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00:00German MPs, in the meantime, have approved loosening debt rules for defence spending
00:05while backing a huge infrastructure investment package.
00:09The nation's next Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, getting the backing for ambitious plans to
00:14loosen the nation's strict debt rules for high defence spending.
00:18This has doubts mount about the strength of NATO and the transatlantic alliance.
00:24It's also going to set up an enormous fund for investment in its creaking infrastructure.
00:29Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
00:36The decision we are taking today on defence readiness in a comprehensive sense for our
00:40country can therefore be nothing less than the first major step towards a new European
00:46defence community, a defence community that also includes countries that are not members
00:51of the European Union but which are very interested in building this common European defence together
00:58with us, such as countries like Great Britain and Norway.
01:07The meantime French President Emmanuel Macron is in Berlin to meet the outgoing Chancellor
01:12Olaf Scholz.
01:14He also, we've seen live images there of him arriving, visiting the outgoing Chancellor.
01:20He's also earlier today visited the eastern region of Luex-les-Bains, which has a military
01:26base close to the German border.
01:28His visit coming a week after the French leader called for defence spending to be ramped up.
01:34Macron announcing that France as a result would be ordering more fighter jets than planned.
01:49France has without a doubt the most effective army on the continent, yes.
01:52The best equipped, the most comprehensive and the best trained.
01:56But we are pursuing this effort.
01:57It was indispensable to repair, to modernise and look ahead.
02:02As of the annual address to the army a few weeks ago, I asked our minister and army leadership
02:07to go further and the acceleration of events drove me to take further decisions which are
02:11currently being studied.
02:12Yes, we're going to increase and accelerate our orders of Rafale jets.
02:21So what a time to be European.
02:23The irony of history being at a time the United States is becoming anything but, meaning more
02:30than ever it's the moment for Europe to unify, especially as it realises that depending on
02:35its longtime ally is no longer a surefire bet.
02:40Timothy Gardon Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist.
02:46His book, Homelands, a personal history of Europe has been described as a love letter
02:52to Europe has just been published in French.
02:54He happens to be in Paris and I'm delighted to say the British author joins me now.
03:00Timothy, thank you so much for your time.
03:02There is a sweet irony, isn't there, that you wrote a book in a country, that being
03:09Britain, which turned its back on the EU in 2016.
03:13Well, that's partly the reason I wrote the book, because I had the sense starting with
03:19the Brexit vote that this Europe that we had built up, this more united Europe, this
03:24better Europe was now in crisis and that crisis continues in multiple countries.
03:33And I think this is, it's a series of challenges.
03:38Of course, this really the biggest challenge started on the 24th of February 2022 with
03:43the full scale invasion of Ukraine.
03:45So we already had the Putin shock.
03:48Now we have the Trump shock.
03:50And if Europe doesn't get its act together now, I don't know when it will.
03:55But the very same forces that threaten European and global stability, excuse me, could indeed
04:01bring a sense of true unity, could they not, to the continent as they witness the unravelling
04:07of American democracy?
04:10So certainly that's what we see at the moment.
04:13It's not just the United States, which is saying, hey, you Europeans need to do more
04:18for your own defense that we've known about for years.
04:23It's Donald Trump, as you say, attacking the foundations of liberal democracy in the United
04:28States and also explicitly supporting anti-liberal nationalist populist parties in Europe, like
04:35the AFD, J.D. Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference, Assemblée Nationale
04:42in this country, those sort of parties.
04:44So yes, it's an absolutely frontal challenge to the Europe we've built and that I describe
04:49in my book, in my book Homelands.
04:52Look, there's tremendous unity among European leaders at the moment.
04:59I think there's a real sense that now we have to get our act together.
05:04But translating that into action, for example, in defence, where the reality that the effective
05:12defence of Europe at the moment is still in the American-led NATO.
05:19Are we also witnessing the passing of a generation which experienced global conflict and trauma
05:25and also know that unity is what one needs in order to bring peace?
05:29I mean, I think it's certainly something you would find resonates possibly more with older
05:34people than with younger people.
05:36Yes.
05:37I mean, one of the arguments in my book is something that I call the memory engine, which
05:41is to say this Europe we have built was built by people who'd experienced the Second World
05:47War, the Holocaust, the gulag, fascist dictatorship in Spain or Portugal, communist dictatorship
05:53in a country like Poland.
05:55Those were the people who, with this memory engine inside them, drove forward the European
06:00process.
06:01And now we have, if you're a 30-year-old in France or Italy or Spain, you know nothing
06:06but a relatively peaceful, prosperous and free Europe.
06:11But I'm and of course, younger Europeans also voting in significant numbers for those nationalist
06:18populist parties.
06:20But I think in my experience, even younger Europeans are waking up to this.
06:26You know, the shock coming from the United States, coming from Donald Trump is really
06:32waking people up.
06:33And as you say, this is a critical moment for European leaders as they deal with the
06:37threat that is Russia.
06:38But is this sort of pie in the sky stuff to create a unified push to defend the continent?
06:43I mean, as you write recently, it's one thing to work together on trade policy or product
06:48regulation, but a completely different story when it comes to crafting a EU-wide defence
06:54strategy.
06:55That's right.
06:56And as I say, the reality, the hard stuff, the hardware, the plans, the kit of European
07:04defence is still very much a NATO, an American-led NATO.
07:07So the question is, how do we get as fast as possible from a defence which is essentially
07:15in an American-led alliance to a position where Europe can defend itself and Ukraine,
07:22by the way, both at the same time, part of the same story.
07:27And that means trying to find out a plan for the Europeanization of NATO, for building
07:34up the European parts of NATO and the defence contribution from the EU and building up our
07:40national defence spending.
07:42And then the question is, are our electorates, our voters in all our different national democracies
07:51going to support that?
07:52Are they going to be prepared to pay for it?
07:54And that's an absolutely key question.
07:55France, for example, is very enthusiastic on this agenda of European defence in the
08:01magnificent rhetoric of Emmanuel Macron.
08:04But actually, if you look at the hard facts of support for Ukraine or defence spending,
08:10it's near the back of the pack.
08:12And French voters are really interested in their pensions and their health care and their
08:16education and so on.
08:19So it's a real challenge also to our democracies.
08:23And the chances of doing that is extraordinarily difficult, as you just point out, but also
08:27when you have the likes of Hungary's Viktor Orban.
08:31Well, that means you can't do it all through the EU because he's a veto player in the EU.
08:37So increasingly, what we're seeing is, you know, coalitions of the willing, groups of
08:43European countries coming together at a meeting summoned by Keir Starmer in London or by Emmanuel
08:49Macron in Paris or wherever it may be.
08:53And it's interesting, you know, Friedrich Merz, the incoming chancellor of Germany is
08:56going to be a very important player in all of this.
08:59He's talked repeatedly about having a contact group of Germany, France, Poland and Britain
09:06to take this whole conversation forward.
09:09I think it's going to be complicated.
09:11But then Europe has always been complicated.
09:15But, you know, the difference between this period versus the time of Churchill and Charles
09:20de Gaulle is you didn't have social media.
09:24You also had a sense of people's coalescing around a one strong individual.
09:29That doesn't seem to be so much the case in Europe when there's so many competing interests.
09:34And as you also pointed out, I mean, how do you get Europeans on board when you've got
09:3815 year olds out in the streets of Paris campaigning against pension reform?
09:44How do you get that message across?
09:46Yeah, well, I mean, it needs a lot of leadership, a lot of persuasion.
09:51And of course, you know, that's what our politicians have done over the last 30 years.
09:57You know, I've been advocating something I call Churchill-DeGaulleism, a combination
10:01of Churchill and De Gaulle.
10:02And both of them, of course, were great speakers, great orators, great actors, as well as as
10:07well as great fighters.
10:10So that's that's certainly something it needs.
10:12But I also quote in that article, you mentioned a remarkable comment that Churchill made
10:19when De Gaulle awarded him the Croix de la Libération, the Liberation Cross, in 1958.
10:27And Churchill said, you know, it's particularly difficult to get this kind of unity of effort
10:33when you're in a situation that is neither war nor peace, but somewhere in between.
10:39And that's exactly where we are in in most of Europe at the moment.
10:43Ukraine is at war.
10:44It's in eastern neighbors have a strong sense of war, Poland, for example, the Baltic states.
10:51But by the time you get to Spain or Portugal or even France or Italy, there's not that
10:55sense of urgency and an immediate threat.
10:59Timothy Gardinash, it's been a delight speaking to you.
11:02Thank you so much.
11:03Pleasure to be with you.