00:00Elia, welcome back. The French President Macron on his, I guess, on his goodbye tour.
00:05Europe looks very different now, doesn't it, to when he first came to power.
00:11Good to be back, Jamie. Yes, it feels like a bit of the sort of legacy farewell tour for Macron,
00:16working his way through the various states, and not just the member states.
00:20Of course, he was here in the United Kingdom not so long ago as part of the cultural diplomacy
00:25between the two states as part of the bio-tapestry. So he made a huge impression here in the UK.
00:32I think he must have had maybe a trickier welcome to Spain, I think, given some of the domestic upheaval
00:39there.
00:39And he is certainly looking forward to a tough time in terms of the budget.
00:44Your correspondence there, Sarah, talking about the wave of strikes across France,
00:49particularly within the public sector, ahead of the Thursday budget.
00:53I think it gives you a sense of the significant domestic instability that comes and goes, I think, in France.
01:01But it's not been much better in Spain, as you just pointed out.
01:05I mean, both countries, as you suggest, are seeing the rise of populist centre-right parties.
01:12But Europe's problems run so much deeper, don't they, than easy slogans?
01:19Yes, you're absolutely right. I mean, we've got a series of what we might call a polycrisis.
01:24I know this is a, it's a term of art, but it's a really good one that springs to mind,
01:29the idea that Europe is beset almost permanently now by a series of issues that it's got to work its
01:34way through.
01:34Sometimes these are at the national level, sometimes they're governmental.
01:37But I think from a thematic perspective, you can see real problems over energy and security.
01:44Migration issues, I think, are problems.
01:47And the issue is, of course, what happens when they stack up and they fuel things, obviously, like populist momentum.
01:54The question is whether populism itself is a symptom or it's a cause, if you like, of the broader instability.
02:02Either way, Europe's got some problems on its plate. It needs to solve them pretty quickly.
02:07And structural disparities seem to be something that every member state has in common at this point.
02:13And the question, I think, that this puts to all of us, therefore, is the relationship between the member states
02:20on the one side
02:20and the role that Brussels plays on the other.
02:24I mean, that's interesting, isn't it?
02:25I mean, perhaps with France and perhaps even Spain struggling politically and economically.
02:30Is it then up to Brussels to push forward the European ideal, the European agenda?
02:38That's a great question.
02:40I mean, some in Brussels would be delighted to hear that suggestion posed.
02:44Others, I think, would be aghast that that much power is sort of flowing towards them.
02:49I think they try to be the quiet center of continuity, if you like.
02:53Now, let's make no bones about it.
02:55You know, the European Commission is the heart of supranational decision making.
02:58So there's a there's a lot of decisions that have been seeded by the member states,
03:02according to it, including trade, which is very important because it's tricky to do.
03:06So it's probably better coming from from one single voice.
03:09But there's a question of whether the European Commission is continuing to step forward
03:13and fill something of a leadership vacuum and take over some of these poly crisis areas
03:18that I mentioned before might be interesting.
03:20How far are the member states prepared to let the European Commission
03:23and the sort of central Brussels magnet go, if you like?
03:26Are they going to allow them to fully harmonize on absolutely every policy?
03:31Absolutely not.
03:31But I think there are areas where the member states will concede
03:34that having the Commission as the icebreaker, if you like,
03:37moving ahead and possibly pulling Europe with it could be a step forward.
03:42You
