Welcome to the first Eurointelligence podcast of 2022.

Our subjects today is really only one subject.

And this is the potential Russian invasion of Ukraine and what it will do to the EU,

what it will do to, obviously, Ukraine, what it will do to our energy markets, and this whole, you know,

this whole, you know, it's really a mess, basically. Now, with me to discuss this are Zuzana Muncheng

and Jack Smith. We've written about the subject from various angles this week. And, and obviously,

we are no experts. We have to tell you this.

We are no experts in what Vladimir Putin things and what he will do. And there are others who have,

who offer opinions on the latest troop movements around the border. But what our concern has been,

since we are aware that this is not becoming increasingly probable, what this will do to the

EU. And we cannot think of any upside in this. Germany is beholden to the Russia. We see the

German defense minister this week, Christina Lumprecht, saying that we should separate, is the old line,

the old SPD line, we should separate North Stream 2 and the old geopolitics and nothing to do

with one another.

The SPD General Secretary, Kevin Kuhnard, said the same thing a week ago.

I do remember, you know, a year ago, Martin Schulz, a former SPD leader said, oh, we should

separate the Navalny thing with, from Nord Stream to the years. The SPD is big into separation.

It's what they do. And that is going to become a big problem. German appeasement is going to be

a big problem for the EU. And as we wrote this morning, the EU has never really challenged Germany

on all these things and, you know, on all these national policies. And Russia is one of them.

We, you know, over the years, we wrote about the euro area. You know, that was another case.

But, you know, this is a real weakness of the EU that it, that it allows that to happen, that it allows this to

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