Podcast: The State of Europe is Strong(ish)

TRANSCRIPT: The State of Europe is Strong(ish)

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. I'm the host of the weekly show, GZERO World on Facebook Watch. And in this podcast, we share extended versions of the big interviews from that show. This week I sit down with former Prime Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, who may be best known for his work outside his home country as much as within it. He was a key mediator in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, and he's been a staunch advocate for the European Union since its founding. I'll ask him how he has adapted to the recent rise of populist nationalism across Europe. And if these developments have at all dampered his sunny Swedish disposition, let's get to it.

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Ian Bremmer:

I'm here with Carl Bildt. On his bio it says he has been most things but Prime Minister Bildt, and of course from Sweden. He's also been foreign minister, and most recently he is now co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations. We are here with Carl having some coffee in my backyard, a very New York experience. I'm delighted to be with him.

Carl Bildt:

On a sunny morning in New York, yes.

Ian Bremmer:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Carl Bildt:

Great to be here.

Ian Bremmer:

So let's look at Europe for a second. So when you're seeing how you consider leadership in Europe today, especially on the back of these elections in Germany where Merkel did not perform that well, who's leading Europe, if anyone today? How do you think about that going forward?

Carl Bildt:

Well, at the moment, of course, you have two individuals if you're going to identify individuals. Yeah, Merkel and Macron. And Merkel, after all, yes, problematic. The election wasn't what she had hoped, but still she's the personality of Germany. She's the personality of Europe. She will get an interesting type government there. Macron is a more inspirational leader. He launches a hundred proposals every day on the future of Europe. And those two. Then we have somewhat problematic feelings in the east old Central Europe. They feel somewhat left behind by all of these talk in Brussels and refugees and things like that, that's a challenge at the moment.

Ian Bremmer:

And-

Carl Bildt:

And the Brits are, of course, wherever they are at the moment.

Ian Bremmer:

But is that leadership? I mean, Macron can come up with hundreds of proposals, but ultimately just governing France is going to be really hard for him. Germany, just governing Germany is not as hard, but putting a coalition together is going to be much more challenging. You've got Brexit negotiations. When you see all of this, is it possible for Europe to really do things as Europe going forward?

Carl Bildt:

If we go back immediately after the Brexit vote, which was a shock to everyone, there was a lot of pessimists, so what's going to happen? Is everything going to break apart? If you look at things now, oh, it's very different now. I mean, we have what I call the BTP factor, which is the Brexit of Trump Putin factor that has led-

Ian Bremmer:

Which you see as unifying Europe all through.

Carl Bildt:

Well, I mean you have, look at opinion polls, support for the European Union is up 10, 15% in virtually every country. And that is not necessarily love of Brussels, but it's the BTP factor at the M factor, Macron. There was a summit meeting, or the most recent summit meeting of the heads of state and government, they adopted a work plan for what to do, which is quite ambitious. I mean, they're actually doing things in terms of external border, asylum, they did it in single market. It's all fairly, it's a coalition building all the time and somewhat complicated by necessity, 27, 28 governments and inside those particular governments. But I, there's a mood of optimism in Europe today, which a year ago would've been unthinkable.

Ian Bremmer:

And you think that of those three, Brexit, Trump and Putin, if you had to rank them, it would be that order?

Carl Bildt:

I think it would be in that order, I think it would be. The Brexit process has demonstrated how we are tied together much more than we thought we were. I mean, there are endless numbers of problems. I wasn't aware, to take one small example. I wasn't aware that we have passports for dogs and cats in Europe, but it means that you can take your cat and your dog and you traveled all over Europe with it.

Ian Bremmer:

So it works for Shengen, in other words.

Carl Bildt:

Well, no for the Brits as well. And all of the Brits go with their dogs or their cats to their houses in the south of France. No problem whatsoever.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, I don't need moose for the passport.

Carl Bildt:

No. But now this has to be renegotiated of course. I mean, the Brits have to introduce the system of passports for their cats and dogs, that's doable. We have to negotiate an arrangement between in the Britain and the EU for the cats and the dogs, that's doable. But thousands of these things have to be done, which we are not aware of because it's part of daily life. And when people become aware of that, they say, "Well stick together. This exiting that is far too messy, far too uncertain."

Ian Bremmer:

I mean, when Europe came together, of course there was this belief that you were able to really build on the democratic project, the rule of law project. Is there a sense that the Europeans are losing their way?

Carl Bildt:

I'm fond of saying that while we had previously the Europe of the dreams immediately after the second world war and all of that, now we have the Europe of necessity in the sense that all of the nation states are small. Even Germany is a small nation in the world today. And when the prime ministers or whatever are sitting around the table and seeing the in tray of the different problems, they understand they have to go to Brussels to meet the others. And equally, we see the proliferations of European summit meetings all the time. Not that people necessarily love to go to Brussels every day, but you can't solve the problems in your own capital. So the Europe of necessity is getting stronger while the Europe of the dreams has faded somewhat.

Ian Bremmer:

And you look at your own backyard. And the idea, when I think about the Nordics, I think about these wonderful countries that have strong communitarian values and take care of their own. Sweden's been incredibly generous in terms of bringing in refugees from Iraq, for example, and from all over the world. And it hasn't felt like it's taken as well as you'd like. Do the Swedes feel less hospitable, or is there a sense that your backyard isn't what you thought it was?

Carl Bildt:

True. Things have been changing. Are we less hospitable? I don't think we are, but it's a question of speed of change. I remember I was prime minister when we took in a very large number of people during the Balkan Wars that was not entirely unproblematic when we had thousands and thousands of people arriving every week and taking care of them. If we look at it now, in retrospect, 25 years, they have integrated very well. They makes substantial contribution to Swedish society. Then we got the Sweden and Germany, primarily, the big 2015 wave, which was three, four times the Balkan wave in a very short period of time.

Carl Bildt:

And that has been problematic. That is problematic. And how we're going to manage that in the years to come, integration is quite a challenge for our societies. We need to change in order to be able to do it. If we succeed, no question it's a big plus for our societies, if we fail, well problems, if you take the general trend among people, do they see immigration as positive or negative? They now see it as more positive than negative. But we have a segment of society, no question, that feels that things are changing too fast. We don't want to see these changes as fast. And that been reflected in number of events.

Ian Bremmer:

And would you say young people in Sweden, are they more inclusive?

Carl Bildt:

They are more inclusive. They are more inclusive, absolutely. I mean, it's a very multi generational thing, which I can understand. If you are, "Oh, well, we don't want your own society to change that fast." But young urban people are more open-minded. Elderly, rural people, somewhat less. And I mean, this is the Brexit division as well, to take that particular vote. And we see that in, well, the Austrian election was slightly different in the sense that young people also voted for the Freedom Party.

Ian Bremmer:

Very much so. Which was formed by the former Nazis actually.

Carl Bildt:

Yeah, there has some adoptive rule. But I think an explanation there is also the fact that the two old parties had been in coalition for a long time. So if you wanted to have in favor of true change in Austria, you tended to go to the Freedom Party. So that-

Ian Bremmer:

All of these Balkan migrants that came to Sweden, you said the integration worked well. Do you think that in Swedish society, are they seen as Swedes now?

Carl Bildt:

Yes. Yes.

Ian Bremmer:

And so I mean that that's a win.

Carl Bildt:

Oh, that's a win.

Ian Bremmer:

Unmitigated.

Carl Bildt:

Yeah. They have somewhat funny names.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. Swedes actually have somewhat funny names.

Carl Bildt:

We do have funny names from the start, yes. But I mean, one of the most famous Swedes is called Ibrahimovic, he's a football player. And Ibrahimovic is not necessarily the most Swedish name that you can think of. And he's coming from there.

Ian Bremmer:

And they've gotten completely behind him, obviously. And that's it, that's a thing.

Carl Bildt:

Absolutely. I mean, we have members of parliament, I think we have members of the government even. I mean, we don't think of them in those terms. I mean, they become integrated.

Ian Bremmer:

Can you see that happening for this latest round?

Carl Bildt:

No, I can see that happening. But in all honesty, if you take the Balkan wave and because speak with some authority about those because a lot of academic studies have been done. They are roughly the average Swedish group, which means that some are spectacular successful, some are spectacular, unsuccessful. That happens in societies. When we have the wave coming in now of course, some of them are coming from societies that are even more different. I think the most problematic group that we're going to have are the fairly large number of young African boys coming and delete the Afghan from it. If you have a young boys of a certain age, without any family, without any social connection, boys are boys. And to get them into work and ethics and society, that's a challenge.

Ian Bremmer:

I'll say something that I find quite disturbing, which is, so 10, 20 years ago, if you saw news about Sweden in the United States, it was all about the successes of this Nordic model, today when you see news about Sweden, frequently, it's talking about waves of criminality. It's talking about sexual assault. Again, I know that this is overstated, but it is what the US is now seeing. And I'm wondering how much are you seeing that taken advantage of in Sweden? Do you have that polarization in the media? Do you have that on the political forces? Are you feeling that?

Carl Bildt:

No, of course you have that. And what you're having in this country, of course, you have the forces of a particular nature, which has a certain connection to the White House sometimes that they like to say that Sweden was seen as a paradise, and now you see what's happening even in Sweden.

Ian Bremmer:

Yes. That's the alt-right.

Carl Bildt:

[inaudible 00:12:28] Absolutely. And accordingly, we in the US was close the borders and things like that. So they tend to exaggerate things for their own sake. And the same with political forces in Sweden, needless to say. And in all honesty, of course, I mean, take the Balkan wave. Of course, we had problems in the beginning, no question about that. I mean, we had smuggling gangs and all sorts of things that happened. They were coming from war in difficult circumstances, that died down after a while.

Ian Bremmer:

So why should the Americans care about whether the Europeans are more integrated or not?

Carl Bildt:

Well, I mean, going back historically, the United States had been dragged into big wars, world wars twice by a mess in Europe. So preventing a mess in Europe is in itself a value also for the United States. Secondly, the world, the world is a big place. There are a lot of other actors. When the United States looks out there, the friend that is there, the global partner, that is possible to have on virtually every issue, difficult as it can be, is Europe. And the same with Europe. America is the global partner that we can have when it comes to sorting out issues. And that's got to be increasingly important in the world where other actors are increasingly assertive with values and interests that are not necessarily ours.

Ian Bremmer:

So let me ask you finally about the United States. And you've been outspoken in your views of President Trump. A couple weeks ago I talked to Jelani Cobb who said that he doesn't see Trump as a blip, but rather a harbinger of what's to come given the structural forces in society today, in terms of the transatlantic relationship, which do you think it is?

Carl Bildt:

I think it is, and that has to be the working assumption, I think he's a fairly significant blip. I think our societies across Atlantic are so tightly bound together in economic terms, in security terms, in human terms, that it's bound to be a blip. But that being said, even if Trump were to disappear tomorrow, which I don't think will happen, there will be traces of him and traces of his ideas for quite some time to come.

Ian Bremmer:

Carl Bildt, always a voice of reason and great to see you. Thanks so much.

Carl Bildt:

Thanks for the coffee.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of surface, safety and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.