ah, ah hello and welcome to cross stock were all things are considered. i'm peter lavelle . when europe is mentioned, what do you think a place an idea, a commonplace with diverging ideas? maybe you think of the european union? think what you wish, but europe is in crisis. it must choose between being an ideological construct or a place with real people and real needs. i cross sucking european disunion. i'm joined by my guess. john laughlin in paris is a university lecture in history and political philosophy. also in paris, we have properties at the home. he is a teacher, an entrepreneur and an expert in social media use in politics, and in guilford,

we cross at the found this exec theo's. he is a professor of european politics at the university of siri. ari tillman crosses roles. in fact, that means you can jump anytime you want, and i always appreciate, john, let me go to you 1st in paris because when i post my last question in my introduction, it asked to choose between being a ideological construct or a something for real people. and real needs, you were nodding your head already in the program. why go ahead? well, the european union is an ideological construct. it's based on the idea that nation hurts needs to be overcome. that the european past is nothing but a series of was and that european societies need to be remodeled. ready in order for the continent to be at peace and that say, an ideological construct because it turns its back, not just on history, but also on religion of course. and as i've said on nationhood, so it's driven profoundly by ideology. and you only need to observe

a debate to what they call a debate in the european parliament, or see the kind of nonsense that comes out of the mouths of the people in the paid commission to see that it is driven primarily by ideology and hardly at all by a desire to improve the lives of ordinary people. it's as simple as that. you can see it all the time. well, somebody's also and parents here, if it is an ideological project and obviously that's why i mentioned in my probably my introduction because i think it is. and i'm agreeing with john here. but is, is there a consensus of what that ideology should be because you can look at the squabbling that brussels has, with poland in with hungry. i mean, is it the side, the ology tends to is pending to push people apart. not bring them together. is that a fair assessment go ahead? properties is used to work. it's not really working very well right now, specifically because there are countries like fallen or hungry who do not agree with this european ideology and even within countries like france,

lots of people who not agree with this european and ology. we had a major poll referendum in 2005, and the french people voted against this ideology, but still is going through. and right now it's having a very hard time to convince european people that all this is done for there will be that's for sure. and yeah, of course, so europe hasn't built in order to prevent wars and so for it has to work more or less pretty good. but right now, it needs to have something more to convince everybody to continue this adventure. well, they found this is the same thing. question to, i mean we just heard from somebody says that, you know, you know, trying to convince the people i thought this was a democracy, isn't it? the other way around that the people tell their leaders what they want. i mean, it seems like it's turned on upside down on its head. go head. well,

democracy is about building consensus is about aggregating interests and being able to actually a speak on behalf of a common interest rate. so ideologically, the european union is built around this kind of premise of trying to find the consensus to move forward. now, obviously as a living organism, the european union acts more like any other country in the world. more like any other local community in the world where, you know, there may be disagreements that may be agreements, but there has to be a discussion about moving that way forward. and i don't, not really by this argument about, you know, what the people need versus what people say in the sense that the whole history of the world has been around trying to figure out ways forward. and the fact that there is a european ideology doesn't mean that that goes against the will of the people. it may be just going against the ideology of another group. and this is precisely what we see in the context of hungary and poland in this case. and the reference to

france that my good colleague made just now i, you know, in, in that sense, i think that we are looking into a debate and debates or have to produce some outcomes, whether those outcomes come shortly. or they come in the long term. that's a different story, and also we need to identify particular issues that are at stake. so for example, the evidence from, ah, different public opinion surveys show a growing support for the european union in the past couple of years, especially in light of the response of the you to the, to the cold 19th. and then so there are issues where we need this kind of common approach and where the common approach can be found. and there are issues where we need to discuss issues and i don't things out based on different interests, effectively a democracy is about the balance, okay? but okay, let me go back to john here. and this, you know, like a country,

but the european union isn't a country, that's the problem. that's the problem because it's not a country. go ahead, joe. and that's one of the reasons why it doesn't behave like a country, because in the country, you don't say, let's work everything out. you expect opposition to be part of the political process and indeed to be an invigorating prostate. and that's not part of the european way of functioning. i think the issue that we are driving at when you ask about how to den hungry and so on. peter is that there is a certain amount of consensus, obviously on piece, obviously on the civilization values of europe and all the desirability of some kind of common european civilization. the reason why there are divisions now to keep the 2 in east and west is that the european union is ideologically crazed waives a number of very radical ideas, which indeed most people and certainly people in central europe do not want about whole immigration and societal issues. like gay rights, gay marriage, and transgender. right? small rest,

but that's why i said in my best on so that it's ideological there's, there's no, there's absolutely no practical need for these radical attempts to remodel society . it's bad enough when you tried to overcome nation, because that has already created russian ticket calls with britain. but when you try to introduce mastic numbers of migrants, when you tried to impose a radical understanding of gay rights transgender rights. and so these are very, very hard cool, revolutionary societal issues and they are being pushed and i use the word deliberately onto societies picky and central europe, which are relative to the ones in western europe, relatively conservative. and i'm not interested in having such ideas of pushed on to them and that's the ideological aspect. that's what is divided in europe, as you say, in your intro to this program. well, company, so i don't understand what i can understand, you know, legal, you know,

having some kind of uniformity with law, with finance, with commerce, i get all of that. but why does it have to be with cultural values? why, why is brussels given get involved in that? okay. i mean, i can understand, you know, that the, the, the, how to make the union work. okay. i get that. but why do you, why, why do they get it, get themselves involved in the teaching of, of in school in hungary. why, why, why should brussels be involved in that at all? go ahead. well, probably to protect gay rides and to enable gays to leave peacefully over europe. but in my opinion, the main divider in europe, whether it's between countries or within countries, is more about migration. right now. a major topic in or french phrases will campaign which is to be going on. and it is so for that the campaign has been running for a few months. and so for that's the only topic of the campaign. and everybody is

going crazy about this topic. and my point is that it's not only a divide between countries like poland and france is to divide within france. i don't know if it's a divide within pulled in, but it's definitely a major problem that europe is not able to tackle. and or politicians in friends are not even able to tackle if they're trying to, but they're not able. they don't have the means to tackle the problem with the apartment and on the, and the on the issue of immigration. why should one country, for example, in 2015 germany say we will take in migrants. ok, well why does every other country in the european union have to go along with that? i mean, who elected to germans to make that decision? i mean, it seems so such an assault on the sovereignty of other countries. i know that being part of the union european union, you lose part of your sovereignty. but i mean, that's just, you know, that's just in your face. i mean, you have to take people that know when consulted,

go ahead. we are talking about different things. so immigration versus refugees in this case. right. so i think the problem rose up after the refugee crises. and that was the kind of original, you know, root of the, of the issue whereby we know that the refugee crisis was a transnational problem, right? so refugee routes are north house, east, west from europe, and also refugees move from country to country. and now well to sleep and they have harness. i mean, i be ari, i'm sorry you're conflating, the 2 terms is one, they're very different things. and plus, you know, to be a refugee just trying to definitely be in the country. the 1st country you can get to, i mean that's international law. i mean, why is everything suspended? ok, just go ahead john, before we go to the break. well use it on. he says he's trying to distinguish things. he should indeed distinguish between migration and refugees,

or the status of refugees is laid down in the united nations conventional refugees and the people who are flooding into europe. it's not with the same. i all matters of the european union. john, he's going jumping. i didn't hear, sorry, i didn't hear that remarks. the fact is that the wave of immigration that we 1st heard about in 2015, but was actually predates it by many years, and it still continues. now is not a refugee where it's not a wave of refugees, it's a wave wave of migration of largely we cannot make migration is going to do with refugees at all. the stages of refugees is governed by the un convention. and one of the ideological or things that europe is obsessed about is trying to efface the legal distinction between the migrant and the refugee and trying to legalize through migration what is currently illegal. namely for refugees to basically shop around and come wherever they like. this is all part of the program. it's part of the program of importing as many people as possible into europe,

partly to drive down labor costs, but also to remodel european societies. it's the same program and i'm going to have the japanese gentlemen. i have to go to a heartbreak and asked about heartbreak. we'll continue our discussion on european union. stay with in ah ah ah. oh also for eric room, identify 2 types of freedom, freedom,

roman freedom too. and while we all idealize the latter achieving the former, the freedom from use and abuse is no small feat in this day and age. this is especially true for africa, which for centuries has been exploited under all sorts of pretext. what needs to happen with the continent a truly take its deserve place in the world? these people learn from their own experience, how vulnerable of business is to the bank. so he pushes my business over, the age, pushes me right to the edge, bankruptcy. now i realize we will group, this isn't just the back that may be involved in this is the concept. see, firms is, is the lawyers, these people have got you want other stories,

a reward? can a whistleblower tell people's marriages have broken up. they've lost their family homes. it is spectacularly devastating for people's lives. we have committed suicide, but left behind, nor the explicitly state that it was the constant intimidation and billing by bank officers that late them to i thought the spear is obscene, these people up, nor saw with ah, welcome back to cross stock where all things are considered i'm peter a bell to remind you we're discussing european disunion. ah,

okay gentlemen, we didn't really resolve anything. the 1st part of the program, and i'm going to make it even more complicated because i want to go to foreign policy. right now. we go to for, to be in paris. here are the french, a finance minister and the saying this in an interview in published in the new york times. it was a very interesting interview. so this is part of it. the key question for the european union is to become independent from the united states, able to defend its own interests, whether economic or strategic interests here. and what i find really interesting, we looked at the differences in the 1st part of the program. and now we have a french finance minister talking about a foreign policy for the entire european union. i mean, if you don't have your house together for domestic issues, how in the world you're going to be able to do that foreign policy wise for breach . go ahead in paris when it comes to france in my field, which is i t, we are currently being colonized by american i t. or major i t business like are the major internet service provider and telco business in france for talis,

which is one of the biggest armament, industrial armament company in france. and even in europe, or curiously making deals with microsoft and google in order to provide a secure cloud for everybody in france. and this is colonization, no more, no less than that's what's happening in france. and when it comes to being independent, we have for them, i've recently that pandora paper revealed that there were lots of tax happened all over the place and plenty of rich people taking advantage of that. and the 1st thing that happened 2 days after those revelation, whereas all the finance minister from europe deciding to take off 6, a shell from the past, have been the blacklist. so my guess is that what's really happening right now? maybe not in europe, but at least in france, that i'm sure is that we're being colonized by the united states. no less. and it's

a major, major problem because tomorrow, one, the cloud will become a major thing. it's not this, not yet a major saying, but it will within 10 years because it becomes so big that every profit will depend on every company's ability to tag to, to use the cloud and all the profits will go to the united states. this is something very similar to what europe has done to africa in the 19th century, set up real ways, mining stuff and extracting all the value from africa for europe. profit right now, this is what you know said is doing to europe. well, the amount is, i mean, remember when joe biden came into power, marino america's back, you know, it's, you know, good old days or back, you know, was always an orange man that cause trouble, but then trump had nothing to do with it. this is a long term pattern, and you know, you had the submarine deal with australia. i mean,

how much longer is it? i mean, europe is being turned into a strategic backwater. oh, and by the way, you're supposed to fight the russians and the americans will take care of the chinese hope, but you can't use chinese technology. i mean, europe, the european union is bigger economically than united states has more population. and you guys are so flacid, it's extraordinary to me. go ahead. the pharmacy. good. ok. so the issue of a common foreign policy for the european union is a longstanding one. it seems that it's probably one of the issues that nobody can actually agree on what to do. it's that famous line. you know, of who do i call when i call europe. now, effectively, the alert was, was, was obvious when, when president trump was arguing in favor of pulling out the american support in things like nato and sort of pushing the europeans to get their act together in order to finance their own sort of mission. and what have you, so it is, it is

a response, the awards that obviously this is not new, right? so it's basically an expression of the withdrawal of the united states from the general affairs of europe. now the, the economic and financial sites a different story, but at least when it comes to foreign policy and defense and security, i think we're looking into this. and the problem here is that precisely because of an absence of a common direction within the european union, every member state is pursuing very strong bilateral relations with different partners. and of course, we see this every time there's a gas and energy crisis in europe. you know, all of a sudden russia is becoming very close to some member states. and, you know, once the crisis is resolved, then all the problems emerge. again, china becomes an issue when it comes to trade and infrastructure, especially as they are also operating in the context of the,

of african nations where the european unit has a long standing sort of program. and we now see how the european union maybe being bypassed in certain deals between the united states trailer and the u. k. so effectively, europe needs to, to figure out precisely what its role as a global actor is. right. and this has not been agreed upon yet, and i don't think it will be agreed in the short term. however, we, we need to think about what kind of margins does you don't have to do actually exert. is kind of a role in any what kind of issues. so for example, europe has been very, very prominent in the context of climate change and, and the discussions around the environment leading the summits. it hasn't been so successful, for example, in, in containing terrorism and security threats coming from the least. so it is,

it is, it is on an issue by sure basis, but you're right, there is no and no common direction. and i don't think there will be a common direction that is meaningful. i mean, yeah. okay. but then i have to agree with john and then then then then europe is it's irrelevant. okay. it turns into a backwater. i mean, it would be, i'm much, i'm much more having for multiple loyalty in the world. okay. and the european union is perfectly poised for that. but i mean, if you're still having washington say, you can't have a pipeline between russia and germany. why? why does the united states have to do with that at all? okay. okay. and then, you know, you can't, you can't criticize the sacred cow of nato, but what is nato? other than a wasteful p. r machine? ok. that turned into on deer to fight people in the balkans, which they may end up doing again very, very soon. ok, i mean, again as an american living in russia for 20 years now, watching europe is,

is bewildering. i mean, it has so much capacity and it's never used. go ahead, john. well, the problem is it doesn't have capacity. the european union is part of the problem if you want a multi polar world. because the european union, as a structure, we can collectively weakens europe as a continent. strengthening the argument is always that it strengthens, it was stronger together. the states of europe are not stronger together if they're putting in different directions there we could together if they're pulling indirect . ready different directions, and that has been the case most obviously with respect to russia, the decades now with the poles in the bolts putting in one direction and the french to some extent the germans in the other. so the problem is europe and ready resistance to the american colonization, which for police rightly talks about which of course is absolutely not limited to the i t sector. that includes the whole range of defense issues as you,

we seen from the submarines. the whole issue of nato to which the european union is subjugated by its own treaties, never forget this. this whole issue of american dominance has only ever been addressed by the states of europe, never by the european union as a body. when i, when i say by the states of europe, i'm referring to the thing you just said peter, about germany. the germans did stand up to the americans on not stream to and the pipeline has been built. the french are making noises, although i don't believe they will ever go very far with them. as you said in your question. but these are things coming from the nation states of europe. they never come from brussels and they never will. because brussels is part of the problem, brussels after all, is capital to both the european union and to nato. and people should never forget that fact, good point. but it's very interesting is that each europe, most important trading partner is china. but you're the us wants the european

union to take a leading role, and it's anti china crusade. i mean, how is that in europe's interest whatsoever? and will it cow to those interests, go ahead as so i don't really see the european interest or whether there's the way we can do with china. so my guess is that if we, if we went to war, even a commercial war with china alongside us, we will be in deep trouble. and i sure hope that the way europe is working will leaders to not doing anything by fizzle. so my guess is that we will not follow too much the u. s. when they want to go to war and, and talk about trade war war, which china, and we will continue to do business with china as we always did. and we're doing

more and more business with china and besides human rights, which is a major problem in china, and we need this business definitely need does business and china and euro as a market. so my guess is that the it will continue whether the american likes it or not. ok, well, they found us. i mean, i think we're all kind of come to a consensus here. there has to be, you know, it was really interesting. it was during the trump years, the u. s. s a d couple from china, but really it has to be europe in whatever form has to start the coupling from the united states. if it, because europe needs its own google, its own amazon and needs all these things here. and, and so already been mentioned this program, then you'll just always be a 2nd rate, junior partner. and the world is such a dynamic place. you don't want to be junior in anything. go ahead and finish up the program for us. that is correct. i think europe needs to find a voice in the primary voice, not the junior voice as you suggest, peter. and of course, the problem in this case is, is,

is the way that the european union is structured. so as long as the member states decide to have this kind of, of common joint line towards all other partners of europe outside europe than i think that we would be looking into a more and more successful global position of europe in the world. and you are right, we need to do to get the act together. somehow we need to understand what are the challenges that are coming up in the next decade and the next 20 years and 50 years down the road and be able to plan ahead. and of course, the idea is to do this in a kind of a multi lateral away, and in a way that preserves somehow peaceful cooperation between trading partners between associates in this case. okay. i mean, we do have run out of time. we've run out of time, i guess a major question is, can europe survive the european union to be continue gentlemen?

okay, many thanks them i guess in paris and in guilford. and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r t c. next time. remember, pa stuck with ah, join me every thursday on the alex salmon. sure. i'll be speaking together for the world politics sport. business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then. mm. i look forward to talking to you all. that technology should work for people. a robot must obey the orders given by human beings, except where such order is a conflict with the 1st law show your identification, we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. and the point obviously is

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