Talking Europe

Talking Europe welcomes Ruslan Stefanchuk, Speaker and Chairperson of the Ukrainian Parliament. Elected in October 2021 – just months before Russia’s full-scale invasion – Stefanchuk is a seasoned political figure, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelensky, and second in line to the presidency under Ukraine’s constitution. A respected legal scholar, he brings that expertise to bear in discussing the legal complexities surrounding the use of frozen Russian assets. We also examine Ukraine’s difficult road toward EU accession, its ongoing rule-of-law reforms, and what Kyiv needs most from its Western partners at this critical time.

Summing up his official visit to France, Stefanchuk says: “I came with words of gratitude to the French people for the active support that we have been receiving. But also I came with words of request, a request that we need to continue this fight together, together with our friends all over the world, including Europe and France. I came with the words that what is extremely needed now in Ukraine, is the air defence system. This issue is connected with providing Ukraine more weapons to make sure that we can withstand this attack.” 

Stefanchuk elaborates; “Let's be completely honest. War is a horrible math. Ukraine today is protecting the eastern flank of NATO from Russia's assault. And we are paying a terrible price for this. We're paying with the lives of our best sons and daughters.  War includes the financial component, the military component and, unfortunately, the human component. And we must understand that, in order to win this war, we need to have all these components filled in. And of course, we are going to work with our partners to make sure that if we have less financial support (from the US), we'll be asking Europe to increase its support for Ukraine.” 

Stefanchuk adds that he also came to France to discuss the issue of frozen Russian assets, and “legal solutions” to unlocking the assets. Many EU governments – including France – do not want to set an international legal precedent by fully using the assets. But Stefanchuk argues that if this is not done, a different kind of precedent will be set. “We must find the mechanism to make sure that the one who violates the law is made accountable for these violations,” he states. “If this is not done, then in the near future, anyone who has the strength, the power, and has no conscience, will do whatever they like, knowing that their assets are guaranteed. No! We must create the precedent according to which every criminal must know that they will pay for war with their money.” 

We turn to Ukraine’s EU accession process, which has run into Hungarian opposition, despite the European Commission saying that Ukraine has “done its homework” in three negotiating clusters. 

“Ukraine, despite the war, is fulfilling all its obligations to the European Union. We adopt the laws, we carry out reforms. We are not asking for some excuses for Ukraine, for some simplified track,” Stefanchuk asserts. “We honestly take our path, but we are also counting on the same kind of honesty from our European partners. And we want to make sure that Hungary is not a country that is Putin's veto on Ukraine's accession to the EU. Putin is not an EU member. He has no right of veto in the EU. This, I believe, is becoming a big threat for all the countries of the European Union, for all the NATO countries, because Putin is using some countries to block the alliance decisions. So this is a huge challenge.” 

Stefanchuk is adamant there is “no backtracking at all” on anti-corruption reforms, despite the country slipping slightly in Transparency International’s last Corruption Perceptions Index (2024). 

“The situation has changed”, Stefanchuk remarks. “The Ukraine of 2025 is a different country from the Ukraine of 2005. Today we can hold top officials accountable, demonstrating to others that the fight against corruption is irreversible in our country. For example, the ex-head of the Supreme Court received a suspicion, and a couple of ministers received this notification of suspicion. That's the first time ever in the history of Ukraine. Ukraine's President Zelensky, the prime minister, and I, we all have a zero-tolerance approach to corruption.” 

Many countries were deeply concerned about Israel’s attack on Iran on June 13. But Stefanchuk reminds viewers that “Iran’s Shahed drones terrorise Ukrainians every night. Of course, the weaker Iran and North Korea are, and the weaker Russia is, the better it is for us. The less peaceful citizens will suffer and the less Ukrainian infrastructure will suffer, the closer we will be to our common victory.” 

 

Programme produced by Luke Brown, Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero

Threats to the rule of law and democratic values persist, and are getting worse in some areas. That is the message from MEPs following an analysis of the EU Commission’s latest annual rule of law report, covering the year 2024. 

Parliament's assessment of the report was adopted by the Committee on Civil Liberties in May, and then approved in the parliament’s plenary session in June. MEPs are pointing to restrictions on the right of assembly, and a shrinking civic space. They are also calling for better protection of vulnerable groups from discrimination.  

This as tensions rise over the Hungarian government's ban on the Pride March, and as campaigners in Poland worry about women's rights and the question of abortion following the victory of arch-conservative Karol Nawrocki in the presidential election. 

Programme produced by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown 

We speak to the president of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly, just hours after Israel launched major strikes on Iran's military and nuclear sites. Marcos Perestrello is a Portuguese politician and a former secretary of state for national defence in Portugal. He calls for "de-escalation" in the Middle East and more nuclear diplomacy, while also making the case that Iran is a threat to the region and to global security, and that the development of a nuclear programme in Iran would be "an even bigger threat to global security".

We start by asking Perestrello about the NATO secretary-general's calls to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East, following Israel's major strikes against Iran on June 13. "Mark Rutte made a wise appeal to the NATO countries to contribute to the de-escalation of this conflict between Israel and Iran," Perestrello answers, adding that "Iran is not a friendly country of NATO, of Europe. Iran is supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine. It is supplying deadly weapons to Russia. Iran is a threat to the region and to global security, and the development of a nuclear programme in Iran will be an even bigger threat to global security".

Perestrello goes on: "This was a unilateral decision by Israel, which probably feels more threatened by the Iranian nuclear programme. There are, as far as we know, ongoing negotiations between Iran and the US regarding that nuclear programme. So those negotiations should continue to create an environment favourable for the de-escalation of this conflict. We don't need another conflict in the Middle East to add to the situation in Gaza and to the war in Ukraine."

Asked about the current strains in the transatlantic relationship, Perestrello sounds an optimistic note. "The tariff issue is quite demanding for everybody. But on what matters – NATO and the strategic relationship with the European countries – the position of the US administration has been constant and coherent," he asserts. "They are constantly demanding more investment from us – from the European allies and from Canada. They are demanding a stronger Alliance. And, at the end, we want the same. You cannot rely only on one of the allies. You need a serious contribution from all the allies. So on that we agree."

We discuss the defence spending target that is on the table at the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague: 5 percent of GDP.  It is "5 percent, or 3.5 percent plus 1.5 percent, because 3.5 is the real hardcore defence spending and the 1.5 is for resilience infrastructure," Perestrello explains. "The credibility of the target will depend on the timeline you put on it. If you go to The Hague and ask for countries to reach 5 percent of spending in 2026, that's not credible. So you need a plan to get there, a reasonable plan, a reasonable deadline, because we all know that it's very expensive to invest in defence, but it's also much more expensive to invest in war. And to avoid war, we need strong defence and strong deterrence."

Asked how burden-sharing between NATO and the EU should work, Perestrello says: "I believe that the European Union should not have the ambition to replace NATO. The European Union has its role, and NATO has its own role, too. If each one of them does what it knows best, the result will be astonishing. If NATO concentrates on defence, on deterrence, and if the European Union concentrates on helping the member states to create new instruments, to develop industrial capacities, to make the [Stability and Growth] Pact rules more flexible, then the European Union will be stronger and NATO will be stronger."

Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Agnès Le Cossec, Georgina Robertson and Perrine Desplats

The EU says science is the key to its future. But is it putting its money where its mouth is? Earlier this year, the French government agreed to cuts in the country's research budget and over the past year, science powerhouses such as Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have proposed or implemented cuts in their research sectors. Those working in universities and research centres say there is a stark gap between the way the EU is presenting itself as a magnet for global talent – the pitch that the French government and the European Commission made at their "Choose Europe for Science" conference in Paris in early May – and the reality.

To make Europe more attractive, the EU executive says a €500 million package will be proposed for the 2025-2027 period. Part of that outreach is aimed at American researchers, who say their work is being jeopardised by the Trump administration's cuts. But the €500 million sum is the equivalent of just a fraction of the yearly endowment of a top US university such as Harvard or Yale.

We delve into the issue with two MEPs.

Programme produced by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown

We speak with the Co-Chair of The Left Group in the European Parliament, French MEP Manon Aubry. A noted advocate for transparency in the EU institutions, she was also a negotiator of the "Duty of Care Directive", which now faces calls for its abolition. Aubry says the directive is absolutely crucial for holding multinational corporations to account when it comes to labour and environmental abuses. She sees the EU Commission's "simplification" agenda as Trump-style deregulation.

Aubry reacts to the recent EU General Court ruling over undisclosed vaccine deal text messages between EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer during the Covid-19 pandemic. The court's decision was hailed as a victory for transparency, but von der Leyen has not made the text messages public.

"Well, it's a scandal, let's be honest," Aubry says. "And let's face it, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has been negotiating the contract with Pfizer for the vaccines. The price of the vaccines has been increasing out of nowhere, probably from direct negotiations. And those SMS were not just like me sending you a nice and friendly SMS; 'Do you want to have a drink'? No, it was about negotiation of public money. So she has to be held accountable for that. I think, to be honest, she should be resigning."

Aubry puts the "Pfizergate" controversy in the context of broader concerns about a lack of transparency in the EU institutions.

"How many scandals have we had over the last few years? You might remember 'Qatargate', and the recent 'Huaweigate', Aubry says. "The core of the issue is opacity. Everything that is dealt, negotiated, agreed upon in the European institutions is done within closed doors, with no possibility for journalists, for NGOs, for citizens to hold the politicians accountable. And that's a problem. We need the independent ethics body that we've been advocating [for], but we also need to take of money out [of the European Parliament]. As an MEP, you should not take a single cent outside of the money that you earn as an MEP."

Aubry draws a parallel between attempts to simplify corporate due diligence and sustainability directives and French President Emmanuel Macron's call to remove "Duty of Care" requirements on multinationals.

"This is a trend that is following Trump, quite simply. It's deregulation," Aubry states. "The 'Duty of Care' text is one that I negotiated over the last five years. It's been adopted only a year ago. So democratically speaking, killing a directive that has been adopted only a year ago, that companies were starting to get ready to implement, is a bit of a problem. But most importantly, why is that 'Duty of Care' Directive important? You know, if you take all of the big multinationals, take Nike, take Total, take Carrefour, take Vinci, take whatever companies; they make profits out of the exploitation of workers and the environment. So the principle is very simple for that directive. We are just saying that companies will have to be responsible for their subcontractors, for the whole value chain, because they cannot make profits out of this. They will have to be careful. It's a duty of care! So they will have to prevent human rights violations. And if there are human rights violations, then they can be held responsible and pay fines for it."

Aubry calls on progressive forces in the European Parliament to get together and block the watering down of such legislative acts. "To be honest, the Socialists are giving up," Aubry laments. "On the 'Stop-the-clock' directive, which is postponing the implementation of the 'Duty of Care' legislation, precisely to water it down, they voted in favour! How come they voted in favour? They were on our side to negotiate that directive, and now they agree to water it down. So I think this goes beyond that directive. It's a big question now for the whole left, for the Greens, for the Socialists, for all the progressives. Where are you? And what will you tell your kids?"

Aubry has been supporting women's reproductive freedoms, particularly in Poland amid the election of the arch-conservative president, Karol Nawrocki. "You know, there was a time when French women were going to Poland to get abortions. And now it's the other way around," Aubry points out. "And I want to tell all the feminist activists in Poland: we are together with you. We're going to keep helping you. I'm going to be back in Poland early July. I'm going to bring back abortion pills. I'm going to keep fighting to get abortion into the EU Charter for Fundamental Rights. We are in 2025. How come we're still fighting for that very simple right of abortion?"

Aubry is a well-known advocate for the Palestinian cause. We ask her if French President Emmanuel Macron is backtracking from his earlier signals that he would recognise a Palestinian state. "It looks like it. There's at least a strong hesitation," she replies. "And I remember when he made his first declaration, he said, well, that it was not the right moment to recognise the state of Palestine. But when will be the right moment? We've got 100 percent of the 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza that are at risk of famine. We've got people dying every single day under the bombs of Israel. We've got an embargo on humanitarian aid. And in the meantime, France is still delivering weapons to Israel. So I will keep fighting strongly to suspend the Association Agreement, the trade association agreement between Israel and the EU. I'll keep fighting for an embargo on weapons. We need to support Gaza. We need to support the Palestinians, because what is at stake in Gaza is not only the Palestinians. It's our humanity. And that's the humanity that we should be fighting for."

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

Europe is trying to put itself at the forefront of the global ocean agenda, releasing its Ocean Pact ahead of a United Nations Oceans Conference in the French coastal city of Nice. More than 90 percent of EU marine waters are overexploited by industrial fishing, seabed mining and growing offshore infrastructure, according to Seas At Risk, an association of environmental organisations from across Europe. And yet, healthy oceans are the precondition for breathing healthy air, ensuring sustainable food supplies and securing energy independence – as more of our electricity is set to come from the sea.

With oceans being so interconnected with so much else in our lives, it's not surprising that MEPs are saying the EU should give its ocean policy higher priority, and lead by example at UNOC in Nice.

We discuss what's at stake with two MEPs.

Our guest's job did not exist until the current European Commission was formed. Now the college has a portfolio for "tech sovereignty, security and democracy" held by the Finnish Commissioner, Henna Virkkunen. We ask her what tech sovereignty means and how to boost it, amid an increasingly fraught tech relationship between the EU and the US administration of President Donald Trump. We also talk about the EU's overall strategy to increase innovation, research and the use of artificial intelligence.

"Freedom of speech is one of our fundamental values in the European Union," Virkkunen remarks. "But it's not as if freedom of speech is above all other rights. Other people have rights also. So we have to be balanced. So if there is, for example, illegal hate speech, it has to be taken down. It's also very important to explain this approach, because there's a lot of misunderstanding."

Pushing back on Trump's suggestions that the EU is treating US tech "unfairly", Virkkunen explains: "We have fresh statistics from the last eight months on why online platforms have been removing content, because under our Digital Services Act, they have to report in the European Union if they are removing content. And in 99 percent of cases they are doing that because the content is against their own terms and conditions. Only in 1 percent of cases was the removal based on trusted flaggers in the European Union."

The EU Commission is actively enforcing the Digital Services Act, and has opened new investigations. "We are specifically focusing on the protection of minors," Virkkunen says. "We have now opened investigations against adult platforms to make sure that they are protecting minors and that they have the age verification in place. Online shopping is also something where we are facing challenges."

As for enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Virkkunen mentions the fines recently applied to Meta and Apple, over non-compliance. "Meta and Apple have 60 days to comply with our rules and change the design of their services. We are all the time looking at all the companies who are operating in the European markets, to make sure that they are complying with our rules," she states.

Virkkunen was recently in the US, where she met researchers and innovators. The commissioner says that she sees "a lot of interest towards the European Union, from students, researchers, industry startups and companies, because when there is so much uncertainty on the global scale, Europe is seen as a very reliable and stable and predictable place. Also, Europe is an ageing continent, and it’s very important for us to attract talented people from all over the world."

Virkkunen concedes that the EU is "often criticised for being too slow and bureaucratic. We want to make Europe faster and simpler and easier for businesses. We are looking at SMEs. We are implementing the AI (Artificial Intelligence) Act, and it’s important that we do that in an innovation-friendly manner. So if there are parts of the AI Act that overlap with other rules, we are looking at simplifying that also."

On startups, Virkkunen says: "This week we launched our startup and scale-up strategy, because we see that many companies have problems to scale up in the European Union. Often the challenge is access to finance, but we also have too many barriers between the member states. So we have to create one single market and use the full potential of the single market."

Virkkunen insists that the building blocks for growth in research and innovation in the EU are already in place. "We have 30 percent more researchers than the US per capita when it comes to AI," she asserts. "We have a very strong research and scientific community. We have 7,000 startups working to develop AI. But the infrastructure is a challenge in the European Union, in that we don't have enough computing capacity because we don't have these big tech giants. That's why, with our member states, we are investing in supercomputers. We have identified 13 so-called AI factories, and we have now opened a call for interest on so-called gigafactories. So we want to have very powerful supercomputers in the coming years to make sure that our startups can develop AI. We also want to encourage more AI uptake by the public sector and by industry."

These days, we are using cash less than we used to and relying more on private tech platforms, such as Apple Pay and Revolut, to manage our finances and make purchases. The EU wants to keep up with consumer behaviour in this ultra-digital age and ensure it does not lose control of its monetary system to private companies or big tech aligned with political powers that dislike the EU.

This is a key motivation behind the push for the digital euro. The European Central Bank has led the project since 2021, but the EU Commission and the European Parliament have also been working on it.

The ECB paints the project in a positive light, claiming that the digital euro will benefit consumers, retailers and payment service providers. However, it remains to be seen whether citizens will actually trust that the virtual currency will deliver on these promises.

We delve into what's at stake with our panel of MEPs.

We speak to French EU Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, a close associate of President Macron, and one of the Commission’s six Executive Vice-Presidents. He in in charge of a key portfolio: Prosperity and Industrial Strategy. Before his appointment to the post he was France’s foreign minister, an MEP, and leader of the centrist Renew group in the European Parliament. On May 21, Stéphane Séjourné presented a strategy for boosting the EU’s single market, something that he argues is critical for growth and prosperity in the European Union.

 

Séjourné maintains that global uncertainty makes it more urgent for the EU to strengthen its single market, simplify and harmonise its internal regulations, and find new trade partners around the world. “We need to find new markets, and that means new trade agreements,” he says.  “I know that it's not popular in France to talk about trade agreements, but in the current political climate, if we want to reduce our dependence on China, if we want to protect ourselves from a future American market that could close, we absolutely must find new outlets. And at a time when the Americans are making very radical choices, we also need to be very clear about our own European regulations.” 

Central to that global uncertainty is, of course, President Trump’s ever-changing approach to tariffs. On May 23, he threatened a 50 percent tax on all imports from the European Union. 

“I don’t think we should have a doctrine. You shouldn’t be choosing one option or another,” Séjourné opines.  “I'm in favour of not making any definitive proposals until we have an American proposal on the table. And a clearly defined framework for new trade cooperation with the United States. Some sectors will require full reciprocity in terms of tariffs. This is the case for aerospace, for example. If there is a 10 percent tariff on Airbus, there should be a 10 percent tariff on Boeing. But for other sectors, it is not in our interests, our European interests, to reciprocate. I think Europe has pursued these negotiations well. It hasn’t made as much noise as the US, but it has been united. “ 

Given the international context, Séjourné insists that the EU’s internal market should become a safe haven for European companies. But he says there are still too many barriers. “For a French company, to go to Germany or Italy, to market its products, to ‘go European throughout’ the internal market, is something of an administrative and bureaucratic nightmare,” he says. “Firstly, because you need to have a subsidiary, to adapt to European law, to adapt to national law, to look at the regulatory differences, and also to look at the differences in the way goods are marketed. We have put in place a number of measures to simplify and harmonise all the regulations.” 

‘Simplification’ is also the watchword when it comes to corporate due diligence reporting. Séjourné is adamant that this streamlining is not, as some NGOs have said, a dismantling of the Green Deal or of environmental standards. “Under the CSDDD, (the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) the subcontractor of the subcontractor of the subcontractor also has to be checked by your European company, otherwise you could be liable before the European courts. This raised various problems of legal uncertainty. We put forward a proposal at the start of this EU mandate to stop this legislation and start again from scratch. Now, there is a discussion about overhauling these texts, and Germany and France have made a proposal to abolish them. To do that, we still need a majority, because it's a matter of co-decision between the European Parliament and the Council.” 

We discuss the electric car market, a central plank of Séjourné’s industrial strategy. “European manufacturers currently have a problem with vehicle orders,” Séjourné explains. “There are no electric vehicles on the second-hand market today, and we are unable to offer – not only to French consumers, but to all Europeans – cheap vehicles with a life expectancy of two, three or four years, which in reality represent 80 percent of the market in many countries.” 

He goes on: “Ending the sale of internal combustion cars (scheduled for 2035) has to be combined with a genuine European purchasing strategy. And we need to boost that strategy, particularly when it comes to sales of electric vehicles, with an increased demand for business vehicle fleets.” 

Circling back to the Trump administration, Séjourné says he sees an opportunity for attracting American talent to Europe. “We are committed to increasing our international attractiveness, since there are prospects for bringing in incredible talent, particularly from the other side of the Atlantic, who have found themselves with no money for research. These people are often very experienced, and they could make an enormous contribution to the European economy and to applied research for our industries. 

Many EU leaders were undoubtedly relieved when the result of the Romanian presidential election was announced on the night of May 18. Nicusor Dan, who had campaigned on a platform of pro-Western stability, defeated the firebrand populist and Eurosceptic George Simion. Indeed, Dan achieved a stunning reversal, after heavily losing the first round. But Simion still won more than five million votes, or around 46 percent, which highlighted a deep fracture in Romanian society.  

Poland, which holds the second round of its presidential election on June 1, is similarly fractured. The hard-right Law and Justice party, well known for its run-ins with Brussels when it was in power, made a strong showing in the first round, with its preferred candidate Karol Nawrocki coming in only slightly behind the frontrunner, Rafal Trzaskowski. 

We look at the appeal of these anti-establishment forces in the former communist eastern bloc countries, with our panel of MEPs. (None of the MEPs from the “sovereigntist” camp that we contacted was available to take part.)