Hi, Anna. Hi, Lucas. Nice to see you. Nice to see you, too.
So today we're talking about one of our lost themes in this series, Europe in a Changing World.
And one of the really interesting things that I found in these conversation that's been different from
how I thought about Europe in the past is this question of whether Europe is a superpower and if so,
what kind of superpower it is. You know, people put all kinds of prefixes to Europe as a superpower.
So I just want to start by asking, when you were growing up and also today, do you usually think of Europe as a superpower?
I don't think I do. I think it's an important player, no doubt,
I think I mainly think of it as a normative soft power organisation that sets an example and that is followed by many countries around the world.
And it's and and that, you know, the European Union is actually an important experiment for the future of international relations.
It's sort of like the first step in what Kontinental organisations could look like in the future.
So in that sense, it is extremely influential and it is no doubt an important player.
But I'm not sure that I think of it that that's enough to make me think of it as a superpower, that that resonates.
I mean, I just wonder what it is that we associate with superpower that seems to be not be the case for the E.U.
I think, you know, when when this has come up in our or previous conversations and seminars, I think not everyone,
but all people will think about military power, something that the European Union doesn't really have.
But I'm just thinking, I don't know what you think you know,
is that really the main thing is military power the main thing that differentiates European Union from superpower?
Or is it something else? I think we're, you know, exposed to people who are studying these topics are very aware that, you know,
the concepts of a unipolar world that came after the Cold War with the preponderance of the United States and foreign policy,
and that being challenged by China and the EU is sort of always negotiating its position in relation to these.
Yes. Superpowers. And so to my mind, that's that's one of the reasons why I don't think of it as a superpower.
That's at least as powerful as those two players.
And I guess it does have something to do with military power, but that's not at the forefront of my judgement in answering your question.
Yeah, well, just to be clear, I do think that military power really matters.
And we're talking about superpower.
But I think another really important fact is that the EU is a very complex experiment, as you've mentioned, where there is a one.
State organ that is directing political and economic and military power, and so I think that's another dimension.
It's not just on military power, it's also about how is this institutional framework organised?
And I think as we talk about in this episode, you know, in some ways you could think of the EU as a.
Geopolitical and anti superpower in the very way it has been designed and has evolved.
I think in the process of this project. This kind of question has been one interesting one.
But just as interesting and even more interesting is the more subjective one of whether young Europeans care whether the EU is a superpower or not.
And I don't I don't know if you found the surprising that it seems like.
A lot of young Europeans actually find foreign policy geopolitics to be quite unimportant in their lives.
I wouldn't say it's surprising, but I find I found very insightful coming out of the report was how,
you know, foreign policy issues are very much entwined with the idea of the European Union,
its fundamental values, and the extent to which those fundamental values are consistent with Europeans, the European Union's foreign policy.
I do think that there is a desire for Europeans in general, not just young Europeans, for a consistent, like unified approach to foreign policy.
And that that kind of reflects on the unity of the European Union.
So I agree, I mean, that that some of that's one of the findings that came out of this report is that,
you know, it's it's not at the forefront of Europeans concerns, it seems.
Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things that this report helped me understand,
too, is we really need to think about both of those layers at the same time.
Both, you know, the more technical side of whether the EU is a superpower, what kind of geopolitical actor it is, along with, you know,
the perceptions and thoughts and feelings of Europeans and what they care about
and why they might not care about foreign policy so much in the traditional sense.
But putting these two layers together might actually help us understand Europe in a
changing world in new ways that haven't been considered in the more conventional.
Frameworks. And I think that's also really great that we get to talk to our guests in this episode
because they are coming with a lot of expertise in the more institutional side,
the more policy side. But also they themselves are young Europeans reflecting about.
Their place and their home and their continent. Should we introduce our speakers?
We should, yeah. So our first guests today, one of the co-authors of this chapter is Mariana Lovato,
who joined us actually from her home in northwestern Italy on the border with France.
She's currently a PhD candidate, University College Dublin, where her research focuses on EU foreign policy.
She had previously been a master's student at Oxford, which is when she joined the Europe Stories Team.
So Mariana is joined by Olivier de France, who is at the moment doing his de at Oxford University at St. Anthony's College.
He is interested in the history of European political thought and the implications
it holds for this old continent's current political and strategic shifts.
Hello, I'm Timothy Garton Ash, welcome to the Europe Stories podcast, what the young Europeans want the European Union to do and to be.
Over the last three years,
an amazing group of young Europeans have worked with me here at the European Studies Centre at Oxford University to answer this question.
And this podcast will present their findings.
And Martins and Luckhurst say, have a series of conversations with the authors of our concluding report and give you their answers.
Hello, nice to see you, where are you joining us from today?
Hi, honey. Hi, Lucas. So I'm joining from Italy, technically in Dublin, but physically in Italy at the moment.
At the moment, I'm based in the northern part of Italy, in the Alps, in a small region of the border with France and Switzerland.
And you, Olivier, I'm in Oxford, so I live on a on an old farm in the in the fields in the middle of the Wildlife Service for the fun.
We might start with how you came to write this chapter,
so whether we think of it in the specific case of foreign policy or Europe in a changing world,
how did those issues become an important part of your research or even your own thinking?
For better or for worse, I'm afraid I've been working on these issues for far too long.
The issue of foreign policy is one that we usually look at from the points of views of governments, of officials with chanceries,
not from the point of view of the people, and to be honest, even less from the point of view of young people.
So I think it's a very, very important angle and a fresh one to bring to the foreign policy debate in Europe, which is sometimes a tiny bit stale.
I have a long standing relationship with the Europe Stories Project,
so I think we started together on a I was in my first or second year of my MFA at Oxford in European Politics and Society,
and at first I joined as part of the team that carried out the interviews with expert experts so
I can sort of claim a little bit of the glory of the two hundred plus interviews of the project.
And then I sort of went off to do my PhD,
which is on EU foreign and security policy and specifically member states sort of negotiation success in EU foreign policy.
So this has become my life and I was brought back in to work with.
What do you do on the on the chapter on Europe in the world?
And has you said it's really been interesting because, you know, you are a scholar, a student, an academic, a politician.
You kind of always have this top down approach to the study of EU foreign policy.
So it's been really great to look at it from the perspective of young Europeans.
And it has made me realise actually how little data there is on how young Europeans feel about EU foreign policy.
It's true that you actually have to wait until you're forced to look into this issue to
realise how little data there is on the younger generation of Europeans in this field,
which is a pity because the younger generation is the most important constituency for the future of of the EU.
One young European we interviewed was very good Chernof, who is now an urban policy researcher working in London before studying in the UK,
Farah was elected a member of a municipal council in Moscow where she challenged the Russian system from within here,
what she hopes the EU will have achieved by 2030.
I do hope that within the next 10 years or so, Europe will be able to reinvent itself, if I may say so,
as the beacon of liberty, not just some democratic entity or what it's criticised today for.
So people in Ukraine in 2015 or Georgia 10 years before that,
they were waving European flags at the rallies and willing to sacrifice their
lives for not because they wanted their representatives to be in Brussels,
but because they wanted to be subject to some unified standards, Bahaman harmonised taxation.
They wanted to embrace the values of free travel, free trade, free speech and just freedom in all aspects.
And they wanted to have the opposite of what they have witnessed for 70 years, the Soviet rule.
So it seems like both of you have really hit on this point that it's really rare and therefore
really interesting to look at Europe in a changing world from the perspective of young people.
So on that specific note, what do you think you learnt the most by digging into that perspective?
Or what did we learn the most as a team by focussing on that angle?
I mean, what we learnt or what I was surprised about was this sort of consistency in the
support for a common EU foreign policy across time since sort of the 1990s,
there has been a very high percentage of support for a common EU foreign policy.
And that's pretty remarkable because that's, you know, since Maastricht and then through several enlargement rounds through 9/11,
the war in Afghanistan, war in Libya, the eurozone crisis, that's a lot going on.
And still the idea of coming to you from policy, greater cooperation in the field of foreign policy,
and also an expectation that the EU should be more ambitious in world politics.
That still stands.
But then, of course, what was less surprising was how than first of all, this is not a priority for a lot of Europeans and young Europeans,
especially, which value free movement, as it's been discussed at length and in another episode.
Right. And economic and educational opportunities and so on and so forth.
And then second, what was also not surprising is how then divided are the various EU member states on a number of important foreign policy issues,
from NATO to neutrality to what kind of sort of capabilities and operational objectives you should set for itself.
Can you give, like, one illustrative example of what one country prioritises as opposed to another one?
For instance, one division that comes up in virtually every sort of foreign policy debate, and would you please jump in as well?
But it's the Eastern Western Division in terms of or rather Eastern Solidaire, their neighbourhood division.
What is more strategically important to focus on is that the eastern flank is of the Mediterranean.
There is Poland advocating for more initiatives to counter the threat coming from Russia, Poland, the Baltics.
And then there's also the southern Mediterranean states, France, Italy, that very much are focussed on external migration.
Right.
So that's just one there's a whole debate on should the Europe remain under NATO's security umbrella or should we pursue European strategic autonomy?
And that sort of pits the Atlanticist member states versus the ones like France
who would like to see you become a more autonomous actor in world politics.
This is a really great example of how it helps to have some context to add to the data on the numbers that we have,
because EU policymakers tend to make a lot out of the fact that there are high
levels of support for common EU foreign policy and common European defence.
But there are very few people who then try to dig in to the granularity of that.
And one of the assets of this project is not just the quantitative polling side,
but also the qualitative interviews and the context that we try to garner via the interviews with with quite a few Europeans.
Marijana mentioned in those over two hundred interviews. And when you do that, it starts getting a bit more complicated, both, as Marianne said,
in geographical terms and in generational terms, I suppose in geographical terms sometimes.
You realise that even the words we use in France or in the U.K. or in Italy,
they have the same resonance and sometimes they even have a translation in other languages.
That's the case. For example, our prisons for Power Europe, which is a kind of staple French foreign policy concept,
which doesn't really have a translation in, for example, Romanian or Slovenian.
And therefore the concept is slightly alien.
But there is also the context that you give, not just in geographical terms, but in generational terms.
And this is where, as Maryanna mentioned.
It's when you policy makers insist on the fact that 70 percent of Europeans want a common foreign policy and 80 percent want a common defence policy.
What is missing from that data is the first of all, the point of view of the younger Europeans.
And secondly, the fact that if you then look these younger Europeans, yes, that support will be high, but the hierarchy of priorities will be low.
So in other words, there's high support for common foreign and defence policy is a low priority for the younger generation.
And this is the kind of example of the complications that exist behind the apparent simplicity of the data.
And if you look at what the younger generation wants, actually there is not so much of the kind of obsession with a hard border.
There is much more of a focus on travel, on values, LGBT rights, social justice.
And so there isn't so much of a consensus around what the institutions call a geopolitical Europe.
I don't think that resonates a great deal with the younger generations because the geopolitical Europe basically
means a Europe that is defends its interests on the world stage and quite a historically aggressive way,
which is essentially out of the whole history of the European Union.
So what's interesting with this project is that sometimes some of the complexities behind the rhetoric and perhaps invites
the EU policymakers to look more closely at the data and what they mean when they say the EU should be a geopolitical actor.
The tension between the values of the EU projects and its actual approach to foreign
policy came up in several interviews conducted for the Europe Storage Project,
which you can explore by following the link to our show notes description here.
What autonomous?
Texaco's the director of Southeast European Studies at Oxford had to say about the relationship between the EU and its southeast neighbours.
My problem is that within the EU at the discussion and relationship with these countries, especially with Turkey,
emphasises geopolitics and leaves out the democratic problems which we see more and more developing in Turkey.
I think that the European Union should project much more of its own democratic image,
but also act accordingly with with these countries and not have a relationship that it often appears to be opportunistic, transactional or tactical.
Olivia, you just mentioned this question of EU as a geopolitical actor and one key word that appears a few times in the chapters superpower.
And I think it's fair to say that in our polling and in our interviews, as well as in the events in Colombia, organised by the dawn of programme,
that there's been some amount of difficulty in pinning down what Europeans and in
particular what young Europeans think and want in with regards to this word superpower.
And I think there does seem to be a fair amount of scepticism about the EU as a superpower.
I don't know how to characterise it. I don't know if it's apathy. I don't know if it's antipathy towards the idea of EU a superpower.
So I wonder whether you might give us your characterisation of how young Europeans
relate to the idea of the EU as a superpower as well as your interpretation.
So I think at the present stage, we're stuck between two extremities.
We have a history of the EU as an anti-gay political act in the technical sense of what geopolitics actually means.
And then the present, which is very much made up of EU politicians who will insist on the of the EU in this aspiration to be a geopolitical actor.
Now we have to try to figure out what consensus existed in between these two extremities by looking at the polling and by looking at our interviews.
Now, I don't think it helps to say there is one consensual narrative in the EU and everybody should follow this and a top down way.
Arguably, I think the opposite isn't necessarily that helpful either to say that there isn't a narrative and essentially the
EU is just a juxtaposition of four hundred and fifty million different citizens and therefore different narratives,
because this basically just means that the EU is just a juxtaposition of individuals.
I think that you can be a bit a bit more than that. So basically our work was to try to find some of the main essentially stories was what?
The geopolitical stories, the strategic stories that spoke to people.
That's not an easy thing to do because there's not a lot of literature about it.
And it's not really an area of focus for the discipline.
And this is why this project feels this this particular got what we started from was the idea.
But there is nothing in the everyday life of European citizens.
That does not have an external dimension. So if you take the five five G debates, if you take personal protective equipment or if we take drain's,
essentially every aspect of the internal existence of European citizens involves some sort of external dimension.
Therefore, these strategic stories exist or must exist because they are actually embedded in a European citizens' everyday existence.
They don't have to be these foreign policy narratives. So instead of saying the EU is a kind of a geopolitical actor,
we try to find stories and ways of asking it that resonates with the everyday lives of European citizens it comes down to.
Trying to define. What your interests are in industrial terms, in technological terms, yes, in strategic terms or in health terms.
That sounds abstract, but what that means is actually trying to figure out what we should be able to do ourselves as
Europeans and in what areas we choose to depend on third party powers or on the outside world.
That is the key. That's the main decision to basically figure out whether we should count on ourselves for drones,
for submarines, but also for personal protective equipment or for our phone infrastructure.
Once you actually start asking very, very concrete questions,
then the idea of a superpower isn't so much the idea of a geopolitical aggressive imperial superpower,
but just a power that defines its own interests and then follows through on them.
So instead of reacting, for example, to Donald Trump's Twitter feed or to China's South China Sea initiatives or to Australia,
the UK and the US forming a defence pact, the idea is for the EU to positively define its interests and then follow them through.
Our team interviewed David Gill, the consul general at the German consulate in New York,
when we asked him about the one thing you would most like the EU to have achieved by 2030.
Here is what he had to say. I would like to see Europe as a strong, self-confident, determined entity in the world policy,
its close ties to our transatlantic partners, North America and democratic countries all over the world to defend ocracy,
human rights, the rule of law, fair trade and continent,
which is able to influence work policies in a way which serves the people, not only the European countries, but the world.
I know you have specific recommendations for what the U.S. should be doing in this regard before we jump into that.
I would like to just reserve a little bit more space to discussing what young Europeans want within this domain.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it,
most Europeans are not really a big difference across age groups with regard to the desire for a common foreign policy.
Where are the differences between young Europeans and other generations?
This was something we struggled with in the sense that we had to sort of look through other statistics or rather
statistical data focussed on other topics to sort of try and discern what younger Europeans feel about foreign policy,
because, again, there wasn't a lot of targeted data.
But for sure, you know, EU foreign policy is not a top priority.
Top priorities are fighting climate change, improving education, fighting poverty, as well as social and economic inequalities, creating jobs.
It's improving health and well-being. Right. So in a sense, you could you could see this is very domestic needs focussed.
What I care about is being able to travel across EU member states as being able to find a job,
is being able to do my Erasmus and have that experience right. So those are the things that young Europeans want.
So foreign policy certainly feels remote.
Policymakers and the politicians and the technocrats and the diplomats, not something that relates to young Europeans.
And I think certainly one of the priorities, not just for the European Union, I mean, let's not put too much on the shoulders of the poor EU,
but certainly something that falls also on capitalist, you know,
nation states is to really underscore the external dimension of every internal policy and vice versa.
So probably what young Europeans do not fully grasp and again, probably because of a lack of conversation on the topic,
is that things like job security is strictly related to external migration.
External migration is strictly related to development and aid policy, trade policy trade partnerships with third countries.
Are those equitable or not? What is that you doing in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America in the Asian continent?
What kind of trade deals is it establishing with the US, Canada, China?
What are the ramifications of those trade agreements on you citizens everyday lives?
And again, the impact and relevance of you foreign and security policy applies to everyday issues.
So just another angle to maybe poke a bit at this phenomenon that we need different ways of getting out the stories that matter to young Europeans.
Is it your impression that foreign policy has never really been a primary concern for most people living in most societies or.
Do you think the alternative is that there have been certain times and places
when that's been different from what you seem to be saying about Europe today?
As part of the work I've been doing in Dublin, my PhD, I was involved in some of the work that the Irish Commission on the Defence Forces,
which was appointed by the government to make recommendations for the reform of the Irish Defence Forces.
One of the issues a lot of European countries have been facing, which I think has also to do involves young Europeans,
is how do we deal with recruitment for our armed forces and our reserve forces?
And some countries have tried to be creative with this.
One of them is Germany, but also Sweden. Finland. Right.
And they've tried to sort of get more and more young Europeans to join either the armed forces, the reserve forces, even in creative ways.
Right. So just develop, I don't know, cyber reserve forces.
So get people from I.T. programmes and universities to go and be reservists for the armed forces and certainly for Sweden and Finland.
But I can imagine for Poland, countries that feel more imminent security threat.
So even the Baltic countries,
young generations there might actually be more attuned to foreign and security threats and concerns because there are so immediate.
Right.
And and there have been discussions for quite some time there about getting young generations to actively participate in the defence of the country.
Right. More so than in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, for sure.
So let's say that certainly probably creates somewhat of a divide.
So I'd be interested in seeing data on that. I mean, that is a really, really interesting and also a huge question.
I think in a few words, what I would say is that the usual attitude.
In the foreign policy community is to say we should explain our foreign policy narratives to the people, we should pedagogically explain.
Why this will that is important. Why intervening in Afghanistan or in Libya or in Iraq is important because people don't really understand why.
There's always been a kind of top down reflex in this area.
As though foreign policy is the preserve of leaders. And this is an attitude has deep roots, of course.
I mean, basically until the first European modernity, foreign policy was very much to preserve the princes, the kings and queens.
They were the ones who would define who our friends, allies, enemies and adversaries.
And essentially the people had very little in. To an extent, this still happens today.
I mean, if you look at how the French Fifth Republic is set up, that is still very much the case, what the French call precarity of the president,
the real his remet, his area of his main prerogatives are actually in the foreign policy and defence area.
If you look at the EU level, there has always been this sort of functionalist temperament.
Dysfunction is reflex, which consists of saying we will achieve coordination,
cooperation and ultimately integration in the defence sector by a sort of functionalist mechanism of integrating the armed forces.
But actually, there are very few people who make the opposite argument, which is to say, instead of having these grand.
Foreign policy narratives that you have to explain to the people, why not reverse the logic?
Why not start from. Well, I would like to call in the context of this project the strategic stories,
why not start with essentially why it's impossible at a given time for people to procure mosques?
Why is it impossible at a given time for people to procure gas,
which is currently the case in the United Kingdom, and start from there, start from these everyday stories?
Start with the people, from the people, not against the people, not explain to the people why foreign policy is important,
but actually start from the everyday stories and in a way, in a more Bottom-Up way than than the top down.
I think both are obviously useful because as Mariano was saying.
Not all citizens really are interested or feel concerned or really know about
the complexity and the ramifications of the way the international system works.
That's for sure. I think it would be very helpful.
I think if you look at the polling, if you look at the interviews, it's very clear that some people have a very personal,
intimate relationship to what might seem these grand foreign policy shifts.
If you look at what people in the interviews have been saying about the Berlin Wall, about freedom of movement.
Or about Erasmus, these are all very intimate, personal stories, I remember one of the interviews which I conducted with with Nathalie Tocci,
which was very touching because she was describing Erasmus and the EU and she was describing the way she met her current husband.
I think it was in the baeza in a nightclub. And that would not have happened without the EU and without Erasmus.
So actually, a lot of these stories are very personal and very intimate and very touching.
So why not actually make the most of that and start from there instead of starting from the kind of the grand strategy and the grand narrative?
And I think this project plugs some of this gap. If you've been listening to episodes, you probably know by now that we asked all interviewees,
what is the single most important thing that you have done for them?
First, for Natalie Torchy, the director of the Institute of International in Rome.
Europe had an impact on all aspects of her life. Listen to what she said to Olivier when he interviewed.
Had it not been for you. I would not have started my career working in the think tank in Brussels, commuting on the Eurostar to London.
I was doing my DHT every week and that would not.
And I remember sitting back then not even showing basically my identity.
And then after my A.M. tightening up, you know, back then I was used.
It really literally felt like kind of getting on a train. And then, you know, had it not been for the evening, I don't know.
Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn't. But I would not have travelled as much on holiday in Europe.
And on one of those occasions, I met my future husband out clubbing and places you go.
So, you know, I think, you know, basically it personalised the education, be it.
Right. I basically decide who I owe Europe, everything.
On that note, what other recommendations do you have for the EU in this domain?
What should the EU do with regard to foreign policy?
So one thing that is definitely close to my heart is the need for the European Union to set credible, achievable goals.
Right. So I think the way we phrased it was to under promise and over deliver.
Right. So try and be a little bit less rhetorically bold and say things like,
we are a geopolitical commission and Europe needs to start speaking the language of power.
Right. Which were baratz word and rather again, within the context of European strategic autonomy,
which I think is a definite goal that the European Union should pursue and is pursuing.
Right. In the section of our chapter where we say what the EU has done, we detail all the initiatives that go in this direction.
Right. But certainly Europe needs to be very clear about what capabilities it wants to be autonomous on on the
one hand and where it accepts it can have dependencies and it wants to cooperate with other partners,
the U.S., the U.K., for instance. And and there you need to strike a balance, set your based on your strategic goals,
which you have set in the new global strategy and is trying to further define with the strategic compass and then pursue those.
Right. Because one thing that the EU can do to make foreign policy more relevant is to go to the public and say, hey, these where our strategic goals,
these were the capabilities that we wanted to develop and we did it as opposed to further
reinforcing this expectation capability gap that we've been talking about for decades.
So that's certainly one priority. And then the other one I'll speak to and then hand it over to tollgate is this idea of what kind of
power Europe wants to be and to the question that was asked earlier about the concept of superpower,
that's really, you know, balance that you need to find between being a sort of force for good.
Right. This this integration process, this this success story.
Right.
That goes counter to the real politic logic and the need to deal with an overly aggressive Russia, a very ambitious China, a less than reliable us.
And you need to actually acknowledge the reality of the world you live in, which, of course, is very much of the challenge.
And I think I've seen this elsewhere as well, that you've really needs to leverage its strengths.
And it is a trade superpower. It's an economic superpower.
And it's also a sort of norm setter in a number of areas, you know,
from the GDP are to a number of other seemingly dry policy areas that are, however, force other countries to follow suit.
Right. And in that sense, that you can really be a green civilian superpower,
which would also be in line with a lot of the priorities of young Europeans, including the fight against climate change.
If I can just give a few illustrations and very striking examples of what my has said,
because actually the past year has thrown up quite a few of the.
So, for example, van der Leyen said this year in her State of the Union that we should stop talking down the EU.
I say, OK, fair enough. But let's also stop talking up the EU.
As Maryanna said,
let's focus on leveraging the strengths that the EU currently has instead of perpetually formulating very broad and ambitious foreign policy aims.
That the EU has essentially been setting out now for 10, 20 years, especially in the area of defence.
And to be fair, it has achieved some of them and it's in the process of achieving some more.
But let's be careful of overpromising, because the problem when the overpromises in the foreign policy and defence area is that this may be
good in the short term because it means that people mobilise and you can mobilise member states.
But in the long term, the danger is you're losing European citizens.
You're you you're basically losing the backbone, the the ultimate.
What is the condition of possibility for EU politics, a new policy in the first place,
which is the faith that European citizens have in the EU's capacity to do and deliver stuff.
So essentially, instead of over promising and under delivering, do the opposite, under promise and over deliver,
this might avoid things such as what happened to Berlin in Moscow, which was one of the illustrations of the EU trying to be a geopolitical actor.
I would focus, as Maryanna said, on leveraging the strengths that we already have in building from there,
showing that the EU can can actually achieve tangible results and building on that
as opposed to this kind of pie in the sky blue thinking type of foreign policy.
On on her other point. What's interesting is the current defence pact between the UK,
the US and Australia is a very timely reminder of the strategic solitude that the EU faces on the world stage.
If you are not prepared to defend your own interests, then somebody else will, and it will probably not be in your own interests.
So the EU has to define what its interests are and what it's prepared to defend.
First of all, we'll see what's in the treaties. That's the values which are set out in the treaties they're enshrined.
So that would be a good start. And then you need to decide whether.
You should depend on China for masks on, Russia for gas.
Basically, it comes down to that and you might very well want to that might be the case.
But if you don't want to, then don't.
And make sure you create the conditions for not depending on one third party powers in areas you don't want to depend on,
third party powers on inside. The third suggestion we set out is.
For the EU to try to kerb its institutional turf wars.
So the the infighting that sometimes the EU Commission and the EU Council.
Get into and be more prepared to look at issues instead of from the inside out from the European Council,
out of the European Commission, out do it the other way around.
Look from the outside. Then if you take the example of the so-called SOFORT earlier this year when the president
of the European Commission and the president of the European Council went to Turkey,
this would have avoided the sofa, because if you actually spend some time to ponder the devastating impact that image has.
Sorry, Olivia, can you briefly describe what social was?
It was in April, twenty, twenty one, when Lucila Tom DeLay and Sean Michel went to visit Erdogan in Turkey.
There was a protocol conundrum and essentially only two chairs were laid out for Turkey's president and the president of the European Council.
And so the president of the European Commission, who was a woman, had to sit on the sofa.
This obviously has a sort of devastating.
Impact in terms of image for European citizens, because it basically shows the EU not having a coherent foreign policy issues.
The European Council and the Commission having a diversity of interests.
And it also projects that image abroad outside of Europe, which I think that European policymakers should bear in mind,
instead of advancing their own interests of one or other of the European institutions.
Look at Europe as a whole and also from the outside in.
The connexion between the EU's foreign policy and the perception of the EU as a whole came across
when we interviewed probably just a college professor in European law at Warsaw University.
Listen to what he had to say when we asked him about the one thing he would most like the EU to have achieved by 2030.
The goal for us for the future in 10 years is to create a really foreign policy in foreign policy.
It will be a signal signal for other states that European Union is really a union.
So we've talked a lot in the last few questions about the geopolitics,
so I now want to bring this back to the young Europeans, how whether in general or about Europe in a changing world.
Did this project lead you to see young Europeans differently?
If at all, I mean, it's interesting because, of course,
I live in a little bit of a bubble because most of the young Europeans I talk to and know are very much interested in EU foreign policy.
I think it's a very important priority for the European Union.
So, you know, naturally, this is a bit of a skewed perception of how things really are.
So, you know, it was a good reality check in the sense that and we we scholars and practitioners and policymakers cannot.
Assume that just because there is an abstract consensus around this vague idea of, yes, more common EU foreign policy,
that we're going to enjoy public support for very specific initiatives like Pascall,
like buying 10 fighter jets, like participating in European defence fund projects.
So I think young Europeans, I cannot dispute the priorities they have and what they value.
It's just, I think, a question of perhaps investing some time and resources from a whole host of factors in making people understand how
foreign and security policy really has ramifications on all aspects of life and therefore how at the very least,
citizens should try and monitor what decision makers are doing in those areas, if not try and provide their input.
But at the same time, as you were saying, we should then also open our eyes and ears and listen, not a little bit more.
And if it's a grim green civilian superpower that young Europeans want,
then let's give it to them, you know, so maybe, yes, let's invest in a I and drome swarms.
But also let's see if there is a way for the European Union to embark on initiatives that reduce carbon emissions a little bit more.
And if we can think creatively about how the EU can do that effectively again, then what's realistic?
Just to add very quickly, I think it's a two way.
I think it's a two way process. I think the the EU and European politicians in general.
Including European capitals have a lot to learn from the younger generation when it comes, for example,
to the urgency that is felt when it comes to tackling climate change, the biodiversity crisis and so on.
It's important for the EU institutions to take this enthusiasm.
On board, I think it's also important to explain the way things are connected,
as Mariana said, and it's important to communicate the fact, for example, that.
You can't on the one hand put up a social media posts about tackling the biodiversity crisis or climate change,
and then in the next second go on to an online retailer and buy piles of fast fashion that you will discard in a couple of weeks if this doesn't work.
So I think it's a two way process is making sure that you take on board the energy and aspirations of the younger generation,
but also making sure the younger generation understands some of the.
Connexions and the ramifications,
because I think there's also a tendency at work in the younger generation to think that whatever you essentially do online is enough,
that whatever you do online will have a ramification in in real life, which is obviously not always the case.
The saying in French, which is sui generis,
every a tiny bit stereotypical because what it means in English is if only a young generation knew and if only the old generation
could this the stereotypical because the younger generation knows a lot more than the older generation in all things technology,
it has more of a sense of the environmental crisis. So it should essentially seek to make sure the older generation learns about this, but vice versa.
I think the older generation can also be useful in explaining some of the connexions and political complexities of fighting for one's ideals.
A very good question to which I would ask for a very quick answer.
And with this we conclude, are you more hopeful or less hopeful about the future of foreign policy in Europe after working on this chapter?
I realise that the EU keeps making some of the same old mistakes over and over and over, which is not too reassuring.
And yet at the same time, you cannot fail to acknowledge it would really be unfair to ignore how much the European Union, be it the member states,
the Commission, the European External Action Service, has improved in terms of the issues that incorporates on the types of initiatives it launches.
Right. I mean, Pesco, for all its detractors, was pretty, pretty outstanding measure.
The European Defence Fund, the same thing. The new directorate general for Defence and Space.
Right. Did you disease. These are all pretty outstanding initiatives that only 20 years ago would have been pretty hard to mention.
Again, my hope is that the EU can take on board some of the input from the younger generations and vice versa,
that the younger generations get better,
sort of better and clearer messaging from the EU about what it is to try and be a union in today's security environment.
Thanks, and you are for a brief response. So instead of creating a French populist saying this time I will close,
so I will quote a 17th century Dutch Jewish philosopher who is close to my heart, Benedict Spinoza, who said, it is not about laughing or crying.
It is about understanding. So I'm not hopeful or I'm not dejected.
I just want to understand the determinism of what has brought you to its current progress
and impulses and from their own try to nudge in the direction I think would be best,
not just for the old white males in power in Brussels, but also for the diversity of the younger generation, who is really the the EU's future.
Our guests today were Mariano Nagato and Olivier Diphones, a huge thanks to our podcast editor,
Billy Creagan, our research manager, Luisa Miller, and our report editor, Professor Timothy Garton Ash.
We're also grateful to our funders, the Swedish Nobel Foundation,
the teachers system and the system couple for making the Europe Stories Project Corcos possible.
A special thank you to Ellen Miach, that Lily striker, Maev Moynihan,
Sophie Verité and Victoria Hansell for contributing to the podcast production music by Unicorn Heads and CATSA.
Finally, thank you to the whole group stories project team. I'm your host, Anna Martins, and I'm your host Lucasta.
Thank you for listening today. Join us for the next episode of the Europe Stories podcast and until then,
you can find out more about our research project at European moments dotcom.