WEBVTT

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So, here's a question nobody asks.

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What do you do when one of your oldest friends is Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, the European Union nation?

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I'll tell you what you do.

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You call him.

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A lot.

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My name's Andy Valvur.

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I'm a comedian, American-born, now living in Europe, because, well, if you could, wouldn't you?

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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.

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I only had one buddy who understood.

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Toomas.

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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.

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And for most of our lives, they were.

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The alliance held until it didn't.

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Right now, the relationship that defined the free world for 80 years is coming apart.

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And Europe is scrambling to figure out who it is and what comes next.

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Toomas and I talk about this stuff.

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And it seems selfish to keep these conversations to myself.

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So here it is, the Continental Rift, with former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and me, Andy Valvur.

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Serious politics, questionable hosts.

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Yeah.

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It's Thursday, the 27th of August, and you know, for a month that's supposed to be fairly slow and nothing going on, there's a lot going on.

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Our main topic, and while we're recording this, Iceland is getting ready to vote.

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On Saturday, 270,000 people on an island with no army will decide whether or not to reopen talks to join the European Union.

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a question they've never been asked before, and one their government says they'll never be asked again if the answer is no.

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The polls close on Saturday evening, and the result is expected within hours.

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Right now, the polls are calling it too close to call.

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Also this week on the Continental Rift, the question running through everything is a simple one.

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Who can you rely on?

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Iceland is asking it because the man in the White House keeps confusing it with Greenland while threatening to take Greenland.

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Canada asked it of the U.S., got its answer, and walked out of the room.

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Britain is wondering if it can rely on what it has in its kitchen cupboards.

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And there's a new club of Europe's most powerful people, bankers, editors, a Nobel laureate.

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or two, and a former Estonian president who happens to be here.

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I'm Andy Valvur, and with me, as always, the former president of Estonia, Toomas Henrik Ilves.

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Tomas, before we get to our main topic of Iceland, Estonia lost someone last week, Mr. Sim Kallas.

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Can you fill us in a little bit about that?

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In addition to being a very good friend of mine, he was the...

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The man who sort of even during the Soviet occupation was instrumental in planning out what we would do once we achieved independence.

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We just didn't know when it would happen.

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He instituted many of the economic reforms that allowed Estonia to take off.

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gave Estonia its own currency against the advice of everybody else, but it turned out to be a rounding success, which then other former commie countries started to follow.

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He was twice commissioner in the European Commission, and it's a sad loss for all of us here.

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Well, our condolences, of course, go out to the entire Galla's family.

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But today's main topic is Iceland.

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It's all about the Benjamins, isn't it?

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Or in Iceland's case, the Magnussons.

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It's a money thing, isn't it?

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Partly.

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Well, it's... No, I would say it's about fish and it's about the US.

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Well, the numbers say that fishing is around 10% of Iceland's GDP.

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Fish and marine products were nearly 40% of the value of goods exported in 2024.

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Well, fishing has been really all along the main stumbling block to Iceland joining the European Union.

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I mean, they're obviously qualified.

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They are part of Europe.

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And they began negotiations.

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But then when a new government came in, they stopped them.

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This is some 10 years ago.

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Because basically they would have to give up on their exclusive fishing rights.

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because the EU has its own fishing policy.

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This is not new for them, is it?

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I mean, back in 1975, they had what they call the fishing war.

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With the UK, yes.

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With the UK, yeah.

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They don't have an army, but they are considering an emergency military program involving 12 Angry Fishermen and a highly atonal Bjork album.

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Well, first of all, yes.

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Iceland is strategically extremely important, and that is why they're a founding member of NATO, even though they have no army.

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But they don't need an army.

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They have its location, location, location.

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There is something called the Gia Gap, which is the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap in which any invading army from the then Soviet Union would have to come streaming out of Murmansk and then—

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down from the Arctic into the Atlantic.

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And so they were considered so strategic, they were just like a big battleship in the middle of the northern Atlantic.

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What do they belong to right now?

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Are they in Schengen?

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Yes, they are in Schengen.

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They're in the European Free Trade Association, along with Norway, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Germany.

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Sweden and Finland were there, but then they decided to join the EU in 1995.

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And they've also been in the European economic area, which means they're in the single market.

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So they have to adopt almost three quarters of the rules of the EU on...

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on trade within the single market.

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Right.

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But they don't get to say anything about it.

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Does this behoove them?

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I mean, it's what's in it for Iceland.

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I mean, ultimately.

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Well, what's happened and what's changed is not so much anything with the EU.

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It's actually the United States, which is why we're talking about it, because it really falls into the whole rift.

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I mean, first of all, we started off with the U.S. president sort of saying he wants Greenland, which is right next to Iceland.

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When this happened, then there were all kinds of crazy statements being made, including the appointed or named future ambassador of the United States to Iceland, who said, well, I'm actually looking forward to being the governor of Iceland.

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when it becomes the 52nd state.

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It's not clear whether 51 was Greenland or Canada, but we'll get to Canada later.

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So this kind of got people nervous.

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And to quote Constanze Stelzenmüller, one of the bigger experts on transatlantic relations, in this week's FT, or Financial Times, said that basically the northwestern flank is...

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that is for Europe and for the countries in it, is no longer protected by a benign U.S. hegemon.

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They can't tell the difference between Iceland and Greenland four times in Davos.

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He mixed the two up.

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But in fairness, once you've threatened to annex one frozen island, the others all start to look the same.

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Oh, that could be true.

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It's not really a frozen island.

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Well, I know.

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independence because Iceland was the first country to actually recognize us.

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It shows like a little country had the courage to do that.

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23 years ago, I actually, when I was foreign minister, I had the big square that's in front of the foreign ministry renamed Iceland Square.

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That's the official address of the foreign ministry is Iceland Square One.

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And the great late

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Foreign minister at the time of Denmark, Uffe El-Eman Jensen, never forgave his own foreign ministry, actually, because they wanted to be the first to recognize the independence of the Baltic countries.

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But as he said, there was some kind of bureaucratic f***.

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up and we were second.

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I like the fact that there was a competition to recognize Estonia.

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I think that's very cool.

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Well, there are a couple other things that are behind what's this decision is, why people are reconsidering.

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I mean, first of all, there's anxiety about the United States.

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And then there's Russia, which has been out there mapping all of these undersea cables that, well, I mean, that gets them nervous because they're connected via cables.

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The economy has problems there.

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They have a high rate of inflation.

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And also on the EU side, you can be more flexible regarding the fishing issue than it was before.

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Well, that leads me to the question.

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I mean, do different EU member countries have different opinions on Iceland's accession?

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I mean, I'm sort of spitballing here, but...

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I think Brexit has had an effect in a weird way, which is that the primary opposition to Iceland getting easier terms on joining the EU was the UK.

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The UK is no longer in the UK.

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Remember, the fishing war was between the UK and Iceland, not with really the other countries.

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countries so much.

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And now there's no more UK.

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But what about, I mean, if we get one more country in there, isn't that one more country that could veto something?

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This is true.

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I mean, the veto issue is really about new members that have abused their, right, mainly sort of

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Hungary, Slovakia, Austria.

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Iceland is seen as a benign country that really only cares about mackerel and is not going to really care about these other arcane issues.

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One more factor in this change in Iceland's mood is that they saw that when Greenland was under threat,

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from the United States.

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It was not only Denmark, but it was the entire EU that stood up for Greenland.

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If you recall, like the French said soldiers there.

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And the Icelanders saw that, well, actually, the EU does care for its own.

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And so that was a good moment.

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So that adds to a little bit this sense of, well, if we join the EU, there's also a security element in this, and we would probably feel safer not becoming the 52nd state of the United States if we're in the European Union.

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All right, moving on to our next topic, which was a real big deal in the news this week, was that the Americans made Canada an offer, and Canada said no.

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It's the first country to just flat out refuse Canada.

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Give me a 30-second version of what happened, and then let's talk about why it matters on this side of the Atlantic.

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Okay.

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The U.S. has been negotiating a trade deal, a new trade deal with Canada, because they already had one, which they had agreed to with Mexico and Canada, but then –

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Donald Trump wanted more.

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Negotiations were ongoing.

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They collapsed last Friday on the 21st when new demands were pushed in there by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, apparently, that were deemed completely unacceptable by Trump.

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by the Canadians.

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And the important one being that the, and this is where trade negotiations always get a little like sticky or rather really bizarre, is that Canada has a requirement that a certain amount of its financial,

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streaming content for shows and for movies be in one of the two official languages of Canada, the other one being, other than English, being French.

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And now this was something the U.S. wanted to remove from Canada so they could more easily sell.

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their streaming services.

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It's such a sensitive issue in Canada.

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I mean, the country is held together between a large French and a large English-speaking population.

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They have these rules and regulations so that to keep the country together from

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Quebec saying, we're going to go off and do our own thing.

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And this was deemed completely unacceptable.

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Even more egregious, they wanted Canada...

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to get approval from the US who they could trade with.

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That was the second point, didn't get there.

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So, no problem, I mean, I'm used to being.

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I'm here to help.

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So, I mean, you had first of all that, which if you put it into a European context, I mean, can you imagine the United States saying to France, especially France, like,

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No, no, you can't have this preference for French films on our streaming services.

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That would be like a causes belly.

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And then the second thing is deciding who else you can trade with.

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So, at which point, the prime minister of Canada just said, uh-uh, we're not doing this.

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we see a genuine trade war that's now erupted between the two countries.

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Now, the other side of this, or the additional factor, is that, well, if you're gonna get into a trade war with the US, who's your primary trading partner, you're gonna have to sort of quickly make deals with other countries so you can sell your

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goods there and who was the obvious, most obvious, uh,

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Part of the world to trade with is, yes, right, yes, us in the EU.

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So is there an upside for us here or for Canada?

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Well, I mean, relations have actually been developing rather well in the past year.

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We have here in Europe the SAFE Act, which is a law passed to actually give certain benefits to buying

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armaments or defense kit within the EU.

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And this has been extended now first to the UK and also to Canada so they can participate in this, which means that if you have this by EU only clause for weapons, it will now apply to Canada.

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So you see the defense cooperation is getting rather good.

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Now, the EU-Canada trade deal has been applied since 2017, but has not been ratified yet by several member states already after nine years.

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So that's something which you'll see some movement on, I think.

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Canada has a free trade agreement with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.

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Since 2009, here's where the Iceland referendum comes in, because if Iceland says we're going to start negotiating, then they will be out of that.

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Most importantly, Prime Minister Carney is coming to Brussels for the State of the EU address, kind of like the State of the Union, but it's the European Union.

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Is that significant?

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Well, it's symbolic.

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It's symbolic.

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It's like, you know, it's another sign that Canada is looking elsewhere to develop its relations.

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I hear he's also going to be addressing the European Parliament.

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Is he going to?

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Yes, he will.

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Yes, he will.

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He's going to do that.

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Yes, he will be addressing the European Parliament.

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I'm sure that'll be an interesting speech.

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Yeah.

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A very warm response.

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Yeah, I bet.

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With this goes along a growing sense of frustration in the European Union with the United States.

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Many people don't like the trade agreement that was agreed to last year on Donald Trump's

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Of course, in Turnberry, it's another little wedge in the rift.

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In the broader context, trade negotiations usually are extremely technical.

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They are explicitly non-political, unless you're dealing with a fundamental enemy.

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Well, all the smart minds like to sort of parse what the president is doing.

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I know that he doesn't read and he has no geopolitical sense of history and stuff.

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I would just say he's got the attention span of lint.

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Anyway, enough.

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I'll get off my little soapbox.

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It's a significant development and we will see Canada moving closer to the people.

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Can they become a member?

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Right.

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No, you can't.

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You have to be in the continent of Europe in order to join the European Union.

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But I predict getting much closer relations between the EU and Canada.

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I like the Canadians.

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They're great.

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Anyway, so on the subject of war, remind me, I still want to talk about the whole CIA director visiting Moscow and etc.,

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But I'm thinking about going to try something new here.

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What do you think?

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That every week there's a drone, a fire, a warning, a cable, you know, and none of it is war, but it's hybrid war, which you have discussed before, you know, and hybrid, as far as I'm concerned, should only be referred to in cars and golf clubs, but whatever.

215
00:19:30.451 --> 00:19:38.257
So we're going to do maybe a new segment, not every week, but, you know, as things happen, we'll call it War Watch.

216
00:19:38.577 --> 00:19:40.178
Why don't you call it boiling the frog?

217
00:19:41.660 --> 00:19:45.503
I prefer boiling the frog because that's exactly what's happening.

218
00:19:45.943 --> 00:19:47.384
It's just on a low boil.

219
00:19:47.544 --> 00:19:50.667
I would add to that cry havoc.

220
00:19:51.127 --> 00:19:53.349
Let's slip the frogs of the war.

221
00:19:54.746 --> 00:19:55.346
I like that.

222
00:19:55.587 --> 00:19:56.427
That's really good.

223
00:19:56.467 --> 00:19:58.388
Does it even make sense to call it War Watch?

224
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I really believe.

225
00:20:00.129 --> 00:20:00.669
Frog Watch.

226
00:20:01.009 --> 00:20:01.610
Frog Watch.

227
00:20:01.690 --> 00:20:01.930
Yeah.

228
00:20:01.950 --> 00:20:07.313
Because we're just, I mean, every week brings something new, whether it's another drone attack against.

229
00:20:07.353 --> 00:20:10.214
The point is not so much that it's something new.

230
00:20:10.755 --> 00:20:13.316
It's just that we always get their same response.

231
00:20:13.696 --> 00:20:16.958
Well, we can't say who's really behind this.

232
00:20:17.058 --> 00:20:18.159
And, you know, you can.

233
00:20:18.379 --> 00:20:19.079
Yes, we can.

234
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It's our show.

235
00:20:21.469 --> 00:20:22.250
It's our show.

236
00:20:22.470 --> 00:20:23.530
We can say what we want.

237
00:20:23.710 --> 00:20:24.471
Who's behind it?

238
00:20:24.851 --> 00:20:36.818
European leaders do not want to admit that this is really all Russia, because that would mean deciding something and taking action.

239
00:20:37.898 --> 00:20:49.625
My prediction in this regard, though, is that probably the populations of Europe are going to get sufficiently fed up with this indecision on the part of people like Mertz and others that...

240
00:20:50.545 --> 00:20:55.771
they will suffer politically for not really coming out and saying what's what.

241
00:20:56.071 --> 00:21:03.179
I mean, we already talked about that first Leipzig airport event with the drone.

242
00:21:03.499 --> 00:21:04.460
And there was another one?

243
00:21:04.681 --> 00:21:05.522
There was another one.

244
00:21:05.582 --> 00:21:07.444
And now there's a third one turned...

245
00:21:08.164 --> 00:21:16.711
has been discovered, which makes it all seem like a rather coordinated attempt by someone.

246
00:21:16.791 --> 00:21:17.872
I didn't mean to cut you off.

247
00:21:18.132 --> 00:21:21.255
But there was the gun stash, the ammunition that was found in Berlin.

248
00:21:21.275 --> 00:21:24.157
On top of that, there was the gun stash, which they discovered.

249
00:21:24.497 --> 00:21:33.064
So, I mean, in Berlin, they're really doing everything possible not to name it as a hostile act on the part of someone.

250
00:21:33.404 --> 00:21:34.745
We can't say it's to the Russians.

251
00:21:35.345 --> 00:21:37.246
Okay, but look, you were in that position.

252
00:21:37.266 --> 00:21:39.707
You know, you're the former president of Estonia.

253
00:21:39.727 --> 00:21:42.147
You were the president of an EU nation.

254
00:21:42.568 --> 00:21:43.508
No, we had this problem.

255
00:21:43.528 --> 00:21:45.288
We went through this in 2007.

256
00:21:45.689 --> 00:21:53.471
It was quite clear that the massive cyber attacks that shut down much of Estonia was done by the Russians.

257
00:21:53.571 --> 00:21:58.433
But back then in NATO, it was Germany said, no, there's no proof.

258
00:21:58.493 --> 00:21:59.053
It's the Russians.

259
00:21:59.093 --> 00:22:00.253
We don't want to discuss this.

260
00:22:00.454 --> 00:22:01.434
But we do know.

261
00:22:01.994 --> 00:22:02.778
But we do know.

262
00:22:03.360 --> 00:22:06.895
Well, the problem is, and this is what you discussed earlier,

263
00:22:07.236 --> 00:22:20.727
couple of weeks ago, was that if you demand a beyond a shadow of a doubt, legalistic approach to this, you will always have a tiny little shadow.

264
00:22:21.207 --> 00:22:23.409
But it's clear what's going on.

265
00:22:23.489 --> 00:22:31.115
In Slovakia, we had an arson attack on a drone factory, a C-drone, which...

266
00:22:32.276 --> 00:22:36.218
shouldn't have gotten lost in any way, attacked Romania.

267
00:22:36.338 --> 00:22:39.119
And in Italy, an arms manufacturer in Italy.

268
00:22:39.239 --> 00:22:39.699
Italy, right.

269
00:22:39.719 --> 00:22:41.140
That's pretty far south for...

270
00:22:41.340 --> 00:22:43.121
But they were producing arms for Ukraine.

271
00:22:43.281 --> 00:22:46.142
So we'll repeat what I have been saying all along.

272
00:22:46.722 --> 00:22:49.844
Nothing will happen until we get a mass casualty event.

273
00:22:50.944 --> 00:22:52.785
And by that, I mean sort of the...

274
00:22:53.732 --> 00:23:09.997
a massive event as with 9-11, at which point the people who keep saying, we don't know who did it, we can't do anything, they will be swept out of office, and they will be then action.

275
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But unfortunately,

276
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That means a lot of death and destruction.

277
00:23:14.218 --> 00:23:23.540
So that takes me to the next subject, which is Britain seems like it's already decided that stuff's going to happen.

278
00:23:23.740 --> 00:23:28.261
And the British government has advised its citizens to start stockpiling goods.

279
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It certainly sounds like Britain is warning its citizens about something.

280
00:23:33.922 --> 00:23:41.044
First of all, for some reason, and this goes back to the 19th century, Russia has thought

281
00:23:42.144 --> 00:23:48.227
the Brits as the real bad guys, the real baddies in Europe who are always out to get them.

282
00:23:48.428 --> 00:23:53.890
They also don't like the US, but in Europe, the UK that is responsible for everything.

283
00:23:53.910 --> 00:23:55.431
There's a historical enmity?

284
00:23:55.791 --> 00:23:56.972
Well, it's a one way.

285
00:23:57.132 --> 00:23:59.033
I mean, it's more like paranoia, right?

286
00:23:59.073 --> 00:24:06.277
But now the new prime minister of the UK took his first trip abroad, not a bin, first trip abroad.

287
00:24:07.477 --> 00:24:08.738
to Ukraine.

288
00:24:09.259 --> 00:24:23.670
In the good old days, a new prime minister in the UK would make his first trip always to the United States, to this whole sort of special relationship, you know, FDR, Winston Churchill, et cetera, et cetera.

289
00:24:24.470 --> 00:24:27.072
The first thing that Andy Burnham did is go to Ukraine,

290
00:24:29.663 --> 00:24:40.551
Ukraine, bring along the plans for the storm shadow missile, which is the French also produced under the name of Scalp.

291
00:24:45.054 --> 00:24:48.136
And and gave him the basically the blueprints here.

292
00:24:48.156 --> 00:24:49.037
You want to make this stuff?

293
00:24:49.057 --> 00:24:49.777
Go ahead here.

294
00:24:49.837 --> 00:24:50.658
Here is how we do it.

295
00:24:50.718 --> 00:24:53.219
So Britain is now the IKEA of defense equipment.

296
00:24:53.259 --> 00:24:54.059
So there you go.

297
00:24:54.099 --> 00:24:54.779
Here's the plans.

298
00:24:55.359 --> 00:24:56.659
There's some tools that come with it.

299
00:24:56.739 --> 00:24:57.439
You can get it all.

300
00:24:57.579 --> 00:24:58.200
Do it yourself.

301
00:24:58.600 --> 00:24:58.800
All right.

302
00:24:58.900 --> 00:25:01.640
I just want to move on because we're chewing up a lot of time here.

303
00:25:01.720 --> 00:25:11.182
There was a big story that landed the other day, and that was that the CIA director made a secret trip to Moscow, which, of course, was on the front page of every newspaper.

304
00:25:11.242 --> 00:25:13.923
So I'm not really sure you can call it a secret trip.

305
00:25:15.063 --> 00:25:19.907
And apparently there's some question as to what he discussed over there.

306
00:25:20.027 --> 00:25:22.048
I would love to hear your take on it.

307
00:25:22.208 --> 00:25:39.700
Well, first of all, it's a big deal because there hasn't been one of these sort of flights to Moscow by a CIA director since October of 2021, in which CIA director Burns told the Russians, look, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know,

308
00:25:40.700 --> 00:25:44.101
We know you're planning on invading Ukraine.

309
00:25:44.701 --> 00:25:45.821
Don't do it.

310
00:25:46.101 --> 00:25:47.502
Well, that worked out well, didn't it?

311
00:25:47.682 --> 00:25:49.122
Well, all right.

312
00:25:49.422 --> 00:25:55.744
So there have been no trips by CIA directors since then to Moscow.

313
00:25:55.824 --> 00:26:04.926
And so, like, when one of these things happens and it's a U.S. transport plane leaves Riga airport flying to Moscow, it was like, what's that?

314
00:26:04.986 --> 00:26:06.106
What's going on?

315
00:26:06.866 --> 00:26:10.147
And then it turns out, well, it was CIA director.

316
00:26:10.407 --> 00:26:11.128
or Ratcliffe.

317
00:26:11.628 --> 00:26:14.450
Initially, no one knew what it was about, all kinds of speculation.

318
00:26:15.111 --> 00:26:23.277
And so finally, this morning or last night, Politico talked to some anonymous officials

319
00:26:24.957 --> 00:26:30.923
at CIA who said, well, it was about Russian plans in the Baltic states.

320
00:26:31.564 --> 00:26:32.685
And you don't buy that.

321
00:26:33.026 --> 00:26:40.054
I don't buy it because, first of all, U.S.'s own threat assessment of the

322
00:26:42.391 --> 00:26:46.517
security situation in this area has not changed, A.

323
00:26:47.238 --> 00:26:57.233
B, if there had been a change and they're going to go tell the Russians not to do something, they would have told us that we're a little worried about what they're doing.

324
00:26:59.903 --> 00:27:17.132
And if it were true that really it was the Baltics for which Director Radcliffe went there, then you would also assume a very different position on the part of the United States and especially Europe.

325
00:27:18.833 --> 00:27:26.939
undersecretary for policy, Elbridge Colby, who is the one who has been the most anti-Europe.

326
00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:29.061
We're pulling all our troops out.

327
00:27:29.101 --> 00:27:31.523
We're taking our submarines out.

328
00:27:31.903 --> 00:27:40.970
Now, if you really were worried about something breaking out here, the United States would not be continuing with this line of

329
00:27:41.711 --> 00:27:43.052
the Department of Defense.

330
00:27:43.072 --> 00:27:47.456
So I suspect if you then think about, well, okay, that's not that likely.

331
00:27:47.737 --> 00:27:52.601
Well, what is it that the U.S. really wants and where is the U.S. in trouble today?

332
00:27:53.102 --> 00:28:00.208
Well, it's Iran, where we know that the Russians have been supplying weapons.

333
00:28:00.248 --> 00:28:07.635
They've been supplying, much more importantly, targeting data, satellite imagery to the Iranians.

334
00:28:08.235 --> 00:28:16.598
And so I have a feeling that there, it was more like, oh, tell him it was the Baltics, you know, they got to tell him something.

335
00:28:16.618 --> 00:28:17.899
Tell him it was the Baltics.

336
00:28:17.939 --> 00:28:18.359
Gotcha.

337
00:28:18.499 --> 00:28:22.300
I mean, that's my, I mean, I may turn out to be wrong, you know, if like, right.

338
00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:23.101
But okay.

339
00:28:23.121 --> 00:28:26.482
He drone crashes into me when we're recording next week.

340
00:28:27.042 --> 00:28:28.763
But then you'll know.

341
00:28:30.123 --> 00:28:30.423
All right.

342
00:28:31.043 --> 00:28:32.544
So finally, finally.

343
00:28:34.024 --> 00:28:41.986
So, you know, Sunday morning I wake up and there's a new secret society of Europe's richest and smartest people.

344
00:28:42.706 --> 00:28:43.666
And you're in it.

345
00:28:44.026 --> 00:28:50.608
And it's called the Rhine Group, you know, named after a river, which is at its lowest point in eight years.

346
00:28:50.968 --> 00:28:52.808
Finally, some honest branding.

347
00:28:53.869 --> 00:28:57.449
But 54 members, France and Germany, have the biggest delegations.

348
00:29:00.870 --> 00:29:25.578
And it was pulled together by Mario Draghi, whose report we have discussed here a number of times, to get really down to brass tacks and get moving on some of the critical reforms that need to be made in the European Union regarding investment, innovation, electricity grids, AI, all these things where Europe is in trouble.

349
00:29:26.078 --> 00:29:27.480
It's not a secret society.

350
00:29:27.540 --> 00:29:28.401
Everything is public.

351
00:29:29.262 --> 00:29:34.088
It hasn't met yet, but the idea is to get people from outside of government to

352
00:29:35.182 --> 00:29:36.222
into the discussion.

353
00:29:36.382 --> 00:29:36.962
When do you meet?

354
00:29:37.442 --> 00:29:40.783
Well, we're going to meet sometime in the next month or so.

355
00:29:40.983 --> 00:29:44.444
Does Europe have enough think tanks, or is this just another one?

356
00:29:45.244 --> 00:29:48.845
Well, the idea is to be kind of multidisciplinary.

357
00:29:49.745 --> 00:29:50.725
You call them the richest.

358
00:29:50.765 --> 00:29:57.586
Well, not the richest, but I mean CEOs, but also academics, journalists.

359
00:29:57.606 --> 00:30:00.767
The editor-in-chief of The Economist is in there.

360
00:30:00.907 --> 00:30:02.027
Can I carry your bags?

361
00:30:04.947 --> 00:30:08.371
Well, look, I mean, the reception cocktail party has got to be a lot of fun.

362
00:30:08.471 --> 00:30:10.253
Come on.

363
00:30:10.534 --> 00:30:11.114
Rubbing elbows.

364
00:30:11.395 --> 00:30:11.815
I'd be there.

365
00:30:11.835 --> 00:30:13.297
I could be the silent valet.

366
00:30:13.377 --> 00:30:14.098
I could be Cato.

367
00:30:14.458 --> 00:30:14.819
I don't.

368
00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:22.829
I carry my, I have been, ever since I left office, I have been carrying my own bags and my own water.

369
00:30:24.473 --> 00:30:28.215
Anyway, on that note, Thomas, always a pleasure.

370
00:30:28.415 --> 00:30:30.336
We want to thank you for giving us your time.

371
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We know how valuable it is, so we really appreciate it.

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The Rift is hosted by Toomas Hendrik Ilves and me, Andy Valvur.

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The Continental Rift is a Fresh Lens production.

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All rights are reserved.

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And we'll see you next week.