have been Ukraine's strongest partners, strongest allies from the start of this war, the polls, the Balts, they weren't represented in the room. So there was a real element of panic, actually, on Monday night in Brussels as capitals that didn't have a leader in the Oval Office tried to kind of work out, well, what was said, what was agreed, where's Trump going? And we saw this really extraordinary 1am COR meeting of ambassadors called. That's something that hasn't happened even at the peak of the Eurozone crisis.
- [15:20]
Sarah Wheaton
Co Repper is the impenetrable term. Just the top ambassadors to the European Union from. From the capitals meeting in Brussels or in this case, meeting virtually.
- [15:29]
Gabriel Gavin
Yeah, absolutely. And we saw. So we saw contacts at a diplomatic level between ambassadors. We then saw leaders coming together for, you know, an impromptu European Council video call hosted by Council President Antonio Costa. We saw a meeting of the coalition of the willing, this kind of loose grouping of countries that want to continue to provide support to Ukraine. So we've seen kind of an extraordinary amount of diplomatic activity. And the story that we published earlier this week found that, you know, in a lot of these meetings, leaders, presidents, prime ministers, they were expressing real reservations that Putin is at all interested in peace, real skepticism about the process, real questions over what's in this for the Russians, what would ever make the Kremlin back down. But the message that came loud and clear was that the Europeans did not want to be seen to be opposing Trump's peace plan. And actually, the kind of prevailing thinking is, is that. But going along with this and saying, yes, President Trump, we want to see you deliver peace. You know, if it does produce a positive and constructive result with cast iron security guarantees, then fantastic. But if it doesn't, it's a chance to take Trump on that journey and say, well, look, it's the Russians standing in the way of peace in Europe. It's the Russians causing all this chaos and the death and the destruction. It's time to hit these guys with much harder sanctions and force them to the table. So for a lot of European capitals, this is a win, win scenario right in front of them.
- [16:46]
Sarah Wheaton
Win, win. Or it could be win, win or lose, lose. We'll see. But let me actually unpick a bit further a point that you made, that there were no Eastern European leaders in the room in D.C. poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltics. Did they not want to go, or did Trump not want them? Like what happened there?
- [17:07]
Gabriel Gavin
So from what we can tell, the guest list was kind of put together on a really short term basis, really quick operation by Finland's stubborn NATO's Ruta. And there was always an intent to keep it very short. But it did look very Western European. And it was clear that some people had been put in the room not necessarily because of what their country would be contributing in terms of eventual security guarantees, like Italy's Maloney, but because of their personal relationship with Trump. You know, Stub in particular, always had that kind of very close relationship.
- [17:34]
Sarah Wheaton
They're golfing buddies.
- [17:36]
Gabriel Gavin
Yeah, exactly. And that's what one diplomat said was, you know, clearly what's needed with Trump is playing golf. And, you know, with Poland, I think it's quite clear that the White House doesn't very much like Poland's Prime Minister Tusk and has actually has asked him to stay out of calls, instead preferring to send, you know, their new kind of populist president, Carol Novrotsky. But Novrotsky doesn't necessarily have a particularly close relationship with Zelensky. And that was the whole point of going along on the trip. So I think there's always this question, as you said many times, Sarah, about when you call Europe, who do you call? But when you want to call Eastern Europe, who does Trump call? And there's not a really obvious number of interlocutors who simultaneously command, you know, large armed forces or have the resources to do this stuff and also have a leader who has a close, chummy relationship with the White House.
- [18:20]
Sarah Wheaton
Yeah, well, and jumping off again on this, who do you call when you want to call Europe? The other surprising absentee was European Council President Antonio Costa. As you said, he's kind of been organizing these statements of leaders and under the treaties, he is supposed to to represent the EU on foreign policy and security issues. Yet it was Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who we saw in the room with these other national leaders and Ruta, the head of NATO. So how do you read this?
- [18:51]
Gabriel Gavin
Well, it's something, I mean, you and I talked about briefly in the kind of philosophical musings of a 2am Slack chat.
- [18:56]
Sarah Wheaton
I will always remember that.
- [18:58]
Gabriel Gavin
Yeah, but I think it's a really interesting one because I think, naturally I'm quite inclined to believe in this kind of great leader theory of politics. Well, I'll go. Well, Koshka's not particularly close to this file. He doesn't have the same kind of psychodrama that Charles Michel would have had before, where he'd insist on being in the room, having the best seat, being treated as not only von der Leyen's equal, but sometimes even her better. Kosha doesn't have that approach. He's not as acrimonious. But obviously you pointed out at the time, I think, that it's not about that. You know, there's an institutional power play here between the Council and the Commission. And obviously, although institutions are all fundamentally just a group of people with different motivations and incentives and desires and neuroses, in the case of Michelle, what we've seen really is under Kosta's leadership, the Council really has become more of a facilitator and the Commission has become much more of the doer. You know, everyone was always at pains when it was Charles Michel who was the Council president, to say, oh, you know, these two presidents of the European Union, these two equals. I don't think people are at such pains to say that anymore with Antonio Acosta. He chairs the meetings of the 27 member states, and that's kind of about it. You know, he has to find compromises. He's a backroom dealer. He likes working with the door closed. He's a very careful, quite canny operator. And his people, his staff, are not as acrimonious towards the Commission staff as Michelle's were. They have a much better relationship. They're working towards the same ends. There isn't that split that there used to be.
- [20:18]
Jordan Dahl
If I could. Yeah, Please add one note here. I think something that you can't discount or overlook is the fact that von der Leyen just signed a handshake deal with Trump and that she seems to have a fairly good relationship with him as far as European leaders go, and certainly as far as the commission goes. And so I can't imagine that that didn't play a role in sending her, given that she had just scored this win. She's been in the room with Trump numerous times. And if the goal is to get a peace deal with Ukraine, you're going to send your strongest ally and your strongest advocate. And in this case, it's certainly borderline.
- [20:50]
Sarah Wheaton
Yeah, and that's a really important point, Jordan, and one that people made to me at 2 o' clock in the morning that they've already got this, this trade deal inked. And in a few minutes, we're going to actually talk about how trade is kind of related to all these other questions as well. But before we do that, I just want to kind of put a button on this discussion. Jan, bottom line, after all these meetings, are we any closer to peace? And what are you going to be looking out for over the next, say, two weeks?
- [21:19]
Jan Janczynski
The fighting is still going on as furiously as ever in Ukraine. Ukrainian cities are being regularly bombed by Russia. Ukraine is retaliating and just unveiled its new Flamingo 3000 kilometer range missile. So the war continues. The things that we're going to be watching for is movement on the security guarantees. This has been a recurring discussion over the last years. Does this become more tangible? Do we get a real sense of who would send concrete troops when? The other thing that we're going to be looking for is is there going to be a Putin Zelenskyy meeting? I think if we see a Putin Zelenskyy meeting, that there is actually progress. I highly doubt that Putin will agree to a one on one. He had that joke proposal of inviting Zelenskyy to Moscow for a meeting into the lion's den, as it were. And I think Putin feels that he's slowly winning this war, has no interest in meeting Zelenskyy, and feels that Trump will chicken out and not actually punish him. But if that happens, we're in a totally different world.
- [22:24]
Gabriel Gavin
Can I just come in on that briefly, Sarah? It's just interesting because I think the message that I've had from diplomats at the moment, while obviously there's a lot of skepticism exactly for all the reasons Jan set out, I think there actually is quite a lot of optimism as well, because Putin's bluff is being called and the game is kind of getting away from him. For the first time, you have military chiefs talking about concrete assurances, putting together a proposal that will be presented if and when a meeting like this takes place. And if a meeting like this doesn't take place, it becomes much harder for Trump to say, well, we won't impose new sanctions on Russia and think the Russians are going to be really, really cautious and worried about the fact that the momentum behind this stuff is just moving forward, forward, forward, and they don't have a clear answer as to why they won't meet and why they won't agree to some of the stuff that's being presented.
- [23:07]
Sarah Wheaton
All right, well, we'll see. We'll see if ultimately Putin needs to answer to anybody other than himself. We need to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll touch on trade and Gaza. Stay with us.
- [23:27]
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- [24:32]
Sarah Wheaton
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Gabriel Gavin
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Jordan Dahl
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- [24:52]
Sarah Wheaton
Cmc mobile.com let's move on to the other war, the trade war. Jordan, you have been following the saga. We seemed to maybe have something vaguely resembling a ceasefire in late July when, as you noted, von der Leyen met Trump in Scotland and they got a deal on tariffs. Can you just kind of walk us through the broad outlines of that deal?
- [25:14]
Jordan Dahl
The vague outline is that a 15% baseline tariff would be in place for all European goods. That has been put into place since the handshake agreement, if you will.
- [25:24]
Sarah Wheaton
And this is a victory.
- [25:25]
Jordan Dahl
This is a victory. The commission will be very quick to tell you this is a victory. Other tariffs were also supposed to be lowered, like on cars, steel and aluminium. That is under a separate tariff trade framework. But as you noted, the devil is in the details on these. And Trump loves a show. He loves these big summits where he's on television and then he gets to extrapolate on this, that and the other. But he really leaves it up to his people to actually describe and get the actual details of it. And that's what's happening right now.
- [25:59]
Sarah Wheaton
And let's look a bit more into the area that you really specialize in. You're our mobility reporter. And the auto industry in Europe is still kind of waiting to get details. The industry was worried about tariffs as high as 30% or even 50%. There was, as you noted, sort of a verbal walk back. But in any case, especially German manufacturers are still not, not happy.
- [26:24]
Jordan Dahl
No, but the German manufacturers are very rarely happy. In this case, they were happy about the 15% baseline, but they're not happy that other tariffs remain in place, notably on Mexico and Canada, where they have a great deal of manufacturing. But also American automakers also have a lot of manufacturing happening in Mexico and Canada. Parts are constantly crossing borders, going across multiple times before being assembled in a car. And so they were very quick to decry this deal and that signed with Japan, which has similar 15% tariff rate for cars and car parts, because they say, hey, we're still facing 25% in Mexico and Canada. We're paying more now than our foreign competitors that are importing cars from Germany, Japan, Slovakia and elsewhere.
- [27:09]
Sarah Wheaton
All right, so, yeah, the industry is kind of intertwined and competitive at the same time. And just, yeah, it's a recipe for everybody being grumpy all at once.
- [27:18]
Jordan Dahl
Everyone's grumpy. And the question now is, how much influence does the American auto lobby have over Trump? And is that going to be enough to torpedo this part of the deal or will he finally succumb and lower Mexico and Canadian tariffs, but those are not fully dependent on cars. There's a lot more politically at stake in that. And so that's the big question mark here.
- [27:41]
Sarah Wheaton
Let's move on to another big issue that has been playing out over the past weeks and that is the devastating situation in Gaza and Israel's offensive there. Gabriel, over the summer, did anything actually shift in the EU's position beyond statements?
- [28:00]
Gabriel Gavin
Well, what we've seen is a large number of European countries moving their positions quite dramatically. You know, you've seen a really unprecedented rise in the number of capitals threatening to recognize Palestinian statehood. Some saying they'll do it straight away in September at the next UN General assembly, some saying they'll only do it if certain conditions are met. But what we haven't really seen is the EU's position change. The EU's top diplomat, Kaya Callas, struck a deal with the Israeli government that she said will massively expand access to aid in Gaza. There's increasing evidence that that's not been honoured on the Israeli side and that aid isn't actually reaching people in the numbers that the EU had wanted or expected. What we did see was just before the start of the summer was a large number of capitals calling for a review of the EU Israel Association Agreement. That was reviewed, the EU found that there was reasonable grounds to believe that Israel wasn't honoring the humanitarian commitments it made as part of this deal, which governs for things like smoother trade relations, visa free access, visitation rights for scientists and things like that. So the question is now, well, what does the EU do once you've found that someone's not living up to the terms that you've set in an agreement, what can you do? And there isn't the unanimity that would be required to tear up that agreement. There's a number of countries, Germany has historically been among them, Hungary, Italy, that have kind of stood a little bit in the way of that, that what Callas has gone away and done. And we had the exclusive one at Jacopo Baragatzi, the doyen of documents in Brussels got hold of it before anyone else was. They produced an option paper where they said, well, if we don't have unanimity, what can we do with, you know, qualified majority? And a whole range of proposals are being considered. But then, you know, in terms of Israel, EU relations, it was kind of saved by the bell. And the holidays have started. Things have remained relatively unchanged in terms of the political response, the humanitarian Crisis has rolled on, and it doesn't seem like we're heading towards any kind of unanimity again in the position. There's an informal meeting of foreign ministers next week, and what we'll see, I think, is that there'll be increasing pressure from the countries that have decided they want to have a response on those countries that still say the best thing to do is engage in quiet diplomacy. But as our Ben Munster reported over the last couple of weeks, there's an increasing amount of dissent inside the EU institutions. You've got staffers signing up to open letters, some of them staging protests in cafeterias. And it's clear that the EU's current approach, which is to hope the issue goes away, isn't really going to work.
- [30:26]
Sarah Wheaton
Yeah. And so you've given us some things to look out for over the coming weeks as everyone comes back to Brussels. Jordan, on your beat. What are you going to be looking out for?
- [30:35]
Jordan Dahl
Trade is going to continue to be at the top of the agenda. The other thing that is going to be coming up is the combustion engine. Banderlein is going to be meeting with the CEOs of Europe's automakers and auto suppliers on September 12th. This is going to be the next iteration of her big strategic dialogue in which they have three minutes to sort of plead their case of what they want her to do. On the agenda for this meeting is going to be the combustion engine ban. A lot of lobbying pressure is being put on the commission to reverse this or at least severely weaken it. So this is going to be a really big test to see how much von der Leyen is willing to cave on parts of the Green deal in the name of competitiveness.
- [31:16]
Sarah Wheaton
Indeed. And that's one of the other major themes that we have been talking about here in EU Confidential. So we'll definitely have you back to dive into that further. Jan, you talked about the potential of a Putin Zelensky meeting, maybe even a trilateral meeting with Trump there. Other than meeting in Moscow, which we know is not going to happen. What are some other scenarios for that?
- [31:38]
Jan Janczynski
There was some talk of holding a meeting in Budapest. Poland's Donald Tusk quickly said that that's a ridiculous idea because Budapest was where Ukraine signed the deal in 1994, giving up its nuclear weapons in return for fairly vague security guarantees from the us, The UK And Russia. Obviously, that was a terrible idea for Ukraine to have given up its nukes. And so the idea that Ukraine would again meet in a city that has pretty bad reputation in Kyiv doesn't really work. Switzerland said that they wouldn't prosecute Putin if he showed up on its turf to hold a meeting there. So we'll just have to watch again. I'm very skeptical that there's going to be any meeting between these two men at all.
- [32:23]
Sarah Wheaton
All right, we'll leave it there. Jan Gabriel Jordan, thank you so much for being here.
- [32:28]
Jordan Dahl
Thank you.
- [32:28]
Jan Janczynski
Thanks very much for having us.
- [32:30]
Gabriel Gavin
Thank you.
- [32:33]
Sarah Wheaton
All right, that's it from us this week. If you're still away on vacation, check out our previous episode with Summer Reading Pack. And if you haven't already, subscribe to EU Confidential. Wherever you get your podcasts, rate us, leave us a review or drop us a line@podcastolitico.eu thanks to Deanna Steris, our senior audio producer. And, well, my mother is sitting here next to me in the studio today. And if you think about it, this podcast could not have happened without her. So thanks, Mom. You're welcome, Sarah. I'm Sarah Wheaton. See you next week.
- [33:16]
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