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The Ezra Klein Show

Putin May Not Like How He’s Changed Europe

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

News, Government, Society & Culture

4.314.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2022

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has transformed Europe within a matter of weeks. A continent once fractured by the refugee crisis is now taking in millions of refugees. Countries such as Germany have made considerable pledges to increase military spending. The European Union said it would cut off Russian oil and gas “well before 2030” — a once unthinkable prospect. The European project seems more confident in itself than at any other time in recent history. But some European countries are also seeing trends in the opposite direction. This month in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist government won re-election easily. The far-right leader Marine Le Pen lost this past weekend’s French presidential election to the incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, but secured a significant 41.5 percent of the vote, up from 33.9 percent in 2017. And nationalist movements — Brexit in Britain, the Five Star Movement in Italy and others — have become potent political forces in recent years. So what’s next for Europe? Will Putin’s invasion reinvigorate the collective European project? Or will the continent revert to its preinvasion path of fracture, division and nationalism? Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria and the author of numerous books, including “After Europe” and, with Stephen Holmes, “The Light That Failed: Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy.” He’s also one of my favorite people to talk to on the subject of Europe, liberalism, democracy and the tensions therein. We discuss how European identity went from revolving around war to being centered on economic trade, why Europe has treated the Ukrainian refugee crisis so differently from previous refugee crises, how the West’s overly economic understanding of human motivation blinded it to Putin’s plans, what the relative success of politicians like Le Pen and Orban means for the future of Europe, how fears of demographic change can help explain phenomena as different as Putin’s invasion and Donald Trump’s election, whether Putin’s invasion can reawaken an exhausted European liberalism and much more. Mentioned: “The End of History?” by Francis Fukuyama The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama “We Are All Living in Vladimir Putin’s World Now” by Ivan Krastev “The Crisis of American Power: How Europeans See Biden’s America” by Ivan Krastev “The Power of the Past: How Nostalgia Shapes European Public Opinion” by Catherine E. de Vries and Isabell Hoffmann from Bertelsmann Stiftung Book Recommendations: Free by Lea Ypi The Age of Unpeace by Mark Leonard Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Ezra Klein, this is the Ezra Conch Show.

0:20.7

So before we begin, one last time we are getting ready to do the Ask Me Anything episode,

0:25.8

so if you've got anything you'd like to ask me, about any issue, about the show, about

0:29.2

me, send it your question to Ezra Klein Show at nytimes.com with the subject line AMA.

0:42.4

Rewind a few years.

0:44.4

And the idea of Europe seems exhausted.

0:48.2

It's buried in these labrenthing regulatory projects of the EU.

0:53.2

It's fractured by debt crises and Brexit, it's dependent on Russian oil and gas.

0:58.2

There's very little idealism left in that union.

1:01.9

What was Europe at that point even for?

1:04.9

To the extent that question had an answer, it was this.

1:09.0

Europe was for an end to war in Europe.

1:12.7

That was the European idea.

1:14.5

As Tony Jute put it, Europe was post-war.

1:17.8

But now we are watching a land war in Europe, one that is trashed the assumptions of many

1:23.2

European leaders.

1:25.1

Building pipelines with Putin didn't stop him from invading Ukraine.

1:28.4

It gave him the money he needed to do it.

1:31.2

Opening a door for countries such as Ukraine to join NATO and the EU without truly deciding

1:37.0

whether Europe wanted responsibility for their security, whether it would take responsibility

1:41.0

for their security.

1:43.2

Building that provoked Russia without giving thought to what would happen then, what Europe

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