The EU has just launched an ambitious-sounding defence plan, “ReArmEU”, and it is also publishing a landmark white paper on defence. The person at the heart of these initiatives is our guest on the programme; Andrius Kubilius is the EU Commissioner in charge of defence and space. A Lithuanian conservative who was twice prime minister of his country, he started this crucial job – the first time such a portfolio has been created at the Commission – in early December. But questions remain about the financing of ReArmEU – which would cost 800 billion euros – and on how exactly to incentivise the production of military hardware on European soil. 

“Our policy should not be naïve,” Kubilius asserts. “It should be to strengthen Ukrainian capabilities and our own capabilities even after peace is established. Because for us, it's very clear that even if peace will be established, Russia will not stop its military economy and production of weapons. They are producing four times more weapons than all the NATO member states are at the moment.” 

Kubilius goes on; “If we really are serious about our defence capabilities, then we need to look at how we overcome our shortages, which, for the time being, are creating temptation for Putin to test us.” Kubilius adds that, according to German intelligence, the Kremlin is discussing the possibility of testing NATO’s article 5 (the mutual defence clause) by 2030, “so that is what is making us ramp up our defence production, in order to be ready to defend ourselves.” 

Asked exactly where the money for the EU’s 800-billion-euro defence plan will come from, Kubilius states; “Some countries have possibilities to borrow (money) quite cheaply themselves on the markets, while other countries will benefit from what the European Union is proposing.” On that last point – the 180 billion euros in loans for defence investments – Kubilius insists that this is “not a shared burden because member states that use that loan will issue their own guarantees and will be responsible for repaying the loan. The same as what was done during the pandemic, when at least 20 countries used European Union loans.”  

Kubilius elaborates; “So this is nothing very new, really. The new thing is that the European Union is using this instrument in order to strengthen its own defence capability, and also opening possibilities to support Ukraine in a much more effective way.” 

A crucial sticking point in EU defence reform remains: how to build European military hardware in Europe. How will the Commission ensure this European preference? 

“The European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) is going through negotiations in the Council and in the Parliament,” Kubilius answers. “European preference is a very clear strategic goal. Until now, the member states have been spending quite a lot of their national defence money outside of the European defence industry market. So we are not supporting the development of our defence industry in the most effective way. We need to change that. We want to incentivise member states to go for joint procurement and also to procure more European weapons. This is the how we can build our defence industry, and be ready to act in a real war.” 

Space is also in Kubilius’s remit, and we ask him how the EU might reduce its strategic dependence on the Trump administration in space. “We are developing new systems, for example IRIS Square,” Kubilius responds. “We hope it will be at the same level as (Elon Musk’s) Starlink, or even maybe better. It will be really a good alternative, but it will only become operational in 2029, 2030. So before that we shall have a precursor system, where national satellite communication systems will be integrated into one system and that will start to be operational in the middle of this year,” Kubilius concludes. 

Programme prepared by Luke Brown, Perrine Desplats, Oihana Almandoz et Isabelle Romero 

The European Union has long talked about reducing the bureaucratic burden on businesses. In the current EU mandate, there has also been a lot of emphasis on competitiveness – putting Europe’s industries, large or small, in a better position to rival the likes of American or Chinese industries. 

Now, the EU Commission has presented what it calls a “simplification shock”. Essentially, that means removing red tape in order to stimulate investment and growth, and to make European companies more competitive globally. The Commission points out that “over 60% of EU businesses see regulation as an obstacle to investment, and 55% of Small and Medium Enterprises cite regulatory and administrative burdens as their greatest challenge”. But some political groups and NGOs are concerned that the policy might be a smokescreen for rolling back standards on the environment and corporate due diligence. They suggest that that an entire deregulation agenda is hiding behind the euphemism of “simplification”. 

Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats, Luke Brown and Oihana Almandoz 

For the best part of five decades, Jacques Attali has been whispering in the ears of French presidents. Initially an economist, he has written over 80 books and essays, sat in some of the most secret high-level meetings alongside former president François Mitterrand, and was the architect of Mikhail Gorbachev's 1991 presence at the G7 in the UK. Attali speaks to FRANCE 24 about the geopolitical storm hitting Europe and the prospect of war with Russia. 

“We, Europeans, are alone”, Attali says, adding that the past few weeks marked a turning point in US-EU relations. He says that the US had long signalled its will to disengage from European defence to pivot towards the East, and that Donald Trump has merely accelerated the process at the worst possible time for the EU.     

Attali says the Trump administration sees the European Union as a threat, and is attacking Europe politically and economically with tariffs and through support to far-right parties. For him, Trump is walking in Adolf Hitler’s footsteps. Attali says he sees the US president “overruling judges” and “jailing Democrats”, basically abolishing the rule of law.

Europe must unite in the face of this threat, Attali says, adding that the union’s recent moves are very positive. He considers jumpstarting a wartime economy in Europe with an 800-billion-euro package a “growth opportunity” that would help reindustrialise and create jobs.    

Calling for a European defence "czar", Attali highlights the importance of leadership and insists that the UK and Ukraine need to be part of this new European defence architecture.       

Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero 

International Women’s Day first took place in March 1911, with more than a million people marking the event in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. At that time, women were not allowed to vote, and in numerous countries higher education was not open to women, and divorce was not legal. A huge amount has changed since then, of course. The political leaders of two of the EU’s three top institutions today are women, for example. But violence against women and gaps in pay between men and women persist, to name but two pressing issues that the EU is still trying to address. We explore the state of women's rights in Europe on the occasion of the 2025 International Women’s Day – 114 years after the original milestone.

Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats, Oihana Almandoz and Luke Brown

Farmers' protests peaked across Europe around this time last year. Rising production costs, unfair pricing, bureaucracy and foreign competition were among the drivers of the movement. The European Commission responded with a package of measures, and has now unveiled what it calls a "Vision for Agriculture and Food", the proposals coinciding with the annual agriculture show being held in Paris. We explore this strategy with the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen, as well as the big international trade issues that the farming sector faces at the moment.

Asked whether agriculture will be dragged into the current trade dispute between the Trump administration and the EU, Hansen says: "This cannot be excluded, so we have to prepare for it. We have the experience from the first Trump administration when there were tariffs on our agricultural products. And in our Vision (for Agriculture and Food) we clearly refer to a unity safety net, meaning that we can strike back and react to coercion and blackmail, as it happened before. We are strong when we are united, but when this unity is challenged we are very weak, and this something we definitely need to address."

The commissioner elaborates: "We need to get into new markets. In June we have a high-level mission to Japan with our agriculture and food-producing sector in order to get them into those markets, so that they have alternatives and are not being blackmailed, as happened before."

On that issue of alternative markets to the US, Hansen underlines the importance of the Mercosur agreement with Latin American countries. Negotiations on the deal have concluded, but it has not yet been finally adopted. "We have a very positive export balance in trade," Hansen explains. "Our milk and cheese sectors would benefit from such an agreement. Wines and spirits are currently under pressure in the European Union, and they would benefit from it. The whole [agricultural] sector would benefit from it. What is important is that we give fair conditions to our farmers."

And on that issue of fairness, could French scepticism about the deal be overcome if more reciprocity guarantees are offered? "I'm not sure," Hansen answers. "But reciprocity is the right way forward. If we prohibit a product in the European Union, we can't expect farmers and consumers to accept that the same product comes in from outside. If something is bad for human health in the EU, it's also bad outside the EU. So I think it's very legitimate to go in that direction.'

Speaking of products that are bad for human health, we ask Hansen about the watering down of pesticide reduction targets inside the EU. Isn't this a contradiction – watching out for pesticides in imports from outside the EU while being less demanding on pesticide standards inside the EU?

'Well the proposal you mentioned was indeed to reduce pesticides by 50 percent," Hansen responds. "But I think it was not well thought through. For example, when the applicable surface area was calculated, railway tracks were excluded. Why? And then, in the EU Parliament, one particular group wanted to have a higher percentage target than the others. So the whole file exploded. I think we need to go more into incentives for farmers, rather than simply focusing on percentages. And we have to go into the deployment of new technologies. We have to accelerate biopesticides that can be an alternative to chemical pesticides."

We put it to Hansen that the rolling back of targets on pesticides is indicative of a turning away from green targets in agriculture in general, including on CO2 emissions.

"The European Court of Auditors stated that the green architecture is right to meet our 2030 objectives, so that is something we need to acknowledge," Hansen answers. (Editor's note: the ECA has not said that when it comes to enough soil being made available for organic farming, however.) "Our new eco-regimes have only been in place for a year and a half, so we need to let the policy work. But farmers know that they are very dependent on the climate and they are the first victims of it and they want to be part of the solution. And that is what we need to incentivise them for."

Simplification of bureaucracy has been a key theme of this European Commission, and agriculture is no exception.

"We need to work on simplification because farmers in the end chose the job not to be behind the desk or filling in forms," Hansen states. "They chose it because they want to produce outside on their fields, their crops and be with their animals. This is where we need to get them back to, and to make them more competitive again and more productive again."

Programme prepared by Luke Brown, Isabelle Romero, Oihana Almandoz and Perrine Desplats

In this episode, we consider the political hot potato that is farming, one year after farmers’ protests peaked across the EU. Brussels responded with a package of measures, but many in the agricultural sector say the crisis is far from over. We delve into the issue with two MEPs.

On February 19, while Paris was preparing to host its annual agriculture show, the European Commission presented its “Vision for Agriculture and Food,” a roadmap that builds on the response to the widespread farmers' protests of last year.

The Commission says it wants to keep easing the administrative burden on farmers, and also relax some environmental constraints.

It is also pledging to do more to combat unfair competition from imported products – this as some of the major free trade deals it is championing, such as the agreement with the Mercosur bloc, are coming in for criticism.

Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero et Luke Brown.

FRANCE 24 was granted exclusive access to EU Council President Antonio Costa, just before he left for Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of the war. He responds to US President Donald Trump's direct talks with the Russian government, insisting that negotiations will not be credible, nor achieve results, if they exclude Ukraine and the EU. Costa reiterates that peace in Ukraine cannot be separated from security in Europe. We discuss how he is sounding out EU member states on what security guarantees they might be willing to give Ukraine; the possibility of appointing an EU special envoy for Ukraine; and whether the big splurge in defence spending championed by French President Emmanuel Macron is realistic at the EU level.

Costa insists that no meaningful deal can ultimately be reached on the war in Ukraine without the Europeans. "We cannot separate the issue of peace in Ukraine from European security," he affirms. "And that's why we say we won't have credible negotiations with results unless there are negotiations with Ukraine and with the European Union."

"We are preparing for possible negotiations," Costa goes on. "I’m working with the member states of the European Union; it's important to know the readiness of each state. What is each state prepared to do within the framework of peace and security? I think that together we're all going to make a contribution. And if we succeed, then we can create a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine."

Costa does not rule out appointing an EU special envoy for Ukraine, who could be tasked with joining a theoretical US-Russia-Ukraine-EU diplomatic format later on. 

"The negotiator certainly won't be me, but it's a question that has already been put to European leaders," Costa says. "We're having those conversations.'

Some EU political figures criticised Macron's gathering of European leaders in Paris outside the usual format of an EU summit in Brussels. But not Costa.

"I supported President Macron's initiative," he states, "because it was very important to get Europeans around the table, as well as those who are not in the EU, for example, the Canadians. Why? Because we need to see how we are going to secure this peace. This peace cannot be just a ceasefire. It has to be sustained over time. This means that Ukraine must be given assurances that Russia will not take advantage of a small ceasefire, only to come back stronger and try once again."

Costa suggests that there is convergence between the Trump administration and the EU on Europeans taking on more responsibility for the security of their own continent.

"For a number of years, certain EU states, such as France, were saying that it was necessary to reinforce our strategic autonomy; to reinforce the European pillar of NATO. And meanwhile, some European allies were saying no, it would be a risk to distance ourselves from the US. Well, now it's the United States that is asking us to take more responsibility," Costa explains. "And in fact, we decided to do this in March 2022 with the Versailles Declaration. So there is a position of convergence, but to be able to take on those greater responsibilities, we must reinforce our economy. That is why we say that security and European economic competitiveness go hand in hand, because only a strong and prosperous economy can enable a greater effort to support our defence sector and our security."

Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown

Europe does not have a seat at the negotiating table: the message could not be clearer from Donald Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg. This week, the US president opened discussions with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin – with no Ukrainians present – at a high-level meeting in Riyadh and then seemingly blamed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war.

The pressure is mounting, not just on Ukraine itself, but on the EU, which still appears to have no clear plan on what to do next. A hastily convened summit of European and NATO leaders in Paris, called by French President Emmanuel Macron, ended with no obvious concrete conclusions, beyond the usual verbal support for Kyiv and a vague commitment to boost European defence.

So why has the EU found itself in such a fix? Should it have come forward with its own diplomatic initiative before the US election? And is there anything it can do now to get off the diplomatic sidelines? We debate those questions with two MEPs at the European Parliament.

Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown

Europe is facing increasingly hybrid threats, and it lacks a shared culture of preparedness, according to our guest. Sauli Niinistö was the president of Finland from 2012 to 2024 and is now a special advisor to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. In that capacity, he has authored a major report: "Safer together: A path towards a fully prepared Union". We discuss Niinistö’s proposals to improve the EU's civil and military preparedness, and debrief some of the latest international diplomatic manoeuvres related to Ukraine.

We start with US President Donald Trump's phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and what it means for Ukraine and for Europe. "I'm very supportive of any kind of attempt to make peace. That's always better than continuing war," Niinistö responds. "But Ukraine deserves a fair and just peace. Peace in Ukraine has an impact on Europe as a whole, on European security as a whole. That is one reason why Europeans should be involved in those discussions. The other reason is that we have been helping Ukraine in a remarkable way during the war."

Niinistö surmises that current discussions in the EU are focused on security guarantees for Ukraine, rather than on NATO membership for Ukraine. "If the USA and European countries guarantee the peace strongly, that actually doesn't differ very much from NATO membership," he states. "So things depend on what kind of guarantee is given. In my opinion the guarantees should be very strong."

In his report, Niinistö bluntly asserts that the EU is not prepared for the scenario of an armed aggression against an EU member state. "My basic idea is that Europe is seen as weak," he elaborates. "And that is what Putin has clearly said. That Western people are weak, and thus Western countries are weak. We have to show that we are strong: not to wage war, but to avoid war. That’s the key issue." Niinistö adds that the EU should be much clearer about how article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty should work in practice. "There's a very strong moral and ethical obligation to help another EU country in the case of an armed attack. But this treaty article is not clear in all of its context," he says.

And how can the EU prepare for scenarios that are a barely imaginable at the moment? "I am worried about the future. In just a couple of years' time, we will face a situation where AI, cyber technology, hybrid space technology, or quantum technology, will make us ask what a weapon is. And what is a war, actually? So preparing against everything is the most demanding challenge," Niinistö asserts. "We will not only be facing a military threat. We will have the consequences of climate change. How do you react to being without electricity? And what about reserving food or water for a few days? That's part of my proposals."

The former Finnish president insists that ordinary citizens need to be at the forefront of preparedness. "I want to emphasise participation," he says. "Any kind of civil participation, especially by young people. In Finland we have conscription, which I understand is out of the question in many European countries. But there are possibilities to take part in civil or military protection activities on a voluntary basis, and to bring security closer to people, so that they see what needs to be done."

Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown

The EU prides itself on being a global innovator in artificial intelligence regulation. Indeed, August 1, 2024 saw a historic moment as the world's first comprehensive legislation on AI started coming into force. Now, as of February 2 of this year, some of the most crucial provisions of the EU's landmark AI Act have come into effect: those that have to do with preventing unacceptable risk such as social scoring, or scraping the internet for the purposes of facial recognition. Also this month, Paris hosted a global AI Action Summit.

But for the EU, artificial intelligence is not just something to regulate. Brussels also wants to use AI to sharpen its own global competitiveness vis-à-vis China and the United States. Europe attracts only 6 percent of global funding for AI startups, compared to 61 percent in the US and 17 percent in China.

With our panel of MEPs, we discuss how the EU can close these innovation gaps, as well as how to deal with the challenges posed by US President Donald Trump's administration in the AI tech sector.

Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats and Luke Brown