our series this week on arts and culture we journey from berlin to you to meet cultural leaders come raiding the past taking creative risks and building community 700 years of jewish life in germany. this week i'm culture. no one can teach the european union lesson missed the bulk of democracy we are i think. you will succeed this year didn't start well for the european commission its rollout of the covert 19 vaccine has been widely slanderous too little and too late but now it's decided to invest millions into researching new covert variants and to try and get some better headlines my guest this week from brussels is the great commissioner margarita's she not will the new initiative be

enough to silence the criticism of the commission on the charges of incompetence. margaret yes she was welcome to comfort zone thank you for having me you're pouring tens of millions of euros into research on new variance tell me this isn't just a elaborate p.r. exercise to boost your flagging image of the commission. no it is not it is the response to a genuine war that we have both here in brussels and in the capitals of our union because the mutations are happening and these mutants are practically everywhere so we need. to barrel to our vaccines problem we need to develop this capacity to

anticipate to adapt and facilitate that work. to be able to cope with all these potential threats risk to the aryans there's a lot of work going on in this field at the moment anyway the world health organization said in january that it was coordinating a massive amount of research on the same subject and drug companies are of course working on 2nd generation vaccines to take account of these new strains so what are you bringing to the table that's going to be new. we're bringing to the table. speed authorization procedures through our european met since agency that would allow these companies not to research meat from scratch but being able to update. the files on the basis of which they're already there vaccines authorized in the european market where bringing money because for sequencing testing and clinical

trials at the scepter scale we need your funding and more more than anybody else we need pressure pressure to everybody involved to anticipate events and prepare. this is something your strong point so far has it i mean the issue isn't money we know you've got plenty of money frankly the issue given the painfully slow rollout of existing vaccines is whether your competent as a commission to manage all these projects are you. we are i think the story has not been told of the european vaccination strategy the success of our plan will have to be assessed not at the beginning of the process but at the end of it we have pre-purchase 2300000000 doses of vaccine for all europeans we have bought the 25 percent of the global supply we have already dispatched 30000000 doses in europe and we have already vaccinated

22000000 europeans this is not. lack of success this is success in the making our own existence there she announced last week the commission president let's face it was forced into a humiliating admission but the e.u. was as she put it not where it wanted to be in combating the virus this after hailing the rollout as a great european success story but it hasn't been has it fact is you were late in granting vaccine authorizations too optimistic about the production of the vaccine to my even believing that all the doses would arrive on time you were 3 months behind the u.k. in ordering some of these vaccines you admitted all this this was all anything but there was no apology why why was there this apology this is the european union in the european union politicians do not authorize boxing's they don't have knowledge eyes either doing an independent regulatory agency. and i think the process

we are not in the course this is not a sprint it's a mar now yes to the question of apology that i believe the humiliating part you do to describe but this was something the president stated the obvious that these companies with whom we had contractual relations and they assumed contractual obligations were not ready at the beginning of these contracts to put the capacity the contracts would have required it and they are sorting this release out as we speak so the apology was an apology of the moment of the start. i'm telling you again if you will succeed in our still a vaccination strategy the fact is mr sheen as the people will have died in europe waiting for you to take decisions and get them the vaccines that could have saved their life someone should take responsibility for that and resign or is there no accountability in this commission of yours. we are fully accountable to the

european parliament to which we which we invested us in all took a year ago and the european parliament is fully in line it's our all governments or member states in making this european program of oxidation a success and leave it to your imagination what would have happened if instead of the european strategy member states would have gone it individually fighting each other over vaccines that the big member states would have swapped the market and the smaller member states would have never had access to the vaccines so we are making this work for everyone and it's working believe me when you say this but this week the senior liberal m.e.p. and former belgian prime minister gave a half star accused. fund their line of prolonging drastically the coven pandemic on mainland europe and the huge cost to lives and the economy he called the management of the bank them in

a fiasco and said after 2 months the rollout of vaccines is dramatically low in europe so you're painting a very different picture from the one that members of the european parliament are seeing you're in trouble if figures like mr far start are turning against you in this way. you are quoting one of the 751 members i can hurt others if you like no other but you should call the majority to make the point that the european parliament is against the commissioner of exit strategy you know in brussels there is what they call the intellectual appeal of pessimists somehow to be trendy to be more durned to make headlines you have to be a pessimist in the brussels bubble well i do not believe in the school of thought and monotonous and i repeat what i told you earlier this european strategy is working at the end of the process you will see that will be one of the most remarkable european success ever well that's what you say about key figures are

losing patience with you in germany for instance the chief minister of bavaria marcus accused the commission of lacking the necessary sense of urgency and following the typical normal bureaucratic e.u. procedure he's right isn't he people have a right to expect better from you don't bet. of course people have a right to expect better but i would also distance myself from comments coming from a country like germany where the election is already underway and where many key players are jogging for position to handle the elections and they always find very convenient to target brussels on basically everything you know so you find it convenient to give me a success story which hasn't yet happened because you're under political pressure at the money on the huge political pressure because of the role of vaccines you know and for the history of failure dealing with this pandemic i mean last year

there were admissions from underlying that the fundamental purpose of the e.u. which was unified decision making has been sorely lacking she said at the time when europe really needed to be there for each other too many initially looked out for themselves when europe needed an all for one spirit too many initially gave an only for me response the commission is the european union's executive if you can't unite this union isn't it time to hand them over to some people who can i would agree with you that the beginning in the beginning of the pandemic our member states last march reacted a bit like individuals individuals stormed the supermarkets and bought toilet paper and passed hoping that they will survive that and make member states closed borders they produced export bans they try to compete against each other but that only lasted 3 to 4 weeks after really members are still closing borders germany closed

quarter last week in southern borders causing traffic jams back into italy ignoring the ignoring the justice commissioner who is the warning that it could lead to. been disrupted is now considers the member states at the time it were all states the point i was trying to make before you interrupted me. is precisely that we are given the interdependence of our single markets the integration of our supply chains we can do thinks together only we can do things better only if we do them together and this is happening as we speak and again let me tell you that from borders to public procurement to pulling money for research to buying back scenes all this is part of a common european response which is working well you say it's working and i've quoted you people who don't think it is working how do we know for instance that there won't be a repeat of the january 30th fiasco way or commission panicked about the shortage

of vaccines and threatened to kick a clause in the northern ireland protocol that would have blocked the vaccines from reaching northern ireland the decision was rather reversed after 10 days and then international outcry you're not telling me that that was part of your success story are you the best the measure was not. related to northern ireland or article 6 in protocol the measure which was a valid one was skiing for an export or for a station procedure that would allow the commish to know what's happening with produced in the european market but i don't know the impact of northern ireland that it would have authority or i don't know how in protocols there was a negative impact on the on the northern irish border which was remedied i would say instantly on the same date and for which president underlined herself admitted that this was an administrative mistake that happened against the very broad

measure which we needed and we certainly need by that time to know who exports where vaccines important are produced in europe under contract obligations with europe you said it was an administrative mistake whose fault was that. well sometimes you know when you have to go in to alter sonic fast procedures because when you put in place an export authorization scheme you don't have the time a week or 10 days to organize things you have to do it in a few hours now but i asked whose fault it was who's going to the p.m.'s going to take responsibility for this the president herself took responsibility publicly or be at or be at the european parliament twice last week she said that she assumes personal responsibility for the minnesota mistake that happened on that day and which was rendered rectified to our sleep. so how do we know it's not going to happen again one of these administrative mistakes i mean this this caused an

enormous amount of diplomatic backlash for you didn't it the irish government wasn't informed in advance nor the british government nor the northern ireland assembly arlen's own ambassador called it a very serious mistake how do we know you're not going to do it again because what lessons have you learned from that well let me repeat that when the commission takes market related measures on export authorizations we have to go very very fast otherwise these measures will be. violated by events on the ground so this decision to have been taken on in an afternoon and i tried to explain to you that these were decisions that were valid because we need this market export export of radiation systems to know how the vaccines are being exported and to whom from europe the fact that that mistake had happened which was corrected immediately does not mean

anything especially when the president of the commission herself took it on herself and publicly in front of the european parliament assured them we base that this will not happen again you say it wasn't mean anything but it's max of chaos right at the heart of your commission doesn't it crossed wives panicky decisions no thought for consequences no found hand in control you proud of all this look i can spend also too much time using objectives but i belong to a political school of thought that i'm not more interested in now hns and inverts i don't think that you know value judgements in the confort of the studio can sort out a very complicated situation we are fighting fire in a once in a generation threat to humanity and to europe and we'll do everything that it takes to get it right and we are getting it right. so i prefer to be positive to be optimistic and look with confidence future it's not just with the pandemic that

we've seen missteps as we saw them the other day when your foreign policy chief you know as a barrel visited moscow many m.p.'s m.e.p. said he allowed himself to be totally humiliated and achieved absolutely nothing last week 81 members of the european parliament called on the commission president to fire him should he be fired do you think. again you are courting a relatively small number of family peace the european parliament has 751 members and the majority for the parliament to take a stance is half plus one that wasn't my question i asked you whether you know it has been fabulous or i'm answering your question before the high representative example or l. is that moscow do you know do happen to know how many ministers of foreign affairs of member states had already. the answer is that saddam is neither here nor there

is something that several countries in poland and the whole take states told him not to go why were you present their warnings not listened to 1st of all he went on the basis of an agreement by the ministers of foreign affairs council to go to we were surprised to see that no one bothered to criticize the 19 ministers who went to moscow before him but everyone rush to attack again brussels scapegoating brussels and blaming everything on brussels it's again very convenient very trendy it makes you popular it produces headlines but it doesn't sort out the problems we are in the business of sorting out problems but you didn't sort out any problems and he didn't sort out any problems because he went with no fixed agenda then a well it's easier to gauge when sections simbo engagement sessions at foreign minister

level that's what diplomats are supposed to do prepare high level meetings to the smallest detail and find something the ministers can agree on burrell 40 knew better and he didn't did it let's see about that let's see how the the noise around this visit materializes in terms of policy i'm not sure that everything has to be judged on the basis of what happened in a press conference there were meetings before the press conference and after the press conference and the foreign affairs ministers of the european union are meeting next week to assess globally the situation and move accordingly collected money so the story has not yet been top of this well it's going to be interesting to see how you move in a coordinated manner because half the problem is that the seems incapable of unified action when it comes to russia you couldn't even issue a collective statement after the poisoning of the opposition leader alexander vanny because it was vetoed by the hungarian leader viktor orban so you one more example

want to have a disunited multilateral body that can't agree on clear objectives. sorry to break the news but the european union does not have the capacity to decide on foreign policy on the basis of qualified majority foreign policy is still probably the only one together with the only policy where you name it. and you know limited allows everyone to stop everybody else so of course we can sell flagellate and regret and love meant that the founding fathers and governments sailed to break this last guru of european integration introducing majority voting in foreign policy but that's the situation so you are describing a situation which is given and on the basis of which we tried to do as much and as best as we can tell it from the foreign policy chief then the problem is we have

a foreign policy chief but you don't have a unified foreign policy. point of a job let me remind you that we are already have sanctions against russia on the start we are already new ink periodic least sanctions that have been great unanimously and we do have many other instruments and decisions that have been agreed unanimously but of course we do not have qualified majority that would have allowed us to move differently because of the situation and we can spend time lamenting it or regretting it but i don't think we can change it at this stage mr margarita's china has also benefited from the e.u. the lack of a consistent from policy hasn't it you you trumpet human rights as a central value to the european union but you threw those considerations to the wind when you signed an investment deal with beijing last month and you the only assurance from china about human rights was

a meaningless and totally on in forcible commitment to make sustained and continuous efforts to ratify intervent international conventions on forced labor. in other words they do their best no timescale maybe 10 years maybe a 100 who knows but why don't you admit it you got nothing from the chinese do nothing but ok again living the objectives sides on this earth nothing is a noun. the substance of this of your question with this agreement the european union of paint a level of protection of investment by european companies in china that our american partners are friends already have so this was not an apocalyptic mill think it was aligning european interests to a level of protection that other western powers already enjoyed with china so i'm i think it was a necessary agreement a welcome agreement and an agreement that creates more jobs and more certainty for

the company set for the economy and i would also take issue with your assertion that this was done at the back of human rights precisely as part of this agreement there are concrete references to the need to ratify the ilo agreements on child labor or there are relevant considerations of the situation in young the european union will continue to engage with china in a principled and at the same time problematic when you didn't impress the european parliament did you there was scathing condemnation of the resolution which was unanimously passed which said by rushing to reach this agreement while not taking action against ongoing a grave human rights violations in hong kong province and tibet the e.u. risks undermining its credibility as a global human rights act or the chair of the parliament's delegation variations

with china rinehart political office said it's ridiculous for the e.u. to try selling vat as a success. you didn't you didn't convince them we no one can teach the european union lessons about democracy and respect of human rights we are the world's epicenter of democracy and good governance great look at poland hungary and can you honestly say that can you honestly say that let me rest the 1st discuss hong kong and then i'm happy to go to poland hungary and hong kong where gravely concerned the situation there is against everything that we stand for we have repeatedly expressed both at the commission at the council of foreign affairs ministers are our position and the situation against the democracy pro-democracy fighters and activists candidates and these concerns have been put to president xi by the

european leaders in their meeting of the 30th of this just just wordsmiths the margarita's you had leverage real leverage with this financial agreement with this trade deal with china and you didn't use that leverage we used it to the best possible outcome at the level comparable to what our american friends did when dealing with china so this was not something that. failed understand we lived up to our stand there as the references to i a low resolution child labor situation i clearly established herself worked briefly at your claim that the european union is the most advanced model of democracy in society in the modern world seems like a classic exaggeration when you look at poland and hungary. according to human rights organizations human rights watch for instance says 10000000 citizens in

hungary are effectively living under or thora tarion rule in poland the government is accused by the self of violating the unions laws undermining judicial independence in bulgaria torture is rife along with massive corruption at all levels of government how does that fit into the most advanced model of democracy in society in the modern world. the rule of law and the respect for the rule of law the moccasin and fundamental rights are the jewels in the crown of the european union their non-negotiable. i do not deny that in certain parts of our geography the their way to history and authority to authoritarianism and tyrion is still has. a resilient presence if you like and we are now for some years working very very consistently and i would say aggressive to remedy

these but colleges in making clear that the rule of law has to be respected by all members states at all levels using their selling drug area that for 14 years but instead of doing it only by threatening the nuclear button off our article so many of the treaty we have now recently introduced a new approach through a european rule of law make is that allows us on a yearly basis to skirt examine the situation in all our member states from the point of view of rule of law in gauging dialogue abstract and instead of correcting making sure that we shape the situation the way we like it we have introduced and mechanism on conditionality with respect the rule of law in the next e.u. budget we have very many open infringements are and if their hands into these areas we sound with them i really caught that we're running out of time unfortunately we

run out of town although this ecosystem will produce change ok thank you very much for being on conflict and thank you for your time thank you for having.

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this is. to stay or to go nato considers its future in afghanistan defense ministers have begun a 2 day virtual summit to decide whether to continue the fight or to withdraw all their troops at the same time violence is increasing in the country also coming up nigerian gunmen storm a school into.