← Brussels Playbook Podcast
Brussels Playbook Podcast
Jourová’s secrets and Putin’s drone tests
00:42:18
From rule of law battles to inside stories, Věra Jourová looks back on a decade in the Berlaymont.
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- [00:02]
A
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C
When I wake up in the morning, I open Politico, and the reaction is what? I am not there. Half a minute of frustration, then, oh my God, that's great. I am not there.
- [01:14]
B
That's former Commission Vice president Vera Yorova, describing her mornings without the daily grind of politics. As with kicking any addiction, it's part withdrawal symptoms, part relief. We'll hear more from her later in the show. First, though, to someone who isn't giving up his habit of testing the West. Vladimir Putin. A handful of cheap Russian drones crossed into NATO skies, first over Poland, then Romania. Airports shut down, fighter jets scrambled, and emergency meetings were called in Warsaw, Brussels, and even New York. Headlines warned it was the gravest escalation that EU countries have faced since World War II. It was just a little taste of what Putin has been serving Ukrainians almost daily. Step back from the immediate drama and the bigger picture is clear. The real story isn't just what happened in eastern Poland or over Romania. It's what those incursions revealed. Putin is collecting a lot of good intel on The west, probing NATO's air defenses, its unity and its resolve. Europe reacted fast, but across the Atlantic, Donald Trump dismissed it as maybe a mistake and stopped short of any action against the Kremlin. So did NATO pass the test or show just precisely how it's failing? I'm Sarah Wheaton, host of EU Confidential. Do stick with us for more from Vera Yorova, who until recently was one of the most iconic figures in Brussels, fighting for the rule of law, trying to figure out how to save journalism. And taking on big tech bosses. She laughs at how just months after leaving the commission, the Brussels crowd barely recognizes her and how. True story. People stomped on her feet while lining up to take a picture with a current commissioner. But first, we're going to talk about the drone incursions and what they revealed. I'm joined by Oana Lungescu, who spent 13 years as NATO's spokesperson, Jan Czynski, our defense editor, and Eva Hartog, our Russia expert. Jan, starting with you, can you just kind of help us set the stage? Remind people about this Russian drone incursion in Poland last week and in Romania. What exactly flew in and what was the initial military reaction?
- [03:43]
A
What flew in in Poland is it appears that around 19 Russian drones flew in. The majority of them seem to have flown in from Ukraine. A few seem to have flown in from Belarus. The tracking seems to show a lot of this is seams, because we're not 100% sure of what actually happened, but it seems to show that it was not an error, that they had sort of strayed in from either Belarus or Ukraine and then turned around to go back into Ukraine, but they were actually flying on purpose over Poland. There were reports that at least some of the drones were flying towards NATO air bases. The interesting thing is that the drones don't seem to have been equipped with explosives, but they're also equipped with cameras, so they can be used for spying. So the thought in Warsaw is that this was an effort by Russia to judge Polish reactions, both military and political, to that kind of an incursion. There have been other missiles that have strayed into Polish airspace, but nothing of this scale has ever happened before. What happened in Romania was that a few days later, a Russian drone entered Romanian airspace. It was tracked by a Romanian F16, and then it turned around and then went back into Ukraine. Kyiv wasn't thrilled with the idea that the Romanian air force spent almost an hour tracking this thing, didn't shoot it down, and then let it go off and kill Ukrainians. The Polish decision, and this is the first time that it's happened, was to actually intervene and shoot some of these drones down. About three were knocked down, the rest crashed.
- [05:16]
B
Alana European leaders called these incursions a dangerous provocation. They weren't manned, at least the ones that went into Poland. So why the freakout?
- [05:25]
D
Well, this was the biggest number of drones entering NATO airspace. 19 in one night. That's a lot. It's clearly very provocative. It's reckless. And indeed, as Jan was saying, if the idea was to test Polish, Romanian, NATO, air defenses, I think all of the above responded on the day or on the night. The question is, how sustainable is this response?
- [05:53]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's striking that there's still a lot of uncertainty about what actually happened. We're fairly certain that five of the drones in Poland were actually heading towards an airport in Poland. That's a crucial hub through which a lot of arms are delivered to Ukraine. Is that weighing into people's sense of intent?
- [06:11]
D
I think the idea that there would be repeated violations of NATO airspace is in itself enough for NATO to respond and for NATO allies to respond, because clearly what Russia is doing, whatever the ultimate intention, is to test defenses, to see how quickly allies respond with what capabilities, in what way, how coordinated are they. So I think regardless of whether they were armed or heading towards the. This support hub for Ukraine, perhaps for intelligence collection, surveillance, in itself, the fact that they flew actually so deep into Polish airspace was reason enough to bring them down.
- [06:54]
B
Eva, turning to you, we've speculated a bit about the intent. What do you think might have been behind some of the timing for why Putin chose this moment?
- [07:04]
E
Right. Assuming that it's deliberate and the number of drones and the fact that they were all unarmed are being seen as evidence that it was actually deliberate. The people I've spoken to, Russian military analysts and political analysts, basically say it can be read in two ways. So at the very best, this is Putin's way of trying to optimize his negotiating position and simply his way of warning the west not to send peacekeeping troops into Ukraine. I've heard this theory quite a lot. Some of the Kremlin watchers that I've spoken to say that we. Putin was actually quite alarmed by Trump's rapprochement with European leaders after Alaska, that he might feel that there's some kind of consensus forming about the need for some security guarantees in Ukraine and that this is his way of signaling to the west, you're not ready for a modern drone war and you should back off. Don't do that. That's the best case scenario, the worst case scenario, and there's, in my opinion, lots of evidence pointing in this direction, sadly, is that Russia's war goals are shifting. They're shifting from wanting to just capture and subjugate Ukraine to a much broader goal of dismantling NATO, of upstaging NATO and showing it to be a paper tiger. And most specifically, the way it's doing that is by poking holes, poking this Article 5, the Collective Defense clause, and amping up the pressure and seeing where this article 5 snaps. It's trying to sow division, it's trying to upstage NATO as weak. Those are the two scenarios, depending on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist at this point.
- [08:39]
B
One optimist that we heard from this week is Polish President Karl Nocky. He told our colleague Paul Ronzheimer, who's from the Axel Springer global reporting network, that NATO passed this test and Poland passed this test. Jan, do you agree? Did NATO and Poland pass the test?
- [08:57]
A
I guess looking at the more active side of NATO's response, the fact that unlike in previous incidents, Polish and Dutch airplanes assisted by other allied aircraft actually intervened and shot them down versus observing, which is what's happened in the past, shows that there is an actual NATO response to this sort of thing. So I guess you could see that as a success. There's a couple of things that argue against that. There's the cost ratio. The allied aircraft are enormously expensive. The missiles that they're firing are probably worth around a million dollars each. And they're using it to knock down a Russian knockoff of an Iranian shahed drone, which costs sort of between 10 and $50,000. There's an enormous disproportion in costs to what Eva was saying about the political reaction. I think that Russia may well see this as a success. Looking at Donald Trump's reaction, he had that bizarre truth social reaction where he said, what's with Russian violations of Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go. What does that mean? Then later he said that maybe it was maybe a mistake that the Russian drones were in Polish airspace. So not exactly a full throated support for Poland and for NATO. If Russia was looking for a signal that there's a lack of NATO unity on how to react to what is arguably the most serious Russian provocation against a NATO country since NATO was founded. It's a pretty big deal and it does not close the door on Russia's hopes of showing, as Eva said, that NATO is a paper tiger and that the Article 5 Common Defense Clause doesn't actually work. I agree. I think that's kind of what the Russians are hoping to show. This is a low cost way for them to do so. And as I said, I don't think the argument on that is over.
- [10:50]
B
Ona, just transporting yourself back to your days at NATO. How can you imagine the reaction at HQ just outside of Russell's was, I.
- [11:00]
D
Think people were expecting some test of the airspace because we've seen that repeatedly. This is not the first time people actually reacted in a joined up fashion. We saw a multinational response to what happened in Poland. We had the Polish F16s, but also Dutch F35s. We had an Italian surveillance plane which actually came from the Baltic air policing mission that NATO has in this case over Estonia. We had the German patriots deployed in Poland, all responding together. So that in itself I think did send a message to Putin that he can understand. Also the fact that within hours the NATO ambassadors in Brussels met under Article 4 of NATO's founding treaty, which calls for consultations when one of the allies considered, considers that its independence or territorial integrity is under threat, not under attack. So I think that's perhaps a nuance that's important in this case. So there was no invocation of Article 5, but clearly this was serious enough for allies to consult under Article 4. And the outcome was that in an almost unprecedented joint press conference, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rute, and the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe General Alexis Grinkiewicz, who by the way is an American Air Force General, announced again within hours the launch of a new approach to strengthen defence and deterrence along the eastern flank, which is called Eastern Sentry, with more capabilities already announced from the uk, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Denmark and others. And I think in general this is a sort of catalyst for ongoing efforts across NATO to, to look at how to deal with air and missile defence, knowing that in terms of capabilities, NATO allies need five times more than what they have now, which is a massive amount, but specifically with drones. So there is a lot of work ongoing, for instance, to establish what's known as an eastern flank deterrence line with drone sensors powered by AI, using commercial capabilities and also working with the Ukrainians. So, so there's a lot of focus on innovation, but also clearly this is much more urgent than perhaps people thought and all these efforts need to be brought together much faster.
- [13:33]
B
I have found it remarkable. We usually talk about EU or the US training Ukrainians, but this is a case where the Ukrainians have really been dealing relatively effectively with Russian drones for a while now, and maybe Europe can learn from them.
- [13:48]
A
Ukraine is in an arms race with Russia, a tech arms race which happens often in wars, on drone technology. And the Ukrainians are state of the art. They're developing both everything from fiber optic drones to electronic warfare to knock down incoming Russian drones, to have anti drone drones. And the Ukrainian success rate is they knock 80 to 90% of incoming Russian drones and missiles are shot down by the Ukrainians, which is a very high rate. Their level of expertise is Unmatched as well. Ukraine's production capacity, the number of drones that it can make, is also off the scale compared to what NATO countries can do. So NATO recognizes it needs to work with the Ukrainians, The Poles and other NATO countries are actually setting up special programs to train their forces on what the Ukrainians have learned in drone warfare.
- [14:40]
B
And was this in direct reaction to this drone incursion, or has it happened?
- [14:43]
A
No, it's been happening before.
- [14:45]
B
And, Eva, can you give us a glimpse at kind of the media chatter in Russia? What are the Russians telling their own public about this?
- [14:54]
E
They're not telling the Russians one thing. They are putting multiple narratives out there, as they usually do. And I think the drone incursion was a perfect example of that, because in the aftermath of that, we had Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, saying one thing, saying Russia gets accused of stuff all the time and usually without evidence, so basically dismissing it. We had a top Russian diplomat in Warsaw saying that they'd flown in from Ukraine, actually pointing the finger at Ukraine. And so there are all of these different narratives. And that's typical for just. The Russian strategy is to sow confusion. This policy of plausible deniability. Did we or did we not, you know, in general, creating this atmosphere of ambivalence? Russian propagandists on state TV are triumphant. They're having a good time at watching Europe and NATO squirm. There is a sense of why this overreaction? What is everyone up in a fuss about? Nothing actually happens. No one died. So I think there's this sense of Russia strong look at our adversaries squirm and look for a way out. But this, again, this is very much part of Russia's hybrid warfare. It's a way of incrementally amping up the pressure. There's this pushing of the line. And I've been thinking, actually, these past days of Russia is like a bit of a pit bull that is bitten into a stick. The stick is Ukraine, and it's just refusing to let go. And now that pit bull has begun snapping at our leg, and we are standing there. This is the view from Moscow, of course, that I'm translating. But we're standing there and saying, you know what? The hole in our trouser is not that big, or there's no blood. We can't see any blood yet. And you can say a lot about the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin, but he's great at sensing weakness. He smells blood. And from Russia's vantage point, the West's Division. Our inability to have a united stance and forceful response is a huge weakness.
- [16:49]
B
Yeah. And after all of Trump's kind of confusing comments about his reaction to the drones, he did say over the weekend in a kind of public drew social letter to NATO where he said that if all NATO countries stop buying Russian gas and put sanctions on China, then the US Will apply its own sanctions on Russia. What's your take? Is this a new goal that Europe can kind of chase after?
- [17:14]
A
The consensus among the European diplomats and officials that we spoke to is that this is not a serious proposal from Trump, but Europe is going to not break with Trump and say it can't be done. They will toughen sanctions, they will put pressure on Slovakia and Hungary to stop buying Russian oil. So they will make moves towards meeting at least the oil embargo issue that Trump laid out. But the idea is that what Trump is doing is setting up conditions that are impossible for the EU to meet. Both completely halting all energy imports immediately is basically a no go. Europe buys much less than it did before the war, but there is still a little bit coming in. The other one is he did say NATO countries, not EU countries. That includes Turkey. Turkey is the world's third largest buyer of Russian oil. The idea that Turkey would immediately stop purchases of Russian oil is vastly improbable. And then on top of that, he hit these sanctions, not just China, but India as well. The EU is in the middle of negotiating a trade deal with India. So the idea that the EU would torpedo its relations with India with China to follow Trump, who's enormously mercurial and unpredictable, is a non starter. So the thought is that he set these conditions, the EU and NATO won't be able to meet them. And that gives Trump an out to not actually declare sanctions against Russia, which nobody thinks that he's really going to do in nra, because what he's done since he took office was set these deadlines. Usually it's about two weeks, and then two weeks pass by and there's no mention, a bit of silence, and then another deadline comes, two weeks, and it's not met again. So most people think that Trump is not serious about ever putting on any kind of penalties or punishment against Russia. And this is another way for him to dodge that taco.
- [19:04]
B
Trump strikes again. Trump always chickens out. Eva. So given that we don't really think these oil phaseouts are going to happen, and certainly not the tariffs on China and India, what concrete moves would change Moscow's calculus?
- [19:18]
E
That's such a difficult question. Because we don't know, do we? The cop out is to say a clear red line. I was talking about the pit bull before. It's consistency, which is not what we're getting from Donald Trump at the moment. But having said that, there is this idea of. I wrote a piece about this recently about Putin needing some kind of war in one way or another. And so whether or not he is eventually interested in striking some kind of deal in Ukraine, this general, this bigger war with the west is not going to stop. I spoke to this Russian analyst called Nikolai Petrov, and he said Putin is the president of war, stopping the war. Putin not being the president of war, going back to just being a president would be a demotion for him. He has people within his inner circle clamoring for this broader war with NATO. The invasion of Ukraine has been a failure, and so there needs to be something bigger. People have been waiting for a grand victory over the West. And so regardless of what happens with these Ukraine peace negotiations, it's very, very unlikely that this grander war against NATO and the west will stop.
- [20:28]
B
Anna, last word to you. Given that these Russian provocations have become routine and that, you know, this kind of constant confrontation is valuable to Putin, what should NATO's red line be and what should the public expect next time a drone crosses into NATO territory?
- [20:47]
D
Well, I think the whole point is to send a message of deterrence, that is, don't do it again. But most NATO officials that I've spoken to and military officials are pretty sure that it is very likely to happen again simply because of the nature of the war and the intensified air attacks that we've seen by the Russians ever since the Alaska summit. So it's likely to happen again. But I think in terms of capabilities to strike down drones, we will have many more of those on the eastern flank, from the Baltics to Poland to Romania. The question is, how fast is NATO in this race to create this drone wall along the eastern flank and how effective it is.
- [21:34]
B
Eva Jan Oana, thank you so much for being here.
- [21:36]
E
Thank you.
- [21:37]
A
Thank you.
- [21:37]
D
Thank you.
- [21:40]
B
Okay, time for a quick break. When we come back, we'll hear from Vera Yurova, the former European Commissioner in charge of values and transparency. Since she's traded Brussels for Prague, she's published a memoir, taken up a role as vice rector at Charles University, and is now an advisor to Czechia's current president. She tells us who she admired, who she sparred with. Yes, that includes Franz Timmermans, and why Thierry Breton never laughed at her jokes. And we'll get her take on Czech politics just weeks before the country's elections. Stay with us.
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- [23:18]
B
And now onto my conversation with former commissioner Vera Yurova. You've written this book and you sort of cast it as, you know, you're a little liberated to speak more freely. And I was surprised that you said that because as a commissioner here in Brussels, you were already known as one of the most open commissioners. Most people will only speak off the record, but you were pretty pretty.
- [23:40]
C
So, I mean, the political correctness and diplomatic language, it is not my biggest quality. Whenever the journalist was leaving my office looking very happy, I knew that I will be unhappy tomorrow. It was in most cases, true.
- [23:58]
B
So in your book you talked about how it took you a month to realize that you no longer had political power. And you're here in Brussels for an event and it kind of hit home for you. You were telling us before we started recording.
- [24:09]
C
Yeah, I am. I'm here. The Research and Innovations Days. It's a huge event. And the star of the event was Siyakaterina Sahariva, the commissioner for research. After her keynote and after her panel, she was standing 1 meter from me. I was sitting in the first RO modestly. And there were two queues waiting for a photo with Ekaterina. And people from the right queue were stepping on my feet unscrupulously, as if I was not sitting there at all. I had to laugh so much because a year ago I was in the role of the Ovya Katerina and The people were waiting for a photo with me. I thought, yeah, Yorova, you are out of it. You can laugh about that. And you are not frustrated at all.
- [25:00]
B
Well, we appreciate that you're embracing your. Your humanity as we're talking. We're just one week after the State of the European Union speech. It was by your former boss, Ursula von der Leyen. I know you watched it. What did you think?
- [25:13]
C
I said it many times that seeing Brazila leading Europe, I have better sleep. I really trust her that she's a leader. The start of it was impressive. For a woman who is small figure, she's physically petite.
- [25:30]
B
Yeah.
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C
She has to invest so much energy to look like somebody who wants to fight. And her first sentence, Europe is in fight. She was very authentic. I think she managed. A man 2 meters high would not have to invest so much. So that's just the impression, but the content. I agree with most of the things those three parts, arts, European fight, Europe needs to be competitive. And the third part, the values related thing. I was satisfied, of course, at the same time, being here 10 years, I know how big is the distance between the words and the action and the impact on reality. So here, of course, there is some portion of my skepticism whether all what Ursula promised is feasible within the necessary short time.
- [26:27]
B
What do you see as kind of the biggest roadblock? And has it changed over time, over the decade that you were here in Brussels and since? Or is it still kind of always the same problem?
- [26:38]
C
I entered the commission in 2014 in relatively good weather, but after three, four years in the Universe Commission, I was thinking about, my God, it's crisis after crisis. It was of course, Crimea, then the Greek financial crisis, migration wave, terrorism, Brexit. And I was really depressed. But at the same time I was happy to be here to understand the solutions. And then the real things came, the war and Covid. So of course, due to the cumulative issues and crisis, the atmosphere in the society changed. Part of the society has been radicalized. The impact of social media and unscrupulous algorithms is huge. So Europe changed. Also Europe changed because there is a culmination of issues of big risks coming from outside. So I don't want to sound depressive, but the tasks are huge.
- [27:47]
B
During your time in the Commission, you engaged a good bit with the American tech industry. We're kind of focused on trying to fight misinformation, deal with those algorithms. In the US Right now they're dealing with the assassination of a right wing political activist by somebody who we don't know much but appears to have been kind of radicalized by online culture and a lot of the sort of free speech absolutism on the by Trump's allies. They're starting to say, well, maybe this should have its limits. Is this an opportunity for them to maybe see European safeguards as useful?
- [28:18]
C
As useful? I cannot imagine such a high level of self reflection, honestly. I have to say that any assassination, any murder on political or other basis is harmful for responsible politicians. It should be always the signal that there must be some calming down messages and measures. This is probably an important moment in history, but at the same time the signal for the politicians that the madness should be stopped. The madness can be stopped in the United States by of course, the President and his circles and the technological bosses, because they are the masters of the digital space. So I think that this should be a moment to think about efficient measures to stop it.
- [29:10]
B
And you've also said that one of the hardest files you worked on was democratic backsliding in Poland and Hungary. You pushed for linking EU money to respect for the rule of law. Where do you see that debate going?
- [29:23]
C
It was my idea. In 2017, I announced it in Vienna that it could be a good idea to condition the money. I. I heard from Urzula in her speech that she wants to go further and maybe to enlarge the list of the reasons for freezing of the money. So I will be watching the space. When I look back at what I was doing here, I sometimes say that the autocrats will be remembering me longer than the Democrats. And this is one of the reasons I am proud of it, because it seemed to be mission impossible when I came with this idea. How come you can freeze the EU funding? As if the EU funding is something automatic? No, there should be a condition.
- [30:08]
B
Initially, it sort of seemed like Viktor Orban was kind of the only, especially after Brexit, the only kind of Eurosceptic around the council table. But there are more and more people who seem to be joining him from your region of Europe. Robert Fico comes from a different political orientation in Slovakia, but is likewise often an ally. And now we're also looking at his friend Andrew Babish, former Czech Prime Minister, who's on track to win elections in early October. You know him well. You were once one of his political allies, but you've left his Anno Party. What's behind the split? And if he returns to power, what can we expect?
- [30:47]
C
Okay, maybe first on Eurosceptics around the table. I remember many critical ministers and even leaders, even the prime ministers Being skeptical about different things which the commission came with or the EU institutions came with with. But the difference is between these critics who are necessary. The demon of consent is not a good thing. But Viktor Orban and his mantra of sovereignism. This is the plan to dismantle eu and I am not happy my former party and the party leader joined this club, but it's a current reality. I worked with Andrei Babis two years intensively when he established the party as a catch all party. I saw my place there because I am a liberal, a little bit to the left and he offered a good space for doing politics. So I am grateful to Andre Babis for the opportunity to come back and to make a political career. But I always say I didn't sign the contract with my blood. I decided to leave the party in summer 2024. So last year I think it was a mistake to remain when I saw first that we are not on the same page. He has big chance to become again the Prime Minister. He doesn't have such a big chance to create a coalition with the parties which can resonate with his party, but also with European Way Forward because there is an offer of some smaller parties which openly speak about the need to leave NATO and to leave European Union. And that's definitely not the plan of ANU party, of Babish's party. So I think that we will see a drama as a citizen and as a homopoliticus. I am very much looking forward to the elections and to the results.
- [32:50]
B
I want to come back to Brussels. Your comments about Von der Leyen and sort of the challenge of projecting and holding power as a woman politician were really interested in. And one of the phenomena that we've been looking at in her second term is sort of her consolidation of power. One example is the way she shaped her new commission. The influence of her chief of staff, Bjorn Zeibert. Do you think this is the right approach?
- [33:15]
C
This is what I hear from the colleagues, from many people in the commission. There is a combination of frustration because there are many people who believe they could be. They should be the leaders of different sectors or different matters. And Ursula having too much power, according to them. There are, however, some, and I think I would belong to them who say, well, this is a difficult time which needs strong leadership. And one might say strong leadership means less democratic decision making. Yes, technically it's true. So if I would have been now in the commission, I think I would try my best to convince Ursula that her decisions will be inspired and motivated by my opinions.
- [34:07]
B
Very Diplomatic. But indeed you served in the commission with a lot of big personalities who were eager to make it look like that they were driving all the ideas in a very public way. Can you just give us some dishes from the time at your commission? You know, tell us some stories about Timmerman's Breton Vesteger.
- [34:24]
C
Aye aye, aye aye. Yes.
- [34:27]
B
You've talked about Vestager as being somebody that you really admired.
- [34:30]
C
I admired her. She was and she still is my friend. She's honest and we did a lot of, I think, good things together because she was in the second mandate, the digital czar, as you put it in Politiko, very often. So one might say that the digital Tsar is somebody who will look at the tools, the pipes, the machines. But she always understood that these tools must be used for the benefit of the people. And the people should be around the table with the digital bosses to shape the future of it. And Margaret had always a very strong understanding why I am invading into her territory. It needed a lot of self confidence. She has it. Speaking about other colleagues, you mentioned Thierry Breton. Well, big figure, I think I had my way of handling him. Maybe one piquant story. He doesn't understand Czech humor, even when it is said in English. Czech humor is sarcastic and cynical and ironic. But the people loved it when I said some jokes which were directed to him and he didn't get it.
- [35:44]
B
Oh no.
- [35:46]
C
So I think till now he doesn't know that. Franz Timmermans it was more complicated because in the first mandate he was in fact my boss and we had some disputes because he wanted to order the way he thinks the people should leave to others. I always tried to avoid ordering the people how to live. I was always trying to offer the ways. So his strong conviction that the way he wants it is the best and the only way. I'm really mentally far from this method. And in my book I compared him as somebody who never hesitates, who always knows 100% how things should be. I compared him with Vaclav Havelawed president, who according to his friends was permanently hesitating person, always in doubts. And then after he made his mind, he said things and the people followed him and he was able to demolish the totalitarian regime.
- [36:55]
B
You mentioned in your book a few moments when you really contemplated resigning from the commission. And one of them came in 2022, right after Russia's full scale invasion, when you felt the sanctions were too weak. Since then we've seen many more packages. The 19th is now in the works. Do you still believe that The EU should have hit Russia harder.
- [37:16]
C
Probably, yes. I think that we never believed that the economic sanctions can stop the military action, but we honestly believe that it will decrease the ability of Putin to finance this war. It didn't happen. So I think now it's high time with the new package and new packages may be coming in combination with American sanctions to really stop feeding the Russian economic machine.
- [37:46]
B
And sanctions packages have been held up by kind of constant veto threats from Hungary and Slovakia. Those are also countries that are still buying Russian oil. How to deal with those blocks veto.
- [37:58]
C
In the field of security, it's something we have to seriously think about. Of course, on one side, there is a very strong interest of concrete states to have the veto to defend own national interests. And I would say yes, for such cases, veto should be maintained, but the country has to prove such strong national and I would even say national security interest. Now veto is used as a blackmailing method and we cannot continue like that.
- [38:34]
B
Another foreign policy issue that is really absorbing a lot of attention right now is the violence in Gaza. Israel's response to the October 7 attacks. The EU right now, the commission has proposed to end some of the trade elements of the association agreement. The Czech Republic is one of the countries that's most defending Israel and kind of protecting them from more EU action. Is that another area where Prague's perspective should be overridden somehow?
- [39:03]
C
There is a long lasting tradition of Czechs being very strong allies of Israel, and it stays the same. Now when many people already in Czechia as well see that what's happening in Gaza can be called genocide. I think that people are opening eyes and there is a big question mark in Czech politics whether we can still be strong friends of Israel while condemning what's happening in Gaza. It's a dilemma. It's a dilemma for the diplomats, but also it has, of course, a strong ethical dimension. Whenever we see the results of the ministerials of the Council of the Ministers of Foreign affairs, it's more and more visible that those who are so radically on the side of Israel only are more and more isolated. I will not tell you my opinions on that. Of course, I am a human being. When I see people suffering, of course I want to shout, please stop that. But at the same time, we have to understand the complexity of the situation.
- [40:11]
B
Well, indeed, I can tell that you're still paying a lot of attention to politics. I can hear in the way that you talk that you're trying to balance sort of your human being role versus your former politician role. How are you adjusting to civilian life.
- [40:26]
C
I am so happy back home in Prague. My friends are still there. Ten years they were waiting for me to come back. So life is now very good. Also, it is good because when I wake up in the morning, I open Politico.
- [40:45]
B
We're going to play that three or four times during this broadcast.
- [40:48]
C
Thank you. Yes, I can imagine that's a highlight. And the reaction is what? I am not there. Half a minute of frustration, then the second half of the minute, oh my God, that's great. I am not there. And then I realized that I don't have to be there because I am already a normal citizen living in Prague. And this is all fine.
- [41:13]
B
Varyarova, thank you so much for being here.
- [41:16]
C
Thank you.
- [41:18]
B
For those of you who speak Czech and want to read the full book, we'll put the title in the show notes. As for us, that's it for this week. If you haven't already subscribed to EU Confidential, please take care of that. Also, please rate us, review us, send us your ideas to podcastolitico. EU thanks to Deanna Sturris, our senior audio producer, and to Ann McAvoy, POLITICO's head of audio. I'm Sarah Wheaton. See you next week.
- [41:50]
A
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