This is CBSI on the world.

I'm John Batchel.

To Berlin, to Judy Dempsey, a senior scholar for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

to look very carefully at Europe here at the beginning of 25.

And its challenges following the reporting from Strategic Europe, a newsletter I recommend to everyone to sign up for, it comes right to your inbox.

And you can read through the challenges for our trade partners, the European Union, and then to combine that with the NATO pieces.

Judy, a very good day to you.

The first challenge I read from Strategic Europe is security.

There are also items, smaller versions of that, for example, investing in the defense industry

in Germany and other parts of the EU is now considered to be a wise move after having it not moved for many years.

And there is the larger NATO with Finland and Sweden. And there is the unsolved matter of Ukraine.

This has the challenge for Europe. To your understanding, is the European Union, Vanderlion and the leadership in Brussels,

are they confronting this or are they still understanding themselves as a chiefly a trade organization

and not a military organization? Good evening to you. Good evening, John. And thank you for having me on your show and a happy new year to you and all your listeners.

Thank you.

Well, Funderline, Ursula von der Leyen, a German head of the EU Commission, president, that's the executive.

Actually, she's out of action for the next two weeks because she's got very serious pneumonia.

So she's back in Germany and Hanover with her family.

Just the first thing.

Secondly, while she understands the need for the EU as the EU to have a kind of defense structure,

the member states are all asunder and disagreeing on how it should be financed,

what would it mean, what would have been for the sovereignty and national interests of the

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