Welcome to the Euro Intelligence Podcast. My name is Wolfgang Munchau and with me are

Susanne Muncheng and Jack Smith. Today we want to talk about foreign policy and foreign policy

mercantilism. The foreign policy of the EU and some member states in particular, we talk about

Germany here, is very much dominated

or characterized by a priority over short-term commercial gains that has, certainly in previous

decades, informed the most important foreign policy decisions.

It didn't used to be such a big deal, but it is now, and we see this

in the EU's troubled relations with China, and obviously its relations with Russia.

Zuzana, you wrote about the EU taking action against China on Lithuania. What changes do you

think, or what's behind that do you think?

Yes, I mean, the times of the Cold War has been over for long.

I mean, in the times of the Cold War, we had our foreign policy objectives and our business interests

were very much aligned with each other,

and it was all geared towards the United States.

Now, in today's world, this is much more murkier.

Business interests go, our business interest went to the east, towards China and Russia as well,

whilst our foreign policy went into all directions.

We had NATO alliances and yet also eastern enlargement.

So there are a lot of things that changed in this time, which means our conflicts become much more convoluted in different interest.

And I think Germany is at the moment in the middle of that experience.

Now, what happened with the European Commission, I mean, Lithuania got into troubles with China

because they acknowledged a representation of Taiwan in their capital city, which is not,

...