Stunning summit — EU's engine room — Ex-Swedish PM Carl Bildt

Brussels Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.4 • 204 Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We unpack last week's extraordinary summit of EU leaders, take stock of the coronavirus situation in Europe and bring you inside the EU's "engine room." Our special guest is former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt. POLITICO's Andrew Gray is joined by Chief Brussels Correspondent David M. Herszenhorn to unpack last week's remarkable European Council, where emotions ran high over Hungary's new anti-LGBTQ+ measures. Leaders also held a heated discussion on relations with Russia, with Eastern Europeans blasting a last-minute proposal from Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron to hold a summit with Vladimir Putin. We also take stock of Europe's coronavirus situation with Chief Policy Correspondent Sarah Wheaton, as questions mount about the Delta variant and whether digital passes will allow for normality to resume soon. Then we lift the lid on the most important EU body most Europeans have never heard of: Coreper. The committee of 27 EU ambassadors is credited with keeping the bloc's political machinery going while much of Europe went into lockdown. POLITICO's Jacopo Barigazzi joins the podcast to break down his article, "How ambassadors took over the EU." Our special guest is former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt. The veteran statesman spoke to Sarah on the sidelines of the Globesec security conference in Bratislava about his current gig as the World Health Organization's special envoy for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, as well as Europe's relations with Russia, the situation in Belarus and EU enlargement prospects in the Balkan region. 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 in just a moment.
0:03.5	Today's episode is presented by Google.
0:05.8	This is Karen from Google.
0:07.7	People and businesses are expecting technology to deliver more,
0:10.9	not less for Europe's post-COVID future.
0:13.2	And Google is investing in products and policies to support recovery and boost innovation.
0:20.5	To accept yourself being a, gay was my most difficult thing.
0:24.8	To accept it myself, how to say to my parents.
0:27.6	And to hear now that it is because maybe I watched something on TV when I was younger
0:31.7	is unacceptable.
0:35.8	Welcome to EU Confidential. I'm Andrew Gray, Politico's EU editor in Brussels.
0:40.8	And that was Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettell, speaking in very personal terms, shortly
0:47.1	before last week's EU summit in Brussels, about his opposition to the new Hungarian anti-LGBQ
0:53.9	plus measures that have caused a political
0:56.4	storm across Europe, measures that would ban the portrayal of homosexuality to people
1:01.9	under the age of 18.
1:04.0	Betel spoke in similar terms to fellow leaders, including Hungary's Victor Orban, around
1:10.0	the summit table in a debate that was unusually personal and emotional.
1:14.9	It was unlike anything many of us have known in years of covering the EU,
1:20.0	a debate that seemed to go to the heart of what the EU's core values are and should be.
1:25.6	The summit was also heated on another topic, relations with Russia,
1:29.7	as Eastern Europeans blasted a last-minute attempt from Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron
	...

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