Hello and welcome. My name is Sophia Bash and you're listening to the CER podcast.

Welcome to this at CER podcast. My name is Simon Tilford. I'm delighted to have Alexander Stubb at the

CEO today to discuss the implications of Brexit and hopefully some of the broader

challenges facing the EU. Welcome. Thank you. What lessons do you think the rest of the EU should draw from Britain's Brexit vote? Is the UK a special case? Or could what has happened in the UK be a precursor of things to come elsewhere in the EU?

Well, two answers to that. One is that, yes, the UK is a special case. It's always had a

rather complicated relationship with the European Union. It's been a bit of a reluctant bride.

On top of that, it's always been a big player. Second one is lessons to be learned.

I think you have to take anti-Europeans, Eurosceptics, populists, nationalists and all the

movements that we're seeing around Europe right now, seriously because otherwise you're

going to end up with more similar situations.

The difference of course being is that a lot of the Euroscepticism that we

see right now comes from Eastern Europe, from the Rishigrad countries, and it's not in their vested

interest to leave the European Union. And by this, I'm not saying that it's in the vested

interest of the UK to leave the European Union either, but I think the alternative cost for

these Eastern Europeans is too big. In some respects, the EU's four freedoms are an aspiration rather than a reality that are effectively

controls on the free movement of capital because of ownership structures and on labor because

of professional controls and a refusal to acknowledge qualifications gained

in other member states. Is the EU been a bit hypocritical about insisting on all four freedoms

coming together? Wouldn't some kind of compromise make sense? I mean, if Britain needs

just to place some controls on the free movement of unskilled

labour and a single market is, to a significant extent, aspirational anyway, wouldn't it make

sense to compromise? Well, the answer to that is yes and no, and the reason I say yes is that

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