This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with Carl Bildt.

Carl, it's almost a year now since the United Kingdom voted to withdraw from European Union.

Obviously a lot of debate and since then been nominated as only very much a UK debate

about the future of the United Kingdom in a post-Brexit world. And more recently, we've had the

first official negotiations, UK, EU 27. It seems to me that a large part of debate has been

missing, which is the impact of the departure of the UK on the rest of the European Union. And although Sweden has historically been a great ally and of the United Kingdom,

I want to first of all talk about the negative influence, if you like,

of the United Kingdom in the EU historically.

In other words, with the departure of the UK, what can the EU now benefit from,

how can it now make progress in a way it could

not do with the UK as a full member?

Well, I think, I mean, to start with that, obviously, I think over all the impact of the

UK inside the European Union has been overwhelmingly positive in quite a number of different areas.

But if you ask me to specify areas where I've seen the UK blocking

progress, there's been an element of that in common foreign and security policy. Obviously,

we have a lot of discussion on defence cooperation at the moment. And the UK has been blocking

because of fears that I think have been overblown. Sometimes in the fields of common foreign policy, the UK has also been less eager for the EU

or for United Europe to move forward on those particular issues.

So given other circumstances, if they are positive, I these are areas where you will see, hopefully,

the EU move somewhat faster now without the UK.

And does that translate into a widespread view across the E27

that in some ways actually the departure of the UK is a good thing, a positive thing for the European Union. On the defence side, I mean the people that are primarily concerned with developing the defence

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