← Brussels Playbook Podcast
Brussels Playbook Podcast
Notes on a scandal — will a fraud probe upend the EU?
00:42:22
Brussels was jolted this week by dawn raids and an alleged fraud probe involving current and former senior EU diplomats.
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A
Brussels has had one of those weeks where the city feels a little stunned. On Tuesday, there were dawn raids and detentions across Belgium. They were linked to an alleged fraud investigation into the early days of the EU's diplomatic academy in Bruges. And that shook the usually discreet world of EU diplomacy. The visibility of the operation and the bold faced names who were very publicly hauled in for questioning, including the EU's former foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, caught many insiders off guard. But as the week progressed, the gravity of the fraud allegations actually got murkier, not clearer.
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All of this is happening just as commission President Ursula von der Leyen marks one year into her second term, a moment she might have hoped would be about still stability and a sense of direction. It's now colliding with an unexpected test of the system around her.
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So how big could this scandal become? Will anyone actually be held accountable for wrongdoing, assuming there even was any wrongdoing? And how will this affect the way EU citizens view their leadership in Brussels?
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I'm Sarah Wheaton, host of EU Confidential. Later in the episode, we'll zoom out and take stock of this commission's first year. The winds, the wobbles, and the impact of a rapidly shifting international landscape, thanks in no small part to Donald Trump and his knack for setting political agendas far beyond Washington. And yes, our guests will even put a number on it, scoring fonderlions team out of 10. But first, we're going to dig into the scandal that's dominated Brussels all week. I'm joined by my colleague Zoya Sheftilovich, Politico's new chief EU correspondent, and Max Guerrera, our go to reporter on the Parliament.
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Okay, first off, Zoya, welcome back to Brussels. You were part of the original Politico team when the newsroom here launched a decade Ago, you told us once that your first reporting project was about Jean Claude Juncker's kidney stones. Now you're back as POLITICO's chief EU correspondent and you're reporting on something arguably just as uncomfortable for the institutions. A rapidly unfolding fraud scandal involving the EU's diplomatic service. So before we dive into that, Zoya, your first impression being back in Brussels.
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B
Well, nothing has changed, has it? It's been a decade, but we're still writing about, well, let's say metaphorical kidney stones in the EAs, shall we? It has been baptism by fire. Being back just as this scandal has broken. It is one of those things that happens in Brussels all the time. Look, any place you've got a lot of money, a lot of power, you're going to have corruption, alleged corruption. Alleged, alleged corruption. Look, there is corruption here for sure. Whether it's this particular instance or not, we don't know those are allegations. But that's what we journalists are here for, to root it out.
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A
All right, well, let's get to this particular alleged case. The two people at the center of the story are Federica Mogherini and Stefano Sanino. Remind us who they are and why their names immediately set off alarm bells.
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B
These are two big, big names in Brussels. Federico Mogherini is the EU's former foreign policy chief, very high profile during the Juncker Commission, who then moved to the College of Europe as its rector in 2020. Stefano Cennino, huge big name diplomat in the EAS, which is the EU's diplomatic corps, and then moved over earlier this year to the Commission to, to head up its department for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf. Digi Mina.
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A
And what's the allegation here?
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B
So we had these allegations on Tuesday morning. First thing in the morning, the European Public Prosecutor's Office put out a statement saying that they had conducted raids at some private addresses at the College of Europe in Bruges and at the E A s, basically looking into allegations that there had been some impropriety in the awarding of a tender to form an academy for European diplomats to the College of Europe. And the allegations related to the fact of someone from the EAS tipping off the College of Europe about the tender before it opened so that the College of Europe could essentially tailor their tender to the criteria for the tender. There was a sense that there might have been some favoritism there in the awarding of the tender.
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A
And so, yeah, so then what happened when this all played out? I mean, we understand that the action was initiated by the European Public Prosecutor's Office, but it was the Belgian police actually carrying out the raids.
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B
We know that the Belgian authorities went to some private addresses. We know one of those addresses was Federico Mogherini's. They conducted raids in those addresses. We also know that they looked at the EAS building and they looked at the College of Europe. And I guess what they were looking for was evidence of fraud and wrongdoing. I think they seized some technical equipment, so phones, laptops, that sort of thing. And now the investigation really begins. So there were three people who were detained. They were since released. They were released on Tuesday because they were not deemed a flight risk. But now the investigation continues.
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A
Okay, and of course, these people who were detained were. Were Mogherini and Sonnino. And that's why we were all just pretty flabbergasted. So, Max, what is this European Diplomatic Academy? I mean, I. You know, I hadn't really heard of it.
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C
The Diplomatic Academy is this pet project from the Parliament. It's something that the AFET committee pushed for, especially these Spanish socialist lawmaker Nacho Sanchez Amor, which has not answered any requests for comment on the whole situation. He really pushed to have some sort of academy to form the future diplomats of the aas. We know that the program could last up to two years, and it would end with an internship of one month in the AES to really, like, integrate already these diplomats in the workforce.
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A
Potentially seems like a pretty good program. And, like, the College of Europe is, like, one of the main EU training grounds. So, Zoya, like, how serious are these allegations?
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B
It's hard to say. We haven't seen the detail of the probe. We don't know exactly what happened. But definitely there is a sense around Brussels when I'm having conversations with people around town. Look, is this a very serious allegation? I think there is no allegation that someone has pocketed money, that someone has been bribed. As far as we can tell, that's not the nature of this particular scandal. But we do have to think about the fact that there were other universities that tended for this particular college academy. It would have been quite lucrative for those universities to get that EAS money. It is EU taxpayer money, you know, so they do need to be accountable. That's why we have tender processes to ensure that people are accountable. And we're not just awarding things to our friends. You know, this might not have the gravity of some of the allegations that we've seen before when it comes to cash for comment or when it comes to influence buying operations. But I do think that we still need to be interested in how it is the EU or various EU institutions like the EAS award contracts to spend EU money. Is it done based on merit, or is it done on the basis of who you know and whether you like them?
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A
Okay, so Mogherini and Sanino were both taken in for questioning. Then they were released. Within a few days, Sanino announced that he was retiring and Mogherini has stepped down as head of the College of Europe. But what are they saying?
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B
Both of them have said, look, we respect the process, trust the process, we look forward to the outcome of the process. And I think that certainly they are not accepting that there has been any wrongdoing. They're denying it. And I think it's important to say here that nothing has been proven yet, and we don't know if it ever will be because we've seen with other high profile probes and investigations that the Belgian authorities have launched that years down the track, we're yet to see too much further action beyond that initial splashy press conference. So, look, I think that is really the question. How long will this scandal continue capturing the town? What further revelations might we see? Or might this go the way of some of the previous probes where, you know, there's a flash in the pan and then we hear nothing about it again for several years?
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A
So, as the regular listeners to this podcast know, I love a good scandal, but like so often, they're not good true crime stories because there's no conclusion, they just fizzle out. And I mean, Max, whether it's Qatar Gate, where despite a suitcase full of cash, no one has even, like, gone to trial, this Huawei Gate scandal also seemed to, like, go nowhere. There's growing frustration over this.
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C
Indeed, the reaction in the Parliament to the news about the European External Action Service was skepticism. One MEP was telling me in the hallways how the Belgian police are always very exaggerated, quote, unquote. Another MP also made similar comments, explained how the relationship between the Belgian authorities and the parliament is really hitting rock bottom after now in December, it's going to be three years since the first raid on Qatargate happened in the parliament and there are still no final results to it. Right. So MMPs are frustrated at it. Now in December, we'll have the first hearing after a long time in which judges will determine whether police had some missteps in the procedure and whether the whole investigation could fall apart over procedure. On the other hand, then, as you were saying, we also have the Huawei case, which has also fueled a lot of frustrations, because back then, a few months ago, when the police announced that they would ask to leave the immunity of four MEPs allegedly involved in a Huawei influence network with favors and bribery, they asked to leave the immunity of one MEP just to withdraw it two hours later when they realized that actually this MEP was not in office when the alleged crime took place. Right. So that really fueled a lot of frustration of MEPs saying, Look, Belgian police is too sloppy. We cannot trust them. Even that brought Roberta Metsola to publicly scold the authorities, of course, without saying directly Belgium, but everyone knew who she was talking about. And she said that the parliament had to stop authorities tarnishing the reputation of lawmakers. So that's a bit the mood in the Parliament of skepticism.
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A
Yeah, I mean, I think it creates this Twilight Zone situation where there are not good transparency rules. So it's hard for journalists and kind of citizens to hold politicians accountable in Brussels. And yet the only people who can do it, the police and the European public prosecutor, seem to overshoot and then undermine their own credibility and sort of give deniability even to people where there might be a strong case against them.
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B
The fact that faith, public faith, is undermined in the Belgian authorities and in their ability to really deliver on the cases that they open, it is a very dangerous thing for faith in the EU as a whole. Because what you get is this sense of lawlessness and a sense of one rule for us, one rule for them. You have the EU's enemies weaponizing these sorts of arguments and saying, look, see, you've got all of these cases being opened. No one's being held to account. Hey, Brussels, how dare you lecture us on our rule of law and on our democracy standards and on our corruption when you can't even get your act together and look after your own backyard. So I think that is a really dangerous thing for the Euro when you've got these sorts of things being launched, but then immediately the commentary you're getting is not, wow, what an outrageous thing, but instead, eh, I don't know about this. Doesn't sound so bad. The Belgians keep doing this. That is a dangerous, dangerous attitude for people around town and for member states to have. You know, look, my background is from Ukraine. I've seen what happens when people don't have faith in the rule of law in the authorities, and when there's this general sense that all of this is just too much trouble. Let's not even engage with it you get disengaged, disenchanted and apathetic electorate that just thinks, well, every guy is as bad as the last one, and we don't really care about this anymore. And that is a worry.
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A
All right, so just briefly, how is this playing out for the leadership of the current commission? So we have Kayakalis, who is now in the post that Mogherini held. So she oversees the European External Action Service. Ursula Fonder, Lyon Sunino's just until this week, current boss. Are they getting hit by any of the blowback here?
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B
So definitely both Kayakalis and Fonda Lyon are distancing themselves from this saga. Kayakalis is saying, look, this happened not under my watch. I've been implementing house cleaning in the EAs. I'm putting forward all sorts of things, proposals, plans to try to clean up some of that corruption. Not me Gov, is what she's saying in a nutshell. But I think it is really reflecting on the EU's diplomatic core because there is a sense of, look, where is the accountability? How do we ensure that these people who represent the European Union, who go out and lecture other people about standards, you know, how do we make sure that they are kept within the realm of the law? How do we ensure that they're being watched and monitored? And of course, the EAS is a separate institution to the European Commission. You know, under the EU treaties, they are entirely separate. And Kaya Kallas has a dual role. So she is in Ursula von der Leyen's College of Commissioners, but her role as the high representative, as the EU's top diplomat, that's an entirely separate role. So that is the line from the European Commission, hey, this has nothing to do with her role in the college. This has everything to do with the fact that the EAS is a separate diplomatic corps. It's got nothing to do with us. Don't look here, look over there. So that's kind of the tone from the commission.
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A
Last question to both of you, briefly, what. What are the things you're going to be looking for next?
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B
I am looking to see where this investigation goes. And if, you know, if you're around town and you see me, please come and chat to me, because I am very.
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A
You should do that anyway.
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B
Exactly. Hello, Brussels. Come talk to me. Look, I think we need to see what, what happens here. We need to see where else this investigation goes, what the authorities uncovered. Is there evidence of wrongdoing? What is the implication of what happened here? But I think more broadly, the story is, hey, what Is the relationship between the EU's diplomatic corps, the rest of the commission, what is going to happen there? You know, is there going to be some blowback on the EAS, on the EU's diplomatic service, or will this all go away? So that's what I'm watching, Max.
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C
Of course, as a parliament correspondent, I'll be looking at, you know, how political groups react to this. For now, it's been all no comment, at least from von der Leyen's allies, right, the Greens, the center right, epp, and then the Socialism Democrats. They all said, no comment, Renew Europe. The liberals did issue a statement saying, look, we're very concerned about this and we're looking at it closely. And then of course, while von der Leyen's allies are keeping quiet for the moment, the far left group, and then all the right wing and far right parties are already sort of claiming victory, saying, look, see, we told you Brussels is corrupt, the EU cannot be trusted, and they're capitalizing on this, especially in Hungary, ahead of the national election we'll have in spring. This is a big gift for Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary.
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A
Well, yeah, funny you should mention that, Max. We had actually the Hungarian Prime Minister's top political advisor in the studio the day after this story broke. And of course, I figured he was going to be super eager to talk to us about it. Here's what Balaj Orban, no relation to the Prime Minister, said when I brought it up.
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D
From the Budapest point of view, it's.
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B
Again another sign of double standards. So Brussels and the Brussels institutions are.
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E
Lecturing member states governments based on disagreements on policy issues.
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F
But they portray it as a rule of law problem. And it always turns out that there.
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D
Are serious rule of law corruption related.
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F
Issues in Brussels which are not treated seriously.
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A
But to be honest, he didn't seem like that excited to talk about it. And so I just really pressed him on what role he thought this scandal might play in next year's election in Hungary. And here's what he said.
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F
Honestly, it's not a big surprise for me.
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E
So it doesn't add too much.
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A
Of course, we did have a longer conversation about what he does think will drive the election next year, as well as his vision for kind of what it will take for the far right to really change Europe. And we will play that conversation next week. But for now, Max, I will let you go. Thank you, Zoya. You. If you could please stick around.
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We need to take a quick break. After that, we'll examine this commission's first year and try to pin down what defines it. Stay with us.
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- [19:27]
When she described her first commission, Ursula Fonder Lyon called it geopolitical. So now what do we call this one? To discuss it, I've kept Zoya in the studio and next to her is Jan Czynski, our defense editor. And over zoom, we're joined by Doug Busvine, Politico's trade and competition editor, as well as Carl Matheson, our senior climate correspondent.
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First, we're kind of marking the one year point of this commission. I'm going to do a little tour de table here, as we say in Brussels, giving them a score of 1 to 10 with one sentence on why. Jan, I'll start with you for that one.
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D
I would give the commission probably somewhere around a 7. The war in Ukraine completely upended the commission's priorities. I mean the first von der Leyen commission was very sort of green focused. It was all about climate change, cutting emissions. But defence is top of the agenda. Now. They've done things like set up parliamentary committee that deals with defence. They've passed huge amounts of defence spending programs, so could have been better, but seven is pretty good.
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A
Okay, nice for your. For any of the people Yan edits listening.
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Quite the compound sentence. Doug, to you. What's your one to ten rating and your one sentence explanation?
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E
Well, I'm going to give the commissioner five because someone's going to give me the bad mark. On trade, they got stuck with a one sided deal by the Americans. And on competition, Theresa Ribera hasn't really got going yet. So we don't really know what's happening there. Nothing much.
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A
All Right.
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F
Carl, to you, I would give them a 5 to just for managing the climate beat, but not excelling.
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A
Very well done. Zoya, also representing the reporters, even though you just arrived physically in Brussels, you've been following it very closely as a playbook editor. What's your rating?
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B
I think I'm going to go with the consensus of five because all of the things that they did, they're now undoing. So it might have been a 10, but now we're going backwards again.
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A
Oof. Okay, we are some harsh judges here. Doug, as you characterized it, it was a one sided trade deal. And of course, the first year was really shaped by the Trump administration, by the tariff shock. Can you just kind of remind us what was in the deal and how it's working in practice?
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E
I can answer what went into the deal and that was a major threat by Trump to impose extremely heavy punitive tariffs on Europe. What they ended up Getting was a 15% baseline tariff. But in return, the EU has promised to scrap all tariffs on US industrial goods. So by any stretch, that is a one sided deal. It was a tough negotiation, but, you know, the details are still not locked down. There's a lot still to implement. We don't think it's going to stick. It could just as well partly unravel.
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A
But I mean, the commission has made the argument that, you know, yeah, their deal was one sided, but it was still like less bad than what a lot of other countries managed to work out for themselves.
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E
Yeah, they did. And they've baked in a sort of insurance policy into the deal they like to call the tariff that the European exporters pay all inclusive. So it's sort of capped at the 15%. The Brits don't have that. So, yeah, that is a bit of an insurance policy against whatever Trump might still do. It's not the worst deal out there, but it's a lot worse than what was there before.
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A
Yeah. And also taking your point that, you know, we don't know whether Trump will, will stick to the deal. So given this unpredictability, the commission keeps saying that Europe needs new partners, new trade deals. Where are we on the Mercosur talks With many South American countries, with India, Indonesia. Is this strategy actually working?
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E
Yeah, I mean, I'd start with India because that's the first place that Osloff Onderlein went with her College of Commissioners. They all went on a junket to New Delhi in February and she pledged with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do a trade deal this year. Well, the days are Counting down. They are pretty advanced, but it's crunch time. The last part is always the most difficult, but I think the will is there. If we look at other trade deals, without much ado. They've done a deal with Indonesia, they updated Mexico, there's a few others going on, but the big one is Mercosur. That one has been going for 25 years. France has held out for so long, they can't quite hold out on their own anymore. They've put some extra bits on the deal to provide a little bit of extra protection to the farm market in Europe. But between now and Christmas, when Ursula Fondelion hopes to fly away and sign the deal in Brazil, there's an awful lot that can still go wrong. So we're really watching the votes in the committees, in the plenary, in the council to see what pans out there. It's doable. It really needs to happen, in my view. But whether it will, we'll just have to see.
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A
Yeah, and Europe has always liked to hold itself as sort of a beacon of values around the world. And trade deals was a major way of kind of spreading and maintaining those values. Has the EU continued to be able to play this role even as these deals become more urgent?
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E
When China is coercing the world by putting an embargo on raw materials or critical raw materials exports, and Trump is whacking everyone with tariffs, it's pretty hard to hold to that line. They are trying to pivot and make friends with the few democracies that still support rules based trade. So there's an unpronounceable Asia Pacific group, the cptpp, and they're making friends with those guys. But you know, the EU is really having to get tough as well and try to toughen up its defences. But that is difficult, basically, if you want to retaliate, if you're the eu, everyone has to agree. And that's tough to do, to play the same game as the Americans and the Chinese.
- [25:34]
A
All right, well, you used the phrase toughening up the defenses and they've been trying to do that literally. Trump's wobbliness on NATO and the war in Ukraine has reshaped this commission's agenda. Defense was very clearly not something that the EU did, but now we even have a defense commissioner, a bunch of EU programs, EU spending plans. So, Jan, is any of this actually making the EU safer and less dependent on the US or is it SAF still too little, too slow and too late?
- [26:05]
D
It's a very long road to lessen the dependency in the United States, because this is a dependency which basically exists from the American entry into World War II. So it's decades and decades. Generations of people in Europe have grown up with the Americans being friends and allies and part of the same club. I think you could make a strong argument that America is no longer an ally in that sense and is no longer a member of the club. But that sort of historical holdover is still there. Weapons of programs are still very much interlinked. Europe is still very dependent on US arms exports, on the presence of US troops in Europe. So it's very difficult to disentangle yourself from the US and there's many people in Europe who are aghast at what's happening under Donald Trump. But there's still some hope that after Trump that there will be a post Trump era where a more normal America sort of returns to the play. Europe is trying to be more independent in defense policy, basically adopting a French line. They never really trusted the Americans to the end and now they can say, well, we were right that the Americans weren't actually all that trustworthy. So the EU has set up a program which is just now going into effect. It's called safe. It's 150 billion euros of low interest loans that has been fully subscribed by, I think it's about 19 member countries have taken loans of various sizes. Poland is the largest. And the further east you go, it tends to be the more money that the countries are borrowing and they have to spend it on weapons. And that has a provision that only 35% of the weapons program can come from non member country sources. The real goal of that is to disentangle from the US and to make sure that the European military industrial complex sort of stands on its own two feet. You could argue that's a pretty big success. That's a lot of money. But the money is being spent and apportioned by member countries. So that is still very much jealously guarded by the member countries. They're happy to have the EU figure out ways of generating more money, but they really don't want to have the EU playing a big role in deciding weapons systems being in conflict with NATO. So there's a big wariness of the.
- [28:11]
A
EU overreaching, despite Europe trying to become more of kind of a military power. We've seen Brussels and European countries broadly sort of struggle to have an influence on the Ukraine peace talks. Europe often isn't at the table. But the interesting thing is that when Europe is at the table, we've noticed that It's Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as opposed to the representative of the capitals, Antonio Costa, or the EU's foreign policy chief, Kayakallis Zoya. What have we observed about von der Leyen and her ability to actually talk to Washington?
- [28:48]
B
Things started out a little bit rocky. We know that Ursula von der Leyen took a long time to get a meeting with Trump, but it seems like there is some sort of relationship there. Now. I think what it comes down to is that Trump is a man who is really only interested in raw power. And Ursula von der Leyen is the most powerful person in the EU room. And I mean that, you know, figuratively as well as literally. So I think that explains why she is the person who is the go to now. So I think that's the Donald Trump dealmaker approach. But I think the limitation of that is also that he looks around and he sees the extent of her power is also limited. So while she may be the most powerful, unfortunately, in the scenario that we find ourselves in, because the European Union runs as a democratic body, she doesn't have the raw power of a national leader, let alone the raw power of a dictator. Who are the people Donald Trump likes the most, seemingly. So I think that is where we're seeing these negotiations fall down.
- [29:49]
A
Yeah, indeed. And that's a great point. You know, as Trump likes to say, you don't have the cards. Europe and Brussels do have cards, but the Commission is often constrained from using them by member countries. So we didn't get into this, Doug. But on trade, of course, the EU has some extremely powerful trade tools that the capital's kind of wussed out on using. And now one card that Europe does have is all these Russian frozen assets in Belgium because of Euroclear, which we've talked about on earlier episodes, the Commission wants Belgium to greenlight the reparation loans for Ukraine using those assets. But it's not. It's not going so well.
- [30:28]
B
Look, there is a degree of unanimity that is required, and one country can destroy a deal in the making. And that is what we found with Belgium. Belgium has concerns. It's concerned that if it allows these assets to be used, then what's going to happen is that there's some sort of deal and the Russians want their money back, or let alone the sanctions don't roll over, because we know that the sanctions need to get rolled over every six months. And Hungary makes a fuss every six months and says that it's not going to do that. And if that happens, the assets are Russia's again. So I think Belgium's fears are pretty clear that they're going to be left on the hook. I think Belgium is also taking the mickey a little bit now because what we've seen with our brilliant reporting from Gregorio and the Politico newsroom is that they now want effectively a blank check. So not just to the value of the frozen assets, but any further amount that it might cost them to defend any sort of action. So I think Belgium has a legitimate complaint in there, but it's also taking it to the next level in a very Belgian kind of way. So I think that is really the trouble. The assets are there. They're kind of really the best option, some say the only option for funding Ukraine. We know Ukraine is going to face a huge cash crunch and it desperately needs that money to survive. It needs that money to pay its soldiers, to pay its doctors, to keep the lights on. So it is a bit of an impasse that we find ourselves in. And of course, the EU is then left asking itself, well, what else can we do? Now we're seeing other options being explored. Originally they were seen as kind of a far fetched kind of thing. Raising common debt was seen as a very far fetched idea. I think we're now coming to the point where people are seriously considering that as an alternative that we may need to explore. But the clock is ticking. Ukraine needs that money or it is toast.
- [32:20]
A
Zoya, you know, we like to avoid having people use, you know, complicated EU jargon and phrases that people won't understand. And taking the mickey.
- [32:29]
B
Sorry, that's my Australian Shining through it is Belgium pushing their luck. They're pushing their luck to try to effectively say, hey, you know, this is a great opportunity for us to get a little bit extra, perhaps a little cream on the top.
- [32:43]
A
Cream on the top. I also understand. Okay, Jan, do you want to comment on that one?
- [32:47]
E
Yeah.
- [32:47]
D
I mean, there's again, to go back to what you were saying earlier, the uncertainty about the United States in the early years of the war. America was very much an ally. It was, together with the Europeans, was both moving on sanctions, providing civilian aid and huge amounts of military aid. That's pretty well completely dried up under Donald Trump. There's nothing new that's coming out of Washington at all. It's completely transactional. So now Europe is being left with the financial and the military strain of supporting Ukraine completely alone. The Americans have gone and that's putting massive strain on Europe's defense industries, on its militaries and on its ability to raise cash. It's a, it's a difficult argument to make for European governments to their taxpayers that there is this large amount of money that could really help Ukraine, but we're going to instead incur debt that has to be repaid by Europeans because we're too afraid of touching this big pool of money that starts to become a political problem.
- [33:47]
A
So a big buzzword that kind of defined this commission's first year was competitiveness. We hear it everywhere from every commissioner. And a lot of that stems from this Draghi report that we've also talked about here before. Draghi warned that without around 800 billion euros in new investment every year, Europe risks, and I quote, a slow agony. So one year on. Doug, what is the pace of our agony?
- [34:14]
E
Deepening agony, I would say. The world is changing on us. We have deindustrialization running at a high rate. So, yeah, we have a problem. And if we turn to the person in, in charge, that's Theresa Ribera. She's a pretty exposed personality. She has an impossible job title. She's executive vice president of the Commission for a just clean and competitive transition. I'm not sure what that really means, but it sounds like competition, plus a bunch of industrial policy, a lot of stuff that is basically contradictory. Add to that that she's the most senior socialist in the commission. Fonda Leyen is naturally a Christian Democrat and she's very outspoken on some issues. She's accused the Americans of trade blackmail. I don't think Ursula von der Leyen would accuse Donald Trump of that in public at least. So we have a pretty gummed up situation. A lot of good intentions, not as much money. Draghi talked about 800 billion. There's a European competitiveness fund in the works which might have half of that. They're not splashing the cash on rebuilding European industry. The decline is agonizing and accelerating.
- [35:24]
A
Well, Carl, let me come over to you. I mean, you actually know Teresa Ribera quite well because she historically has been famous as a climate expert. So does her powerful role in the commission mean that, you know, it's full steam ahead on continuing with the Green deal?
- [35:43]
F
I would say holding the line rather than full steam ahead is probably how she sees her role at the moment. I mean, the Green agenda is, is under attack in many ways. You know, it feels, I feel like the ghost of Christmas past at this podcast in a way, because these, you know, these big interventions on trade and defense have really become prioritized as opposed to the last mandate where the Green deal was was pushing ahead. So I think Doug's exactly right to see Ribera as having a few different hats. The Green deal beat is also part of her oversight duties. And she has tried to play an inside game in the commission, nudging, intervening where she sees she needs to, but actually other commissioners are in charge of most of the files, so it's a bit of an internal college game for her. But then the other big role that she has is of the most prominent socialist in the commission. And I think she takes that very seriously. And, you know, she's a pretty competent and, you know, experienced politician in a commission that is kind of seems like apart from her design to do what von der Leyen wants. And I think she seems to take pretty seriously the power that she has to intervene and call things out and push socialist priorities. And it makes for fun copy sometimes when she does that. So we're glad to have her.
- [37:18]
A
We follow that all very closely here at Politico. But let's. Let's also look at kind of a recent global event, the continuation of the Paris Agreement, the recent COP in Brazil where the EU really took a stand and even threatened to veto the agreement. You wrote, along with our colleague Zia Visa, that Europe, quote, banished some of its climate demons, but has also, quote, found new ones. What did you mean by that?
- [37:42]
F
Traditionally, in UN climate talks, the EU works very closely with the US as sort of leading developed countries to push back on demands for more money from the developing world, but also to try and push forward countries, emerging economies like China, India to do more with their emissions as they grow their economies and, you know, expand their coal sector. So the dynamic of that shifted at this cop because this was the first time we've ever had a UN climate talks without any official US delegates present. And that really left the EU exposed. So what we mean by finding new demons and banishing some of their old ones was they kind of eventually found some unity within the EU at cop. It took them a little while to get going, but eventually the EU decided to take a stand on a really pathetically weak outcome in the last few hours. And they won some minor concessions. But the reality that the EU faces in UN climate talks is that it is alone in a world that is increasingly dominated by the brics. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, coming together with Saudi Arabia and other petro states and really pushing through their agenda at this cop in the absence of the U.S. so, yeah, they've got some big decisions to make, how they approach the next UN climate talks to close the Loop.
- [39:11]
A
We've talked about tariffs, Ukraine, defense, climate, money personalities. Ursula von der Leyen called her first term geopolitical. The geopolitical commission. So one year in, how would we define this one? Jan, I'll kick off with you again.
- [39:28]
D
Sort of a wannabe geopolitical commission, just dramatically limited by the institutional shortcomings of the way that the EU functions. It's nation states. They don't always have to listen. They don't always have to agree. It's a very, very difficult thing to marshal everybody along, and it shows up at these big power negotiations.
- [39:48]
E
Doug, it's a runaround commission running around to try and build new relationships. It's not a geopolitical commission. It's. It's making it up as it goes along. It's. It's. It's improvisation, not strategy.
- [40:01]
A
All right, wannabe run around. Carl, what's your word?
- [40:04]
F
Missing the boat. I think there's a huge economic opportunity arising from the clean energy transition, and we can see the numbers don't lie. Like, clean energy manufacturing investment is actually dropping in the EU in most countries. So I think that is the. The big takeaway from this and the big problem for them to solve on the competitiveness and climate agenda.
- [40:30]
A
Zoya, ending with you, I would say.
- [40:32]
B
It'S the pivoting commission. They've been pivoting in response and reaction to the various things that have been thrown their way, and often those pivots have taken it exactly in the opposite direction to the direction of travel in the previous term. So I think that is both a necessity, because otherwise, if you don't pivot, if you don't change as other things are changing around you, then you die. But I also think that that has come at the cost of some of those ideals that the commission has always professed to live by.
- [41:05]
A
All right, and that is our new chief EU correspondent, Zoya. Thanks for being here.
- [41:09]
B
Thank you so much, folks. It's lovely to meet you all in town. I'll see you all around.
- [41:13]
A
Jan, thanks for being here in the studio as well.
- [41:15]
D
Thanks very much for having me.
- [41:16]
A
And over Zoom, Carl and Doug, thanks so much to both of you.
- [41:19]
E
Thank you.
- [41:20]
F
Thank you.
- [41:23]
A
Okay, that's it for this packed episode. Please remember to follow EU Confidential wherever you listen to podcasts. Rate us, leave a comment or send us a message at podcastolitico.eu as always, thanks to Deanna Sturris, our senior audio producer, and to Ann McElvoy, POLITICO's head of audio, I'm Sarah Wheaton. See you next week.
- [41:51]
E
And Doug, here we have the Limu.
- [41:54]
B
Emu in its natural habitat, helping people.
- [41:57]
E
Customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
- [42:03]
D
Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [42:07]
A
Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching.
- [42:09]
E
Watching us.
- [42:10]
D
Cut the camera.
- [42:11]
E
They see us.
- [42:11]
F
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com.
- [42:16]
A
Savings. Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates, excludes Massachusetts.