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Brussels Playbook Podcast

Ep 187, presented by Equinor: Borrell Russia rumpus — Macron's rivals — Lithuania's foreign minister

Brussels Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.4204 Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We debate EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell's controversial trip to Moscow and hear from the foreign minister of a country that knows first-hand about Russian influence, Lithuania's Gabrielius Landsbergis. Borrell is under fire for standing by as Russian's foreign minister called the EU an “unreliable partner.” POLITICO's Andrew Gray, Rym Momtaz and Matthew Karnitschnig debate how damaging the trip was for Borrell's reputation, as well as the EU's credibility when it comes to foreign affairs. And is anyone buying Borrell's defense that he was just doing his job? And the author of POLITICO's new Playbook Paris, Pauline de Saint Remy, joins the panel to give us a primer on who might stop Emmanuel Macron winning a second term next year. Do subscribe to Pauline's Playbook, if you haven't already, s’il vous plaît. Our special guest is Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis. While he's only been in the job since December, his life has been steeped in politics as the grandson of his country's first post-Soviet head of state, Vytautas Landsbergis. He's also a former member of the European Parliament. Landsbergis ventured into some of the hottest international topics with our own Rym Momtaz, including relations with Russia, China and the United States, as well as vaccine geopolitics. The panel returns at the end of the podcast with recommendations to keep you occupied during whatever form of lockdown you may be experiencing. Rym flags this book, which is very much in keeping with the geopolitical theme of this episode. Matt offers up a documentary about the making of a WWII film classic. And Andrew says this multi-part documentary podcast about the disinformation war around the White Helmets rescue organization in Syria is well worth your time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

EU Confidential gets started right after this.

0:03.3

Today's episode is presented by Equinole.

0:06.5

Evolving into a broad energy company,

0:08.8

harvesting power from the strong winds out at sea

0:11.1

is one of our solutions for the European energy transition.

0:16.9

We are at a crossroad in our relation with Russia.

0:21.6

And the choices that we will make will determine the international power dynamics on this century.

0:31.9

Welcome to EU Confidential, the number one European politics podcast.

0:36.1

I'm Andrew Gray, Politico's EU editor in Brussels.

0:39.5

And you just heard the EU's foreign policy chief, Joseph Borrell, defending his recent trip to Moscow,

0:45.8

described in some quarters as a humiliation, and it's got him into a whole lot of trouble.

0:51.1

We'll have plenty to say about that in just a moment with our podcast panel,

0:55.8

who will also dig a little deeper into French politics with a special guest. And later in

1:01.5

this episode, you'll also hear from Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabriellis Lance Bergus,

1:07.0

in conversation with our own remontas about big issues facing his Baltic country, including

1:13.0

vaccines, the EU's relationship with China, and yes, Russia again. But first, let's get to that

1:19.7

podcast panel. Riem is here as usual. Hi, Riem. Hello, everyone. Matt is in Berlin. Hi, Matt.

1:26.9

Bonsoir.

1:28.0

And because our next guest is the author of the brand new political playbook, Paris,

1:33.7

we'll do the podcast in French.

1:36.8

You're on current, Matt, that's it going?

1:38.6

It's not good.

...

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