Talking Europe

A majority of EU member states have voted in favour of a landmark free trade deal with Latin American countries. The Mercosur agreement has been 25 years in the making, and its supporters are adamant that it will assert Europe's geostrategic position and benefit consumers. But despite the green light from the EU Council, Mercosur continues to face opposition from countries such as France, as well as from many farmers in the EU. Meanwhile, the European Parliament still has to have its final say. We discuss the deal with two MEPs.

Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats and Oihana Almandoz

Nearly four years into Russia's full-scale invasion, the war in Ukraine grinds on, and the search for a viable off-ramp looks increasingly narrow. Speaking to FRANCE 24’s Douglas Herbert, France's ambassador to Ukraine, Gaël Veyssière, delivers a pointed rebuttal to Moscow's battlefield narrative, warning that the Kremlin's perception and reality are increasingly at odds.

The US covert operation that led to the capture of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro is "bad news" for Russia, Veyssière says. He adds that Moscow is "embarrassed" and "ill at ease", forced to react cautiously as it balances the loss of a key ally with its desire not to antagonise US President Donald Trump amid discussions on Ukraine.

Veyssière also pushes back against claims that the Venezuela operation gives Russian President Vladimir Putin license to act freely in his own "sphere of influence", arguing that Trump sees the United States as the world’s number-one power, with no true equals.

Asked about security guarantees for Ukraine, the ambassador insists they are indispensable to any lasting peace. Russian objections to an international reassurance force, he argues, are largely "irrelevant", since any such deployment would take place on Ukrainian, not Russian, soil. Still, he acknowledges that Moscow could use the issue as leverage to block a ceasefire. If Putin insists on fighting until his territorial demands are met, Veyssière is blunt: there would be "no possibility of a ceasefire", because Ukraine will not "let its territories go".

As for the battlefield, open-source estimates show Russian forces captured less than 1 percent of Ukraine's territory in all of 2025. That figure alone, Veyssière notes, exposes the Kremlin's claim of military success as disinformation. Russia may be pushing forward, but its version of events is "not what you see on the map", the ambassador says.

Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats and Paul Guianvarc'h

As 2026 gets off to a rocky start, Europe finds itself squeezed between brute force and awkward dependence. After the US seizure of Venezuela's leader, President Donald Trump has openly floated using military force to acquire Greenland, part of NATO member Denmark. European leaders insist it will not happen. The harder question is whether they could stop it if Washington decided otherwise.

Read moreTaking over Greenland, a long-standing US obsession

FRANCE 24's Douglas Herbert asks two European policy gurus whether Europe can just say "No" to Donald Trump. 

Nicolas Tenzer is an author, political blogger and foreign policy specialist, and Nathalie Tocci, the director of Italy's Istituto Affari Internazionali is a leading voice on the EU's role in a changing world. 

Europe relies on Trump's support to keep Ukraine afloat, yet is expected to defend the sovereignty of one of its own members against him. A dilemma that Tenzer and Tocci agree has a moral, as well as political, dimension.

Ukraine looms just as large. With Washington offering vague assurances and Russian President Vladimir Putin rejecting security guarantees outright, Europe faces an unsettling prospect: guarantees that may never be worth more than the paper they are written on. Putin insists he will fight on until victory, leaving Europe to confront whether Ukraine risks being pushed into a bad deal shaped by big-power bargaining between Moscow and Washington – with Kyiv and Europe sidelined.

Watch more'Not what you see on the map': French ambassador to Ukraine challenges Russia's victory narrative

So is Europe wasting precious time on a diplomatic dance with little chance of success? Can it hold its own in a back-to-the-future world where might makes right? And if both Trump and Putin are prepared to impose outcomes, what room is left for European power, principle and choice?

Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero

Farmers in the EU have protested on many occasions over unfair foreign competition and the viability of their businesses. They gathered again in Brussels on December 18, while an EU summit was going on, this time focusing their ire on the Mercosur free trade agreement between the EU and Latin American countries. We speak to Elli Tsiforou, the Secretary-General of COPA-COGECA, the umbrella organisation of farmers and agri-cooperatives in the EU.

Tsiforou explains why farmers are so worried about this type of free trade agreement. "In every commercial agreement, there are opportunities and there are losses," she says. "Our question when it comes to Mercosur is more strategic. And the strategic question has to do with the divergence of standards. in the Mercosur deal, we see that the gap between EU standards and the standards that are practically not applying in those countries is enormous. And this is something that we cannot accept."

Tsiforou elaborates: "Any sector could fall into this, in future trade deals, if the European Commission doesn't have a strategic appreciation of our sector when it comes to striking trade deals."

But don't the safeguards that MEPs voted to strengthen in the EU Parliament provide a safety net? "Despite the sincere efforts of the members of the Parliament to improve [the safeguards], they cannot provide sufficient guarantees for us," Tsiforou answers. "You cannot address the standards question through a defensive mechanism. The Mercosur countries need to commit to the same [standards] as we have in Europe. And this is not addressed by the safeguards."

Tsiforou is also not impressed by the EU Commission's talk of streamlining and improving help to farmers in the next long-term EU budget.

"We see that the proposals of the Commission for the future policy after 2028 not only introduce important budgetary cuts, so 20 percent, without counting the impact of inflation, but they also radically change the structure of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)," Tsiforou states. "So there we see a clear danger of renationalisation of the only common policy we have in the EU, the CAP, which is one of the pillars of the EU construction as a whole. So this renationalisation risks ending up with 27 agricultural policies across the EU, and a severe impact on the internal market and on the functioning of the food chain, and also on rural areas."

We ask Tsiforou if the EU's simplification agenda – reducing bureaucracy on farmers, among many sectors – is bearing fruit. "Currently? Not at all," Tsiforou replies. "I think that we are reaching a peak in terms of the burden that is experienced by farmers. There is a big chunk of EU legislation that is weighing on EU farms, that farmers need to implement. But the rules either contradict themselves, or are not pragmatic and block farmers from producing, or block them in their efforts to go towards the sustainable transition. The Commission has committed to a thorough and authentic simplification. But we see a lack of ambition there. We just had the Environment Omnibus simplification proposals, and we saw that there were very few elements that address our concrete concerns when it comes to simplification."

Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Oihana Almandoz and Perrine Desplats

A major step away from naivety – that's how EU officials describe moves to crack down on cheap Chinese parcels flooding the European market. The EU is edging closer to abolishing the customs exemption on packages valued at under €150. For now, the EU has agreed to impose a temporary €3 customs fee on small parcels, effective from July 1, 2026.

Read moreEU agrees three-euro small parcel tax to tackle China flood

But e-commerce platforms such as Shein and Temu will still benefit from the broader customs exemption for the time being. More than 4 billion parcels made their way into the EU in 2024 – underscoring accusations of dumping and unfair competition, as European producers have to comply with more stringent environmental and safety standards for their products.

Shein, the Chinese retailer, is also in the crosshairs of the French justice system over the sale of child-like sex dolls.

We discuss the issue of cheap Chinese parcels with two MEPs.

Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Oihana Almandoz

 

Find here the debate in the European Parliament on e-commerce platforms

 

Romania is on NATO's eastern flank, and it is feeling the heat from drone incursions attributed to Russia, and from the Trump administration's strategic shift away from Europe. We speak to Romanian President Nicușor Dan about how his country is faring with these headwinds, and also about tough economic reforms that have put pressure on his fragile coalition government.

We put it to Dan that the US decision to withdraw some US troops from Romania is part of a deliberate strategic shift away from Europe.

"The United States and Europe have a lot of common interests and transatlantic relations will continue," he counters.  "Regarding the troops, there were some circular troops that were not stabilised in Romania. It was just a technical decision. It's not something to worry about. We still have around 1,000 American soldiers, especially in three very precise bases in Romania. So it's just technical."

We also discuss the EU Commission's landmark SAFE (Security Action for Europe) initiative, under which Romania is the second-largest beneficiary, after Poland.

"Before the Ukraine war, it was business as usual," Dan points out. "Now we have a (military) equipment plan, until 2040. The €16 billion SAFE (loan) is part of this plan. On the drone part, we have cooperation with Ukraine, which of course has experience of war. So part of the 16 billion will be for having a good response to the drone (threat)."

On military investments, Dan explains that Romania "had a big military industry in Communist times. We exported everywhere: the Middle East, South America. We didn't have good management after 1989, but we still have workers, production sites and good conditions, and we hope to attract investors from the European side in order to produce."

Despite Romania's continuing interest in American weapons, Dan underlines that the country "will concentrate on European equipment and try to improve our defence industry."

We turn to domestic issues and the high support for the hard-right populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) in opinion polls.

"There’s not much trust from people towards classical parties and classical policies," Dan says. "It is for that reason that we have 40 percent of Romanian people saying, 'we need something completely different'. But this does not mean that 40 percent of the Romanian population is pro-Russian or anti-European. It's just a question of trust between people and the Romanian state and the Romanian administration."

Dan admits that one reason for this lack of trust is a failure to tackle corruption. Corruption is "a phenomenon that involves many people, many administrations, many parts of the administration", he says. "I am very determined to act. There must be administrative and legislative measures, and also in the judicial system. And there is a need for society to act in this direction."

Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero, Agnès Le Cossec, Charlotte Prudhomme and Luke Brown

The European Parliament is set to adopt its negotiating mandate on Mercosur, after which talks on the final shape of a trade deal can begin. The accord with Latin American countries would create a free trade area of more than 700 million people, at a time when the EU is locked in trade conflicts with China and the US. But despite promises of safeguards for European farmers, fears of being undercut by unfair competition have not disappeared. So is this deal an unprecedented opportunity, or a threat to key economic areas in Europe?

Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Oihana Almandoz, Isabelle Romero and Agnès Le Cossec

With France going through major government instability and facing an alarmingly high public debt, and with Europe struggling to find its diplomatic feet as the US pursues talks to end the war in Ukraine, we speak to a seasoned political figure at the French and European level. Pierre Moscovici is the First President of the French Court of Auditors, a former EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, and was a minister of the economy and finance in the former Socialist government in France.

Moscovici says he was "totally surprised" by the allegations that his former colleague at the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, was implicated in a procurement fraud and corruption scandal. "She's a personal friend, and a remarkable person," Moscovici says of the former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs. "I know how much she was dedicated to what she was doing, being the Dean of the College of Europe. I think her reaction was a good one. When you are suspected, you cannot represent such an institution anymore. You need to act with exemplary conduct. But, let’s not forget – as long as you’re not condemned, you are innocent."

Watch moreEU’s Mogherini charged in procurement fraud probe

Moving on to the war in Ukraine, Moscovici asserts that the US has made "several mistakes" in its negotiations to end the conflict. "The first one is to treat Russia and Ukraine asymmetrically, to seem to be more on the Russian side than on the Ukrainian side, and Mr. Witkoff (President Trump’s special envoy) has shown his preferences before," Moscovici says. "And the second mistake, of course, is to bypass the Europeans. Peace cannot be done against Ukraine and peace cannot be created without Europeans. You can't build peace just with Russia." At the same time, Moscovici is adamant that, even though the EU seems to be excluded for now, the US will eventually come back to the Europeans, because "security guarantees must be made by Europeans in the end. I'm sure that the Americans want to share this burden with us, so I'm confident that they will come back to Europe because they need to. And we must be prepared for that."

Read moreFrance and Germany warn US could 'betray' Ukraine in push for peace, Speigel reports

Asked about public debt, Moscovici admits that there is "a French problem". He points out that, while Greece and Italy "tend to reduce their debt", the level of debt in France is "way too high". He says that "115 percent of GDP is 35 percent above the average rate of the EU, while we were in the average a few years ago. So we need to solve this problem. And that's in my role of President of the Court of Auditors. I repeat: France must regain control of its public finances in order to keep its credibility."

Read moreFrench lawmakers approve taxation part of contested social security budget

On the other hand, Moscovici acknowledges that "the structural problems of this country will only be solved after 2027, which is the year of the next presidential elections. We need to recover our vision, and we also need to recover a majority in the parliament. And this majority does not exist for the time being. So they are muddling through."

Programme prepared by Agnès Le Cossec, Perrine Desplats, Oihana Almandoz and Isabelle Romero

A ceasefire in Ukraine remains a distant prospect, to say nothing of an actual peace settlement. US diplomatic efforts in Moscow have become bogged down, with no compromise in sight on the fundamental issues, especially the territorial ones. Meanwhile, the EU seems to be relegated to a relatively minor diplomatic role – reacting to the Trump plan with a counter-proposal, and continuing to hold meetings of the "coalition of the willing" to help Kyiv.

Our two guests agree there should be a more proactive European diplomacy on Ukraine, but they see the contents of any peace proposal very differently. 

Programme prepared by Agnes Le Cossec, Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero

The EU was caught off guard when US President Donald Trump unveiled his 28-point plan for peace in Ukraine on November 21 – a document that Brussels and Kyiv see as being heavily favourable to the Kremlin. The EU has since presented a counter-proposal, but the bloc has given the impression of reacting to events rather than driving them. This after an apparent US-Russian rapprochement in Alaska last August set off alarm bells in Ukraine and in the EU. We speak to the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Belgium, Maxime Prévot. His country is a crucial player as it holds most of the frozen Russian assets in the Euroclear depository.

We ask Prévot why the EU seems to be behind the curve again. "This was already the case with the Gaza situation, unfortunately," Prévot replies. "Once again, we (the EU) are reacting to the US initiative, instead of taking the lead in finding a solution for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. Even though [Ukraine] is within the European continent! So we have the impression that the US chose the restaurant and the menu, but the bill has been paid by the Europeans."

Prévot signals that Belgium has not changed its mind on the question of using the profits from Russian assets frozen in a securities depository in Belgium – known as Euroclear – despite pressure from the European Commission. "Belgium has explained that it is totally unacceptable to confiscate such sovereign assets, only based on a political decision with no judicial decision," Prévot asserts. "It could set a dangerous precedent with high legal, financial and systemic risks for all of us in Europe, and maybe with negative effects for the eurozone."

He continues: "We consider that it is a better option to maintain [the assets] frozen, and to use classic loan processes for providing Ukraine with the needed financial support."

Read moreEurope debates the future of Russia’s frozen assets

Prévot acknowledges that "there is an urgency for providing financial support to Ukraine", but he insists any solution must involve EU member states sharing the financial commitment and any risks. "We need not only a coalition of the willing, but also a coalition of the billing," he sums up.

Prévot has just returned from an EU-Africa summit in Angola, and he gave us his takeaway from the event.

"Belgium has been involved in the African continent for a long time, not only for historical reasons but also by conviction," he explains. "We consider that the African continent will have a really impressive economic development in the coming decades, and also a demographic boom. The EU and Africa have common challenges related to climate change, to prosperity, to health issues and to security matters. So it means that we need to rebuild a new link of trust between European countries and African ones; and that also means not using the resources of African countries like a vampire."

Prévot adds that the EU "must be more involved in trying to resolve conflicts (in Africa), otherwise the US will once again take the lead and the EU will be only at the backstage. It's really important for the credibility of the EU to be paying more attention to conflict zones and to try to find humanitarian solutions. We have seen with the Gaza issue that the EU was not capable of taking a strong position because it was not possible to have unanimity between the 27 countries. But we absolutely must not copy and paste such an attitude to other parts of the world, and certainly not in Africa."

Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero.