This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with Peter Spiegel. Peter Spiegel has for almost six years been the Brussels Bureau Chief of the Financial Times and will shortly take up a new job as news editor back in London. Peter, let's start with the very beginning.

When you took on this new job six years ago, almost six years ago,

did you have any expectations of what the job would entail?

No, I had come to the job, having been sort of a national security,

military affairs correspondent based in Washington,

did a lot of sort of a war correspondent thing,

and we had just had a baby, and my wife sort of said to me,

enough of this war correspondent thing, let's have a nice, quiet, more settled job.

So I thought I was getting this European sinecure in this city of food and culinary delights.

And I have worked harder in this job than I ever did as a war

correspondent. So it is not what I expected. I got here knowing that the Greek crisis

was going on and part of the reason I wanted to come here because I was really interested

in the Eurozone crisis. But if you would ask me then whether six years later I would still be writing

the same thing about the same crisis, I didn't think it would go this long. I didn't think

there would be these other crises, be it refugees, be in Russia, be it Brexit. So it's been a much

more eventful six years than I anticipated. Okay. And as you know in this town, the financial

times is seen as the kind of the Bible of this city, maybe self-style,

but also the journal of record. Were you conscious that you stepped into this new role,

that there was quite a legacy behind you and that you were going to be welcomed with open arms

by the Brussels crowd? Well, open arms I wasn't sure about. I mean, you know, everyone sort of jokes

about, you know, why the FT chose an American to run a very European bureau. But I had joined the F.T. back in the

late 90s and left for about five years to work for the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles

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