WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.271 --> 00:00:02.415 So, here's a question nobody asks. 2 00:00:02.896 --> 00:00:10.247 What do you do when one of your oldest friends is Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, the European Union nation? 3 00:00:10.648 --> 00:00:11.630 I'll tell you what you do. 4 00:00:12.090 --> 00:00:12.691 You call him. 5 00:00:13.152 --> 00:00:13.593 A lot. 6 00:00:14.452 --> 00:00:15.552 My name's Andy Valvur. 7 00:00:16.013 --> 00:00:22.154 I'm a comedian, American-born, now living in Europe, because, well, if you could, wouldn't you? 8 00:00:23.035 --> 00:00:32.938 I grew up in the US, hearing stories from my parents about a country that didn't exist, at least not on any map you could buy because the Soviets had wiped it out. 9 00:00:33.758 --> 00:00:36.080 I only had one buddy who understood. 10 00:00:36.100 --> 00:00:37.081 Toomas. 11 00:00:37.942 --> 00:00:50.975 His parents were also Estonian, also refugees, and Toomas and I grew up sharing the same traditions, same weird Estonian Saturday school, and same conviction that America and Europe were family. 12 00:00:51.555 --> 00:00:53.797 And for most of our lives, they were. 13 00:00:54.278 --> 00:00:56.980 The alliance held until it didn't. 14 00:00:57.721 --> 00:01:02.584 Right now, the relationship that defined the free world for 80 years is coming apart. 15 00:01:03.265 --> 00:01:07.988 And Europe is scrambling to figure out who it is and what comes next. 16 00:01:08.729 --> 00:01:10.730 Toomas and I talk about this stuff. 17 00:01:11.110 --> 00:01:14.733 And it seems selfish to keep these conversations to myself. 18 00:01:15.253 --> 00:01:22.798 So here it is, the Continental Rift, with former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and me, Andy Valvur. 19 00:01:23.459 --> 00:01:26.241 Serious politics, questionable hosts. 20 00:01:30.348 --> 00:01:35.634 It's Thursday, the 13th of August, this week on the Continental Rift. 21 00:01:36.475 --> 00:01:43.242 America sold Europe's currency to rescue Japan's and only told Europe afterwards. 22 00:01:43.763 --> 00:01:49.769 The U.S. Vice President, Rang Keefe, asked the Ukrainians to stop beating the Russians up in Germany today. 23 00:01:49.929 --> 00:01:54.174 A drone with a criminal record tried to blow up a cargo plane. 24 00:01:54.735 --> 00:02:07.390 And a Texas oil outfit associated with Dr. Phil, yes, that Dr. Phil, parked $60 million worth of drilling equipment in Greenland without asking Greenland. 25 00:02:08.706 --> 00:02:19.052 This is the Continental Rift, and in the next half hour, what happens when your allies act alone and why Europe's institutions are so slow to respond to these challenges? 26 00:02:19.533 --> 00:02:31.560 I'm Andy Valver, and with me, as always, is the man who not only used to be the foreign minister of a European nation, but later it's two-time president, former president of Estonia, Thomas Hendrik Ilves. 27 00:02:31.940 --> 00:02:32.540 Hey, Thomas. 28 00:02:32.681 --> 00:02:33.261 How's it going? 29 00:02:33.501 --> 00:02:33.761 Good. 30 00:02:34.061 --> 00:02:36.463 And in Spain, you thought it was hot in the south of France? 31 00:02:36.483 --> 00:02:36.723 Yes. 32 00:02:37.427 --> 00:02:38.448 Have you been eclipsed? 33 00:02:38.888 --> 00:02:40.129 I was eclipsed last night. 34 00:02:40.429 --> 00:02:45.212 I am right in a town called Penis Cola. 35 00:02:46.472 --> 00:02:50.495 I kid you not, that's the name of the town, Penis Cola. 36 00:02:51.035 --> 00:02:53.757 And this is the actual central path. 37 00:02:54.077 --> 00:02:55.878 So we had full totality. 38 00:02:56.718 --> 00:02:58.740 And I got to tell you, it was... 39 00:02:59.748 --> 00:03:01.249 It was impressive. 40 00:03:01.469 --> 00:03:02.911 It was a heck of a celestial's life. 41 00:03:03.191 --> 00:03:04.812 Two minutes, but, you know. 42 00:03:05.012 --> 00:03:11.978 When I was a kid, I drove or was driven down to Virginia Beach to watch one there. 43 00:03:11.998 --> 00:03:14.380 It was quite astounding to watch all the birds. 44 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:14.800 Yeah. 45 00:03:15.300 --> 00:03:16.441 Everybody just went to sleep. 46 00:03:16.601 --> 00:03:20.705 So anyway, listen, let's take a quick little Ceuta update. 47 00:03:22.306 --> 00:03:34.115 after the migrants from Morocco sort of moved into the Spanish territory of Ceuta, 72,000 Moroccans moved in for the weekend and then left. 48 00:03:34.275 --> 00:03:36.577 Italians got pissed off, blamed the Spain. 49 00:03:36.617 --> 00:03:38.899 The Spains retaliated with checks on the Italians. 50 00:03:39.359 --> 00:03:44.543 You know, Schengen, because nothing says borderless Europe like everybody checking everybody else's passport. 51 00:03:44.743 --> 00:03:53.048 So basically, Europe has responded to a porous external border by rebuilding its internal ones. 52 00:03:53.568 --> 00:03:57.811 Yeah, well, it doesn't give us much hope for where we're going, unfortunately. 53 00:03:58.191 --> 00:03:59.372 A couple of updates. 54 00:03:59.392 --> 00:04:13.760 We mentioned last week that the U.S. had sent mixed messages on their approach to Morocco and Spain, but the State Department did reaffirm Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melita and 55 00:04:15.238 --> 00:04:24.922 Though at the same time bashing Sanchez for being unable to defend Spain against this migrant invasion. 56 00:04:25.342 --> 00:04:33.765 And we also have an interesting development in that the hard right, Georgia Maloney, has fought. 57 00:04:35.994 --> 00:04:53.951 joined up with left-wing Meta Frederiksen, prime minister of Denmark, to issue a joint statement condemning uncontrolled immigration and defending Europe's Christian cultural heritage. 58 00:04:54.171 --> 00:04:56.053 Why would the Danish PM do that? 59 00:04:56.233 --> 00:05:12.246 Well, I mean, both Denmark and also Sweden have had some of the largest inflow from outside the EU via Italy and Spain, because they have rather generous social welfare benefits. 60 00:05:12.306 --> 00:05:19.512 So right now, the proportion of people living in Sweden, born in Sweden, is, I think, low. 61 00:05:20.187 --> 00:05:23.509 getting kind of in the 80% range. 62 00:05:23.629 --> 00:05:36.377 And so Sweden also called the amnesty that Sanchez had proclaimed in Spain as a very bad idea. 63 00:05:36.717 --> 00:05:41.200 And as it turns out, agencies have found there was a massive issue. 64 00:05:41.973 --> 00:05:50.899 amount of disinformation being spread about Spain with various Russian networks. 65 00:05:51.179 --> 00:05:54.421 So illegal immigration now has its own social media channel. 66 00:05:54.661 --> 00:05:56.522 Well, it has all along. 67 00:05:57.123 --> 00:05:58.163 Maloney, of course... 68 00:05:59.904 --> 00:06:06.688 To go back to the initial outbursts there against Spain, she herself is far right. 69 00:06:06.808 --> 00:06:10.430 But now there is a even more far right party. 70 00:06:10.970 --> 00:06:11.811 Right about that. 71 00:06:12.891 --> 00:06:15.073 In Italy with an ex-general. 72 00:06:15.913 --> 00:06:27.869 named Roberto Vanacci, and that's polling 7% over the threshold and eating into her support in front of the election next year. 73 00:06:28.350 --> 00:06:32.315 So that's where we are with that wonderful kerfuffle. 74 00:06:32.435 --> 00:06:43.138 So basically, everybody is sort of looking out for themselves, which is kind of what happened when the Americans decided to help prop up the Japanese yen. 75 00:06:43.378 --> 00:06:45.939 Do you want to fill me in on that one? 76 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:48.380 The U.S. decided to prop up the yen yen. 77 00:06:49.820 --> 00:06:52.181 with euros, that is not dollars. 78 00:06:52.462 --> 00:06:55.763 So they sold their euros to buy the yen. 79 00:06:57.324 --> 00:07:02.726 And this was the first U.S. Japanese operation to support the yen in nearly 30 years. 80 00:07:03.026 --> 00:07:05.907 But they didn't tell the Europeans that they were going to do that. 81 00:07:05.987 --> 00:07:06.668 Precisely. 82 00:07:06.888 --> 00:07:11.170 European Central Bank was informed only after the trade had been executed. 83 00:07:11.390 --> 00:07:15.312 Senior European Central Bank official said this was 84 00:07:16.632 --> 00:07:20.755 An unprecedented breach of decades of central bank convention. 85 00:07:22.116 --> 00:07:25.899 Very striking, sad, and this has never happened before. 86 00:07:26.179 --> 00:07:32.744 Now, the U.S. Treasury says that allocation of its exchange stabilization fund is a sovereign decision. 87 00:07:32.804 --> 00:07:35.566 So we own euros, so we can do what we want with them. 88 00:07:35.727 --> 00:07:42.892 Furthermore, a Trump official said, we expect the confidentiality of private discussions with our international partners. 89 00:07:43.232 --> 00:07:45.594 partners unlike the ECB. 90 00:07:45.734 --> 00:07:54.181 Basically, Christine Lagarde finally knows what it feels like to check the minibar bill after the Americans have checked out. 91 00:07:54.601 --> 00:07:56.022 That's a good way of putting it. 92 00:07:56.283 --> 00:07:58.064 So how pissed off are the Europeans? 93 00:07:58.084 --> 00:08:00.746 Well, first of all, I mean, the reason they did this is because... 94 00:08:02.367 --> 00:08:10.869 Treasury Secretary Besant wants a strong dollar and dumping U.S. treasuries would affect the bond market. 95 00:08:11.129 --> 00:08:15.510 The message is that the U.S. dollar ain't what it used to be. 96 00:08:16.470 --> 00:08:24.352 And on top of that, the effect of this sell-off of U.S.-held euros faded quickly. 97 00:08:24.452 --> 00:08:25.553 It didn't do anything. 98 00:08:25.673 --> 00:08:27.993 Well, the yen went up and then it came back down. 99 00:08:32.354 --> 00:08:40.396 beggar thy neighbor approach to basically not tell the people whose money you're using that you're using their money. 100 00:08:40.416 --> 00:08:48.399 I mean, it is a breakdown in the kind of traditional cooperation between central banks and Europe is not someone... 101 00:08:49.179 --> 00:08:50.180 You inform. 102 00:08:50.260 --> 00:08:52.481 It's not someone you're going to consult with. 103 00:08:52.501 --> 00:08:53.581 You just do it. 104 00:08:53.802 --> 00:08:54.042 All right. 105 00:08:54.082 --> 00:09:13.132 So this is basically along our theme of everybody's just looking out with their skin, which takes us to Vice President Vance making phone calls to the Ukrainians telling them to stop beating up the Russians because it's affecting our quarterly profits. 106 00:09:14.018 --> 00:09:27.032 Vice President Vance called Zelensky, asking him to halt drone strikes on tankers using the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which U.S. companies are in it, have a stake. 107 00:09:27.312 --> 00:09:34.139 But this pipeline comes from Kazakhstan all the way to Novorossiysk. 108 00:09:35.180 --> 00:09:43.587 which is the Russian port in the Black Sea, which the Ukrainians, as part of what they call their oil sanctions policy, has been bombing rather regularly. 109 00:09:43.908 --> 00:09:45.109 Well, Kiev backed down. 110 00:09:45.129 --> 00:09:54.536 They said, well, I mean, they're still hoping for the Patriot missiles that they were promised and then that was taken back. 111 00:09:55.997 --> 00:10:09.844 So the Ukrainians now are back off from tankers in Novorossiysk, but they are hitting the naval base there constantly because it is also a large military port. 112 00:10:10.124 --> 00:10:17.208 Just to keep things sort of in perspective, this is not only the United States doing this now. 113 00:10:17.768 --> 00:10:24.532 The same thing happened under the Biden administration, where the U.S. was pressuring the U.S. 114 00:10:25.732 --> 00:10:32.975 the Ukrainians not to hit any energy sources because that might affect the price of oil. 115 00:10:32.995 --> 00:10:33.896 It's amazing. 116 00:10:34.176 --> 00:10:42.300 Even during a war, you know, there's like mayhem and chaos and women and children being injured and everybody's getting hurt. 117 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:45.801 And in the meantime, they go... Well, let's put it this way. 118 00:10:46.101 --> 00:10:47.242 Both administrations... 119 00:10:48.222 --> 00:10:50.084 No, no, no. 120 00:10:50.424 --> 00:10:56.649 I'm not picking one over the other, but I'm just thinking, it's like, what is wrong with you people, right? 121 00:10:56.709 --> 00:11:00.051 It's just all about the money for both sides. 122 00:11:00.552 --> 00:11:03.694 Republicans and Democrats, let's make some money. 123 00:11:04.194 --> 00:11:07.057 I mean, it's a pattern of money. 124 00:11:08.518 --> 00:11:24.049 sort of putting security of a country under massive attack in second place after the interests of U.S. corporations and interests of oil markets, domestic oil or gasoline or petrol prices. 125 00:11:24.950 --> 00:11:33.036 And the ally Ukraine under brutal attack is kind of a irrelevant thing. 126 00:11:33.296 --> 00:11:35.718 All right, let's move on to... 127 00:11:35.978 --> 00:11:36.879 There's a... 128 00:11:38.948 --> 00:12:02.506 I know you couldn't actually even write this because there was a Russian drone that was discovered in Germany with explosives, which leads me to the question, if Russia sends an explosive drone into Germany and Germany refuses to call it an attack, does Article 5 make a sound? 129 00:12:02.826 --> 00:12:04.607 No, none whatsoever. 130 00:12:05.628 --> 00:12:12.593 Well, I mean, Germany would also have to go to NATO to ask for Article 5 or even Article 4, which is merely consultations. 131 00:12:12.673 --> 00:12:26.062 But in this case, where we are today is that the German Ministry of Interior has called it a hybrid attack, which kind of doesn't, to me, give anything other than saying... 132 00:12:26.822 --> 00:12:28.583 Yeah, it's not an invasion. 133 00:12:28.643 --> 00:12:30.925 But you said last time about hybrid attacks. 134 00:12:31.385 --> 00:12:44.674 The famous theoretician of war, Karl von Clausewitz, with his most famous expression that everybody learns and knows is that war is the continuation of policy by other means. 135 00:12:45.355 --> 00:12:48.217 But there's another lesser known thinker on foreign policy. 136 00:12:48.817 --> 00:13:03.252 and security policy Karl von Ilvesowits, who has said that multiple times, actually, unfortunately, that hybrid is the continuation of war by other means. 137 00:13:03.752 --> 00:13:06.975 And that is really the problem, is that hybrid is war. 138 00:13:08.497 --> 00:13:16.005 But you're just doing it in a way that you can't or won't or refuse to admit that it is war. 139 00:13:16.385 --> 00:13:19.028 And that's where we are today. 140 00:13:19.989 --> 00:13:23.092 But it's where we've been for quite a long time. 141 00:13:23.673 --> 00:13:25.174 This has been a tendency... 142 00:13:26.515 --> 00:13:52.109 I would argue since 2007, when the first real major so-called hybrid attacks took place on Europe, namely in Estonia, when what are called DDoS, for distributed denial of service attacks, shut down basically all the various important websites, newspapers, government websites, banks, most importantly. 143 00:13:52.369 --> 00:14:01.476 Well, especially if he was being told by Germany, which then as now was the least digitally advanced country in Europe, that we didn't know what we were talking about. 144 00:14:03.678 --> 00:14:06.000 So who do you think did it? 145 00:14:06.040 --> 00:14:08.622 So you think it's Uruguay or something? 146 00:14:08.742 --> 00:14:08.963 Right. 147 00:14:09.243 --> 00:14:16.709 So basically, Europe's position is we cannot accuse Russia until we have proof beyond reasonable doubt. 148 00:14:17.149 --> 00:14:20.452 And Russia's position is apparently we have more time. 149 00:14:20.772 --> 00:14:24.815 This is a fundamental problem that we'll get to. 150 00:14:25.355 --> 00:14:38.384 But I should also add that there was another incident that same night with the discovery of the drone with the explosives, Semtex, which is... Yeah, plastic explosive. 151 00:14:38.704 --> 00:14:47.570 Well, but it was a Cold War era explosive manufactured in the erstwhile... 152 00:14:48.350 --> 00:14:50.932 Czechoslovakia under communist rule. 153 00:14:52.053 --> 00:15:04.545 But there was another, an air cargo freighter to Leipzig airport, which is a major hub for all kinds of war material. 154 00:15:05.486 --> 00:15:09.709 And so it's not just any old airport. 155 00:15:09.769 --> 00:15:11.011 It's an airport that... 156 00:15:12.011 --> 00:15:15.094 that handles all kinds of military freight. 157 00:15:15.935 --> 00:15:25.443 And where the drone landed was right next to a Ukrainian Antonov transport plane. 158 00:15:27.264 --> 00:15:33.890 Most recent reports say it apparently even hit it and bounced off, but the fuse did not work. 159 00:15:34.070 --> 00:15:38.393 And it wasn't even discovered for, what is it, some sort of bus driver found it? 160 00:15:38.674 --> 00:15:38.954 Yes. 161 00:15:40.595 --> 00:15:43.858 But let me just stop you just for a second, because that's not the only incident. 162 00:15:43.878 --> 00:15:46.079 I mean, there was there's a lot of drone. 163 00:15:46.099 --> 00:15:46.880 There was another one. 164 00:15:46.920 --> 00:15:48.621 The Romanians had drones. 165 00:15:48.661 --> 00:16:02.292 The Bulgarians, they had another kind of what they call hybrid war, which was another attempt to blow up a munitions factory in Bulgaria that had been at the end. 166 00:16:02.972 --> 00:16:24.908 attempted to be blown up some 10 years ago, and whose director of the company was the object of an assassination attempt by the same people, apparently, who also did blow up a munitions factory in the Czech Republic that resulted in two people being killed. 167 00:16:26.129 --> 00:16:33.995 None of those things have been addressed at a higher level because they are hybrid. 168 00:16:34.536 --> 00:16:38.118 Yeah, but at some point, somebody's got to say something. 169 00:16:38.178 --> 00:16:41.321 I mean, doesn't somebody have to kind of stand up and go, enough already? 170 00:16:41.561 --> 00:16:49.106 Well, some people have, but the consensus is we don't want to talk about this, or you can't prove it. 171 00:16:49.667 --> 00:16:52.949 Now, why I mention this is that... 172 00:16:55.369 --> 00:17:05.759 The rules that seem to have been adopted across NATO and the European Union is kind of criminal evidentiary. 173 00:17:06.280 --> 00:17:14.348 Can you prove this in a court of law that, well, you need to have absolute proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was Russia? 174 00:17:14.388 --> 00:17:19.393 But this is in distinct contradistinction to Russia. 175 00:17:20.792 --> 00:17:29.428 the aftermath of 9-11, when there was no proof who had done it, but... 176 00:17:30.687 --> 00:17:33.568 NATO called out Article 5. 177 00:17:34.669 --> 00:17:47.795 And in fact, the U.S., with all of us as allies, went into Afghanistan when the people who did it were actually almost all Saudis. 178 00:17:48.215 --> 00:17:52.317 They didn't have this level of evidentiary proof. 179 00:17:53.419 --> 00:17:54.720 But they went in. 180 00:17:54.920 --> 00:17:57.882 But the guilty Saudis were living in Afghanistan. 181 00:17:57.982 --> 00:17:59.183 No, no, no. 182 00:17:59.223 --> 00:18:00.644 They came from Saudi Arabia. 183 00:18:00.744 --> 00:18:02.145 Well, bin Laden was living in. 184 00:18:02.425 --> 00:18:03.926 Okay, bin Laden was there. 185 00:18:03.966 --> 00:18:07.088 Yeah, I mean, they pinned it on bin Laden, rightfully so. 186 00:18:07.168 --> 00:18:14.513 But the point is that this was not a case of, well, we can't really say it was, you know, the Afghans who did this would just invade him. 187 00:18:14.753 --> 00:18:17.375 And no one wants to say that Russia is doing this. 188 00:18:18.375 --> 00:18:22.257 There is another way of dealing with this that we have not seen. 189 00:18:22.597 --> 00:18:36.345 To define these things as state terrorism, the threshold for defining something as state terrorism is not nearly as high as saying, can you prove in a court of law that the Russians did this? 190 00:18:36.785 --> 00:18:42.428 But if you say this is state terrorism, then you can move on and do something about it. 191 00:18:42.728 --> 00:18:53.394 So if, say, you know, Metz or von der Leyen accuses Russia of state terrorism, which they probably wouldn't do. 192 00:18:53.614 --> 00:18:55.275 Well, they won't at this point. 193 00:18:55.655 --> 00:19:08.942 We have gotten so far that what will result in an action by either NATO or the European Union is a mass casualty event. 194 00:19:10.179 --> 00:19:16.064 Well, as 9-11 was in the United States, that was, I mean, a mass casualty event. 195 00:19:17.105 --> 00:19:32.599 When, at which point, the political pressure to do something will become unbearable for the Germans and for the Italians and the French, all of whom basically want to say, well, you know, we can't really prove the Russians. 196 00:19:33.982 --> 00:19:39.485 And we've come almost close to a mass casualty event several times, but they've been avoided. 197 00:19:39.665 --> 00:19:49.429 One was the train potential derailment where the Poles discovered that the section of track had been cut out. 198 00:19:49.449 --> 00:19:53.651 We would have had a whole train load of people just fly into space and die. 199 00:19:53.831 --> 00:19:58.173 The DHL case where a bomb was put on a 200 00:20:00.347 --> 00:20:01.787 delivery plane. 201 00:20:01.908 --> 00:20:09.030 Now, if it had gone off, say, when it was transferred to another plane with passengers, it would have been a plane blown out of the sky. 202 00:20:09.430 --> 00:20:16.192 Well, and then to add a third point, we should also keep in mind that without any doubt about who did it, 203 00:20:17.318 --> 00:20:25.140 The Russians shot down MH17 in July of 2014, killing 298 people. 204 00:20:25.320 --> 00:20:28.380 That had no real response. 205 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:41.283 So I understand from what little tidbits I've read is that these drones are being launched, some of them being launched from Russia's Shadow Fleet tankers. 206 00:20:42.346 --> 00:20:47.131 And the Europeans have seized some of these tankers. 207 00:20:47.392 --> 00:20:52.517 Apparently now there's also Russian soldiers on these shadow tankers? 208 00:20:52.697 --> 00:20:52.958 Yes. 209 00:20:53.859 --> 00:21:03.609 On top of which, Putin has said that if they will use military force against anyone trying to seize a shadow fleet tanker. 210 00:21:05.681 --> 00:21:08.582 It's slowly, slowly ratcheting up. 211 00:21:09.082 --> 00:21:13.923 It's like an incident here, an incident there, another one here, another one there. 212 00:21:14.383 --> 00:21:16.424 Soon there's a mass casualty event. 213 00:21:16.884 --> 00:21:20.245 Does, at some point, did we reach a tipping point? 214 00:21:20.585 --> 00:21:26.886 Do we reach a point where it's like, okay, Europe will be forced to retaliate? 215 00:21:27.206 --> 00:21:30.047 Well, so far, nothing like that has happened. 216 00:21:30.867 --> 00:21:31.708 And we are, 217 00:21:34.038 --> 00:21:35.999 It's coming to a head slowly. 218 00:21:36.059 --> 00:21:40.601 So is it in Putin's interest to bring this to a head? 219 00:21:40.621 --> 00:21:48.383 I mean, how Russia things are, if he feels his back through against the wall, he needs to stay in power or he's a dead man. 220 00:21:48.904 --> 00:21:51.525 Well, up till now, they've been very careful. 221 00:21:51.545 --> 00:21:55.526 This is the whole point of hybrid is to inflict damage. 222 00:21:55.866 --> 00:21:57.347 And that's, I mean, they've been. 223 00:21:57.927 --> 00:22:13.548 keeping it below that threshold level of actually concretely attacking a NATO or EU country where you can say, okay, that missile came from there, it hit there, and therefore Russia did it. 224 00:22:14.022 --> 00:22:15.483 And these people died, etc. 225 00:22:15.763 --> 00:22:20.826 We're talking about one form of hybrid warfare or boots on the ground. 226 00:22:21.627 --> 00:22:36.977 The new form of boots on the ground is apparently some Texas oil men have dumped $60 million worth of drilling equipment in Greenland without even asking Greenland. 227 00:22:37.857 --> 00:22:45.821 And to add a really weird twist to this all, Dr. Phil, you know, of television. 228 00:22:45.981 --> 00:22:47.441 I don't watch U.S. television. 229 00:22:47.501 --> 00:22:47.982 I don't know. 230 00:22:48.602 --> 00:22:49.502 But I understand. 231 00:22:49.522 --> 00:22:50.783 He's a television doctor. 232 00:22:50.803 --> 00:22:52.684 He used to have a daytime TV show. 233 00:22:53.584 --> 00:22:59.807 And he's got some sort of deal to make a six-part series with his media company about U.S. drilling. 234 00:23:00.067 --> 00:23:02.148 Well, there's a little problem, as you mentioned. 235 00:23:02.989 --> 00:23:10.973 They brought the equipment to Greenland and unloaded it right next to a nature preserve. 236 00:23:11.093 --> 00:23:12.553 But that's the American style. 237 00:23:12.574 --> 00:23:14.034 We did that in Albania, too. 238 00:23:14.074 --> 00:23:15.735 We're trying to do that in Albania. 239 00:23:15.815 --> 00:23:18.977 Well, I mean, the point is that they did not ask permission. 240 00:23:19.998 --> 00:23:25.121 And of course, the government of Greenland had no inkling until they found out this had happened. 241 00:23:25.441 --> 00:23:36.586 And so a Texas oil company, Greenland Energy, was set up last year, and it brought this drilling equipment there. 242 00:23:38.427 --> 00:23:46.631 And the Greenland government issued a strong warning that all logistics brought to its country must be approved. 243 00:23:48.212 --> 00:23:49.875 by the relevant authority. 244 00:23:49.915 --> 00:23:59.608 Now, I mean, just to put this in perspective, I mean, you know, if a Danish oil rig company showed up on the shores of New Jersey 245 00:24:00.728 --> 00:24:08.295 and said, yeah, we're putting this oil rig here, sort of Long Beach Island, New Jersey. 246 00:24:08.755 --> 00:24:12.798 I think the response would be somewhat different on the part of the United States. 247 00:24:13.139 --> 00:24:18.984 The climb down came that, okay, we're going to delay drilling until 2027. 248 00:24:21.686 --> 00:24:24.027 because it's such a, quote, complex project. 249 00:24:24.227 --> 00:24:27.388 That begs the question, you know, you're not asking. 250 00:24:27.968 --> 00:24:30.290 We'll do it later, but we're still not asking. 251 00:24:30.530 --> 00:24:33.511 You know what Greenland's greatest weapon here is? 252 00:24:34.191 --> 00:24:36.072 It's the EU's greatest weapon. 253 00:24:36.753 --> 00:24:37.293 Paperwork. 254 00:24:38.723 --> 00:24:39.663 We'll just stymie them. 255 00:24:39.923 --> 00:24:42.164 Well, you have to fill these forms out. 256 00:24:42.184 --> 00:24:45.105 And then you also need to get a stamp on these forms. 257 00:24:45.425 --> 00:24:49.406 And that stamp office is across town, but they're not open because it's honest. 258 00:24:49.426 --> 00:24:50.166 No, no, no. 259 00:24:50.226 --> 00:24:56.808 Now you're spewing all of this anti-EU tripe, which is not true. 260 00:24:56.868 --> 00:24:57.688 No, it's not. 261 00:24:58.008 --> 00:25:02.970 I was merely making fun of the fact that EU things happen slowly sometimes. 262 00:25:03.482 --> 00:25:08.346 Well, yeah, but in this case, I mean, it's the nation state doing this. 263 00:25:08.586 --> 00:25:18.133 And it's not the EU, though the EU will stand by its members when things get tough, as we saw they did. 264 00:25:19.685 --> 00:25:20.885 in the beginning of this year. 265 00:25:21.206 --> 00:25:26.667 But Brussels is gonna just basically look at the American and go, we're gonna express some concerns. 266 00:25:27.248 --> 00:25:29.088 We're concerned. 267 00:25:29.288 --> 00:25:33.230 We need to look at the way the EU works, okay? 268 00:25:33.290 --> 00:25:47.835 Just, I mean, this is, we need a little primer on what's what with the EU, especially because we have all this stuff about unelected bureaucrats, mainly, I mean, coming from the UK and especially the US. 269 00:25:49.442 --> 00:25:51.504 Let's start with unelected bureaucrats. 270 00:25:53.445 --> 00:26:03.093 The U.S. government, which I guess has 3 million people working for it, almost all but a few of them are unelected. 271 00:26:04.133 --> 00:26:07.816 Bureaucrats, by definition, are hired as civil servants. 272 00:26:07.996 --> 00:26:14.761 Now, this is often directed at the people at the top of the EU. 273 00:26:15.602 --> 00:26:17.604 They're unelected bureaucrats, so... 274 00:26:18.825 --> 00:26:21.067 which is a complete and utter lie. 275 00:26:21.167 --> 00:26:32.395 So really to understand how the EU works, let's do a contrast and compare, sort of like in your English class in 10th grade. 276 00:26:32.696 --> 00:26:34.617 Am I going to need a blue book? 277 00:26:35.278 --> 00:26:35.478 No. 278 00:26:35.938 --> 00:26:37.099 That's college anyway. 279 00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:42.045 In the United States, you have three fundamental institutions in the government. 280 00:26:42.085 --> 00:26:47.591 You have the Congress, a parliament, in other words. 281 00:26:48.071 --> 00:26:51.775 You have the executive, which is the presidential administration. 282 00:26:51.875 --> 00:26:52.696 And then you have... 283 00:26:53.697 --> 00:26:56.359 the Supreme Court, which is the judiciary. 284 00:26:56.640 --> 00:27:00.263 So this is the quote checks and balances that we hear about. 285 00:27:00.343 --> 00:27:01.984 And the European equivalent is? 286 00:27:02.204 --> 00:27:03.185 Wait, I'll get there. 287 00:27:03.245 --> 00:27:11.192 The idea which was invented in Europe by Baron Montesquieu in the 1740s. 288 00:27:11.632 --> 00:27:20.340 It was something which highly influenced the creation of the US system of government and the US Constitution. 289 00:27:21.097 --> 00:27:26.521 Now, on the European side, we have a European parliament. 290 00:27:27.241 --> 00:27:34.126 We have an executive, which is the commission, whose job is to... 291 00:27:37.049 --> 00:27:42.173 to maintain or defend the treaties that have been agreed to by the governments. 292 00:27:42.413 --> 00:27:44.415 But we also have ministers. 293 00:27:44.836 --> 00:27:46.157 These are politicians. 294 00:27:46.457 --> 00:27:48.459 These are elected politicians. 295 00:27:48.499 --> 00:27:55.425 You know, ministers are elected to parliament, and then they become members of the government or not. 296 00:27:55.645 --> 00:27:59.749 And they get together at various levels, ministers of parliament, 297 00:28:00.682 --> 00:28:03.963 of economy, ministers of environment. 298 00:28:04.223 --> 00:28:07.164 That is a meeting of the EU Council. 299 00:28:07.184 --> 00:28:10.725 When the prime ministers get together, that's the highest level. 300 00:28:10.765 --> 00:28:21.148 So you have 27 prime ministers coming together several times a year, and that's called the European Council. 301 00:28:21.609 --> 00:28:24.970 And then, of course, there is a European Court of Justice as well. 302 00:28:25.730 --> 00:28:29.131 All right, so that sounds kind of like the same as the U.S., 303 00:28:29.829 --> 00:28:30.549 But it's not. 304 00:28:30.569 --> 00:28:38.631 The U.S. distinguishes between the three branches of government by function. 305 00:28:39.411 --> 00:28:47.433 One makes the law, one executes the law, and then one interprets it if it is challenged. 306 00:28:47.453 --> 00:28:57.556 So that's basically Congress, two houses, the presidential administration and the cabinet that goes with it, and then finally the Supreme Court. 307 00:28:59.792 --> 00:29:08.678 In the EU, the separation between those three really is whose interests do they reflect but not function. 308 00:29:10.139 --> 00:29:27.852 So the commission, which is headed by Ursula von der Leyen, who is elected by parliament, she speaks for the union as a whole and the treaties that have been ratified and for the legislation that exists. 309 00:29:29.704 --> 00:29:33.568 The council speaks for the member state governments. 310 00:29:33.768 --> 00:29:40.696 These are elected officials, but they get together, 27 of them, and they make proposals. 311 00:29:40.876 --> 00:29:46.523 Well, let's have a law restricting this, or we'll have a law that will guarantee that. 312 00:29:46.883 --> 00:29:49.426 And then you have a parliament which represents government. 313 00:29:50.507 --> 00:29:51.228 the citizens. 314 00:29:51.848 --> 00:29:56.071 And that is duly elected by the citizens... Of every nation. 315 00:29:56.351 --> 00:29:57.953 Well, I mean, but there are differences. 316 00:29:58.453 --> 00:29:59.854 Okay. 317 00:30:00.454 --> 00:30:06.039 The commission is not like the presidency because... 318 00:30:06.779 --> 00:30:08.301 I mean, it kind of looks that way. 319 00:30:08.321 --> 00:30:09.522 It's called that. 320 00:30:09.582 --> 00:30:11.845 You're the president of the commission. 321 00:30:12.265 --> 00:30:24.500 But it is the body that proposes laws, whereas in the United States, the Congress can and often does propose all kinds of laws. 322 00:30:24.860 --> 00:30:27.223 The EU parliament cannot initiate a law. 323 00:30:27.985 --> 00:30:31.307 And the president, in turn, does not command an army. 324 00:30:31.367 --> 00:30:32.808 There is no European army. 325 00:30:32.828 --> 00:30:34.409 It doesn't do the police. 326 00:30:35.910 --> 00:30:37.892 It has no tax collectors. 327 00:30:38.552 --> 00:30:47.779 All those functions that are part of the governance in the United States are not performed by the Commission EU. 328 00:30:48.679 --> 00:30:55.764 To give you an idea, especially when you hear all of this anti-EU propaganda, basically the EU's budget is... 329 00:30:57.085 --> 00:31:02.770 is 1% of GDP of the European Union. 330 00:31:04.132 --> 00:31:12.599 The United States government's proportion is a quarter of US GDP. 331 00:31:12.860 --> 00:31:13.080 Wow. 332 00:31:13.140 --> 00:31:14.461 I didn't realize there was that much. 333 00:31:14.701 --> 00:31:15.502 Yes. 334 00:31:16.123 --> 00:31:18.124 So the Europeans are efficient. 335 00:31:19.226 --> 00:31:21.990 They're not necessarily efficient, but they're cheap. 336 00:31:24.094 --> 00:31:26.097 I prefer the term inexpensive. 337 00:31:26.277 --> 00:31:30.905 Yeah, well, the council, oftentimes people say, well, the council is like the Senate. 338 00:31:30.925 --> 00:31:31.105 Right. 339 00:31:32.330 --> 00:31:39.814 Not quite for the council to actually agree to do something. 340 00:31:40.374 --> 00:31:46.437 You need something called the qualified majority, which is 55% of the member states. 341 00:31:46.837 --> 00:31:53.080 And you need 65% of the population. 342 00:31:53.320 --> 00:31:56.061 That's enough to pass along lots of areas. 343 00:31:57.138 --> 00:32:00.640 But then there are areas where you need unanimity. 344 00:32:00.900 --> 00:32:15.908 So the one we know most about from this podcast is foreign policy, because we're always running up against the one or two EU member states vetoing a decision to sanction Russia. 345 00:32:16.008 --> 00:32:17.569 And you've got to have 27. 346 00:32:17.809 --> 00:32:18.330 All of them. 347 00:32:18.670 --> 00:32:20.411 All of them have to be on board. 348 00:32:20.631 --> 00:32:24.113 For there to be any kind of EU tax, you need unanimity. 349 00:32:25.872 --> 00:32:29.575 In order to enlarge the EU, you need unanimity. 350 00:32:29.655 --> 00:32:37.401 Say when it comes to Ukraine someday joining the European Union, if one country says no, then it doesn't happen. 351 00:32:37.481 --> 00:32:45.327 But nowadays with France and Poland and other countries saying, no, we don't want Ukraine, it's going to be a tough political decision. 352 00:32:45.587 --> 00:32:47.709 It's going to take a long uphill battle. 353 00:32:47.989 --> 00:32:50.491 Well, we'll get there, I think. 354 00:32:50.672 --> 00:32:53.434 But nonetheless, we may not, of course. 355 00:32:54.469 --> 00:33:00.695 So in the U.S., this kind of design did exist once. 356 00:33:00.855 --> 00:33:07.442 If you know your U.S. history and civics, that was what was called the Articles of Confederation. 357 00:33:08.926 --> 00:33:12.129 And you did have the same kind of rules, especially on unanimity. 358 00:33:13.470 --> 00:33:20.295 And the U.S. quickly understood, especially Alexander Hamilton, that this could not function very well. 359 00:33:20.356 --> 00:33:26.601 And so they opted to create what is the U.S. Constitution to this day. 360 00:33:26.801 --> 00:33:28.802 But will the EU adopt this too? 361 00:33:29.543 --> 00:33:30.043 Not yet. 362 00:33:30.063 --> 00:33:32.545 Not right now. 363 00:33:32.705 --> 00:33:34.507 It's not in the discussion. 364 00:33:35.874 --> 00:33:41.478 But let me talk about the president of the commission, where you hear unelected bureaucrat. 365 00:33:41.558 --> 00:33:44.740 Actually, she was elected by parliament. 366 00:33:45.280 --> 00:33:51.384 People, especially, well, all over, in the U.S. and in the European Union, 367 00:33:53.919 --> 00:34:00.522 don't realize that the United States president is also not elected by the people. 368 00:34:01.443 --> 00:34:15.690 I guess people in the U.S. know this better now because twice in this century, the U.S. has elected presidents who did not win the popular vote because the popular vote is just a representative. 369 00:34:15.710 --> 00:34:17.511 It's basically a poll, a Gallup poll. 370 00:34:19.832 --> 00:34:21.353 The states vote. 371 00:34:21.573 --> 00:34:25.334 The Electoral College is the one that elects the president. 372 00:34:25.374 --> 00:34:27.495 So you have wild disproportion. 373 00:34:27.535 --> 00:34:33.837 I mean, Montana, which has a population under a million, and you have California with 45 million. 374 00:34:34.017 --> 00:34:35.157 Both have two senators. 375 00:34:35.497 --> 00:34:36.958 Well, they both have two senators. 376 00:34:36.978 --> 00:34:40.739 Basically, it comes down to a threefold difference because of that. 377 00:34:41.779 --> 00:34:42.520 So you don't have... 378 00:34:43.680 --> 00:34:59.325 It's really utterly, I mean, it's not only unfair, it's intellectually bankrupt to say, oh, the president isn't voted by the people because neither the EU nor in the United States is the president elected by the people. 379 00:34:59.425 --> 00:35:02.906 So let me ask you, when can the EU act fast? 380 00:35:03.446 --> 00:35:06.107 In what kind of situations can they move quickly? 381 00:35:06.707 --> 00:35:10.208 Well, first, if existing laws violate it, 382 00:35:10.788 --> 00:35:13.589 So then the commission can do something quickly. 383 00:35:13.649 --> 00:35:20.072 Well, this is in the case of the, say, tariffs that were applied by the United States. 384 00:35:20.733 --> 00:35:26.615 I mean, they chose to negotiate and that's how you got the Turnberry Agreement on Donald Trump's golf course. 385 00:35:28.036 --> 00:35:36.240 But it has extreme executive power when it comes to trade issues. 386 00:35:38.024 --> 00:35:42.312 And so if an existing treaty is violated, it can act quickly. 387 00:35:42.833 --> 00:35:48.603 And this applies to all violations of existing EU law. 388 00:35:48.964 --> 00:35:49.364 Yeah, right. 389 00:35:49.384 --> 00:35:56.810 So speaking of electing presidents, Hungary got a new president this week. 390 00:35:57.310 --> 00:35:59.071 He's a ceremonial head of state. 391 00:35:59.111 --> 00:36:02.774 There was no primaries, no campaigns, no democratic deficit. 392 00:36:02.794 --> 00:36:08.118 The voters delivered their verdict in April, passed their mandate to parliament and used it fast. 393 00:36:08.258 --> 00:36:10.640 So the new president is a judge. 394 00:36:10.900 --> 00:36:14.503 Orban did everything in his power to get rid of. 395 00:36:14.883 --> 00:36:32.380 I mean, this is actually standard procedures in lots of European countries where the head of state is elected by parliament because the head of state generally, as was the case with me as well, does not have executive authority the way the U.S. president does. 396 00:36:32.700 --> 00:36:36.524 And to give an example how these things work, it's not just Hungary or Estonia. 397 00:36:36.684 --> 00:36:49.136 It is also Germany, where the German president, the president of the largest country in Europe, 82 million people, is elected by the Bundestag. 398 00:36:49.537 --> 00:36:52.860 And this is so often misunderstood in the U.S., 399 00:36:54.372 --> 00:37:08.879 And even at the level of the US presidents and government, because I would always meet Obama, for example, or George Bush, because I was president, but actually the executive authority is in the hands of the prime minister. 400 00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:12.741 And the reason why presidents are not elected directly is. 401 00:37:14.001 --> 00:37:30.391 is that if you were to elect the president directly, he would have a morally far more powerful mandate than the prime minister, who always in a parliamentary system is elected indirectly. 402 00:37:30.571 --> 00:37:36.515 So the constitutional crisis that would erupt is that if you have a 403 00:37:38.144 --> 00:37:54.415 weak mandated president in terms of his rights and his powers, but he has a stronger mandate as a directly elected person than the prime minister. 404 00:37:54.515 --> 00:38:04.101 You're just building in a conflict between the prime minister who's got the executive authority, the purse strings, the budget, the... 405 00:38:05.282 --> 00:38:12.469 the army, and then you have a president who doesn't have those powers, but he's directly elected. 406 00:38:12.629 --> 00:38:23.439 I remember when I was in office, the conflict was between the Finnish president and the Finnish prime minister, leading to the absurdity that both of them would go to an EU meeting. 407 00:38:23.739 --> 00:38:28.043 But since you can only have one person in, they took turns as to who would sit in the 408 00:38:29.765 --> 00:38:32.306 again, in the United States as well. 409 00:38:32.766 --> 00:38:41.008 The president is not elected directly by the people, but he does have a lot, lot, lot more power. 410 00:38:41.048 --> 00:38:49.110 You know, for August, you know, when things are supposed to be pretty quiet and boring, there's a lot going on. 411 00:38:49.411 --> 00:38:54.192 These are the times that try bureaucrat souls. 412 00:38:55.678 --> 00:38:57.179 And we'll leave it at that. 413 00:38:57.259 --> 00:38:59.080 We want to thank you all for listening. 414 00:38:59.701 --> 00:39:01.202 We know your time is valuable. 415 00:39:01.522 --> 00:39:04.624 And so we thank you for giving us some of your time. 416 00:39:05.665 --> 00:39:09.408 Please consider subscribing or liking the Continental Rift. 417 00:39:09.588 --> 00:39:12.830 It helps those algorithms get the word out there. 418 00:39:12.850 --> 00:39:16.933 The Continental Rift is hosted by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, and me, Andy Valvur. 419 00:39:17.013 --> 00:39:20.035 The Continental Rift is a Fresh Lens production. 420 00:39:20.595 --> 00:39:21.636 All rights are reserved. 421 00:39:21.736 --> 00:39:23.938 We'll see you again next week.