In this edition, we hear how Putin is waging a shadow war to destabilise the West and attack our way of life, and discuss plans for investment into AI.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Brussels My Love, Euronews' weekly talk show that zooms into the highs
00:18and lows of EU politics. I'm Maeve McMahon broadcasting this week from Strasbourg in
00:24France where MEPs were meeting for their monthly voting session. Thanks so much for tuning
00:29in. Coming up this weekend, it's already one year since the murder of the Russian opposition
00:34leader Alexei Navalny. MEPs here reflected on his untimely death in an Arctic prison
00:40and also shone a light on the plight of numerous people living under political persecution.
00:45We check how thousands of Russian political migrants are doing now and discuss the Kremlin's
00:50hybrid war against the European Union, including Putin's bots trying to sway the upcoming German
00:55elections. And the race is on for artificial intelligence. With the EU lagging behind
01:01China and the US, and a brand new Chinese company, DeepSeek, arriving with a bang, we
01:07take a look at whether this week's Paris AI Summit was a hit or not. Among the attendees
01:12were the US's new vice president, J.D. Vance, who gave a bombastic speech to the world.
01:18We break it down with our guests this weekend and a warm welcome to them. We're joined by
01:22Marketa Grigorova, Czech MEP with the Pirate Party. Riho Taras, Estonian MEP from the European
01:29People's Party. Hello. And Steen Bus, Danish MEP with the Renew Europe Group. Thank you
01:35so much for joining us. But as always, before we bring in our MEPs, we just want to remind
01:39you what was being discussed this week in Strasbourg.
01:47Russia's strategic response is simple. Deny, deny, deny. But the Kremlin's fingerprints
01:56are everywhere. Moscow's hybrid shadow war escalates across Europe. Its aim? To sow fear,
02:02doubt and division. The recent damaging of key power and telecommunications cables in
02:13the Baltic Sea was just the latest incident of covered Russian operations targeting Europe's
02:18physical infrastructure and political stability. Moscow is suspected of involvement in at least
02:2956 acts of sabotage, vandalism, influence operations, targeted violence and assassination
02:36attempts since the Russian attack on Ukraine almost three years ago. The trend is rising
02:45and operations are shifting westward with countries like France and Germany becoming
02:51new targets. Are European governments ready to take up the fight? So there you go. Are
03:00you governments ready to take up this fight or rather can they counter these threats?
03:04That's the question here. Marketa, we start perhaps with your take.
03:06Ah yes, well there's plenty of threats that we are facing and I'm sort of afraid that
03:11we are not really paying attention to a lot of it and even where we claim that there's
03:17a lot of what's happening, we don't do enough. And I will give three main examples and it
03:22will be Ukraine, what we do with it, then it will be Georgia and it will be overall
03:27disinformation. I will be quick. So with Ukraine of course we did a lot. We applied sanctions,
03:35we stood up for Ukraine diplomatically and for three years now we are standing behind
03:39them and that's extremely important and it's not something that I would take for granted
03:45so I am grateful for that. However, if you take a look at the real numbers, in terms
03:51of sanctions, like 160,000 rounds of ammunition has been sent from US, EU, Turkey and Japan
03:59companies just this February to Russia. We sanctioned many companies, or US for instance
04:06sanctioned Italian Beretta because they are part of Ruskiy Orel and they still send them
04:12so much weapons. Why didn't we not sanction them? Why they can circumvent it? So my point
04:17is we claim we do a lot. And of course the 24th of February will mark three years since
04:21the full scale invasion of Ukraine but what we really want to talk about today as well
04:25is this hybrid war and the threats that we are facing here. And that's why I wanted to
04:29go to Georgia. We'll come back to you in a sec. Just your take on whether EU governments
04:34have realised how big a challenge this is? Have they got the message? Well there are
04:38certain mistakes made always. It's not three years in Ukraine, the war is already more
04:45than ten years and Putin's Russia has harassed its neighbours since Putin arrived in power.
04:53And first they dealt with Chechnya, then they attacked Georgia, then Ukraine. And that is
04:58the, it's not about Putin, it's about mythos of Russian Derzhava which is the power based
05:05autocracy, very cruel autocracy. And that has not changed. And the aim of Putin is to
05:12change the world the way he wants it to be, back to the 1990s. And this aim is not yet
05:19achieved, this objective is not yet achieved. And he uses all possible ways to achieve that.
05:26And that is the multi-dimensional warfare which has first diplomacy, then economy, which
05:32is all with oil and gas issues, and hybrid attacks against infrastructure. And on the
05:40very end he can use military weapons. So we need to deal with it together, united in Europe.
05:48Are we able to though? Is Putin winning this hybrid war? No. I mean we have to, we have
05:54to stand up to defend our values. And I'm very proud to say that my small country per
06:01capita is the place that has supported Ukraine the most. And my Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen,
06:12is very clear on this, is very outspoken. There is no way that we can let Putin win.
06:20And this goes also for hybrid attacks and the cyber war and what is going on in the
06:25Baltic Sea at the moment, which is not only the cables, but it's also the shadow fleet
06:30and all these things where you can actually, if you boil it all down, we have to tell ourselves
06:37we are in a conflict, in a deep conflict. We are in the war. Yeah, we could perhaps
06:43even take it that far, I wouldn't use that word. But we have to understand that means
06:48a lot for each and every country, but it also means a lot for us as a community to stand
06:55together, to work together and to beat up our budgets for defence. And that's exactly
07:00what NATO defence ministers were meeting in Brussels this week, that is exactly what they
07:04were discussing. And also this weekend of course it's the Munich Security Conference
07:07taking place with a lot of the world's attention on that to see can any outcome come out. We
07:13are of course live blogging and covering it all weekend here on Euronews. But one man
07:17who's also very worried about this hybrid threat for the last few years is Gabrielis
07:21Landsbergis. He's the former Foreign Minister of Lithuania, probably one of the Baltic's
07:25most well-known politicians and we actually had a chance to speak to him earlier this
07:28week in Brussels. So we have to be mindful that Russia is engaged in what is called sub-article
07:35five activities in European and NATO countries. It's cutting cables, it's cutting pipelines,
07:42it's bringing in incendiary devices into airplanes and shopping malls, trying to get them burned
07:47down in order to increase pressure, in order to change the way that countries function,
07:54most obviously to reduce their support to Ukraine. And there is no other way to call
07:59it, they are fighting war. If we don't want to call it war, so let's at least call it
08:04shadow war. Gabrielis Landsbergis there. Speaking to me, Brussels is calling this a shadow war
08:09but it's not really making headlines. I feel like we're constantly talking about the boots
08:13on the ground war, the invasion, since the full scale but really neglecting the seriousness
08:18of this misinformation war, this disinformation threat. And you mentioned Georgia, that's
08:25another country that the European Union needs to do a lot more to keep an eye on. Yes, absolutely.
08:30I also wanted to get to the disinformation part because if you ask if we are doing enough,
08:35I am afraid I have to say we do literally nothing. And with due respect to some national
08:40member states, such as Estonia, where there are programs, overall, the European Union,
08:45apart from the Digital Services Act, which is now being attacked from all various sides,
08:51including our US partner, which already is telling something, we are unprepared. So whenever
08:58somebody asks me, are we in a information war? I say, well, technically, yes, but we
09:03are not fighting it. We are not technically part of it. There is no legislation, there
09:07are no proper definitions, there are no sanctions on those who are making business out of having
09:12disinformation. You know, it's not about your uncle spreading some lies on the internet.
09:18They can, he can, because it's, you know, you have a right to be stupid. But it's about
09:23those who create business out of it and who want to intentionally manipulate our trust
09:28in democratic institutions. And there are people and entities like that, and we need
09:32to target those. And we're seeing, obviously, the German federal elections are coming up
09:36as well on the 23rd of the month. And we've seen, there's been a surge of disinformation
09:42on ex-RIHO, according to government reports. A Kremlin-backed campaign is using fake sites
09:48and AI-generated content to spread false narratives. We have the Digital Service Act, but as we
09:54heard them from Marko, it is not really functioning. Yeah, well, I think it is something which
09:59the politicians have to deal with. You have to get your people to understand the messages
10:04that it is dangerous, what you hear in the X or whatever platform, it's not true. Today,
10:11they say that about 70% of internet content is created by AI. It's false or not false,
10:20we don't know. But the politicians need to make the people in the countries understand
10:26that that is a dangerous thing. And are you doing that? Is that something you're doing?
10:29Is that part of your to-do list on a day-to-day basis, Steen? It is a part of the to-do list,
10:33but I would also say that there is this argument going on in many countries, and definitely
10:39in mine, whether, you know, if you take the Digital Service Act, if you take other measures
10:44that could be taken, and in my opinion should be taken, is that actually also an attack
10:49on freedom of speech? Which, of course, in my opinion, is nonsense. Because what is being
10:55attacked here is really our freedom. Because it is, you know, changing our mindset without
11:01us knowing. Brexit was the first test case. And since then, of course, they have not given
11:07up. Because that was giving them appetite to destabilise Europe. And that is the idea.
11:13Real? We have in Estonia organisations called Propastop, which is a military National Guard
11:20organisation, journalists in their free time, going through all the news, and then pointing
11:26out what is wrong and what is right. And you can go to the page, if you don't believe something,
11:31you go there and you will find out that it is wrong or right. And Propastop last year
11:37was nominated here for a European prize, even. It was a good, good initiative. And Estonia
11:41obviously is a small country of just over one million, so it is easy to manage it in
11:45a small country like that. But when you are talking about such a wide scale, and we are
11:48talking about Germany here, a massive country, our biggest e-mail. It is a small village.
11:53We have a commissioner, right? We have the new commissioner, she is in charge of tech
11:57and democracy and security. Is she fit for the job? Will she be able to have any impact?
12:03Actually Hanna Wirkkonen will not be in charge of this, of Democracy Shield, as we call it,
12:08but Mr McGrath will be, after all. They will work together. As I have learned, yes, he
12:13will be in charge, so that we know. But so far I talked to some of them, and McGrath
12:19actually today, about the Democracy Shield, and I don't see yet a vision. But it is actually
12:23quite easy. First, we need to protect the Digital Services Act from Elon Musk, because,
12:29and I think this needs to be said, because a lot of people heard it from Elon Musk on
12:33Twitter or X, that it is about censorship. No. It is about opening up the algorithms.
12:38It is about giving more information to the citizens about how they are being influenced
12:43by their algorithmic bubble. And second thing, what we need to do is really to target the
12:48financial flows. Who has business out of this information? Is it paid by Russian oligarchs
12:52or what? We need to see these flows. And again, it is just transparency, no censorship.
12:57But you are concerned because you are saying that you don't think we have a vision here
12:59in the EU on how to deal with that. That is a problem.
13:03I do think that there is a vision, and there is a notion now that this is actually really
13:08dangerous and it is destabilizing. What I think is also the core of this is that every
13:14single politician has to take on the responsibility to talk about this, to engage in this area,
13:22and also, of course, to opponents, to challenge them and to say, you know, if you are standing
13:28it happens even here in the Parliament. People standing in the Parliament and saying nonsense.
13:35And we have to attack that, also if we see it in real life.
13:39And political correctness has quite frankly gone out the window, hasn't it? But just also
13:43we saw reports of interference in the Moldovan elections recently, claiming that F-16s would
13:48be landing in the country, and reports of EU sex education. Now, we do have as well
13:52this STRATCOM, this task force in the European Union, right? But it is very under-resourced,
13:56Riho.
13:56Yes, but the problem there is also that the politicians themselves use the same platforms
14:01for their benefit. And they are not ready to fight with something which brings them
14:06the votes and which brings them to the European Parliament.
14:10So tricky situation, because you said politicians need to solve the problem, but if they are
14:13engaging in the problem, we really have an issue here.
14:15But I still believe that people in average are not stupid, and they can really differentiate
14:21what is wrong and what is right. And let us believe in that and try to do our acts. The
14:28problem with EU is we are doing lots of different acts, but we really do not have a long-term
14:33strategy. And here I agree with you, we don't have a strategy on how we will, European Union
14:40will survive the 21st century.
14:43So we don't have a vision, we don't have a strategy. This is very gloomy. And you mentioned,
14:47Steen, earlier, opponents. And on that note, this week, we did see MEPs hold a debate about
14:52Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, who died in an Arctic prison last year while
14:57carrying out a 19-year prison sentence on charges that are widely seen as politically
15:02motivated. Has anything changed since his death, Steen?
15:08Yes, a lot has changed. But I also think that this also has to be an eye-opener. And it
15:14also has to be one of the subjects, and it was today, where we actually showcase, do
15:20we agree on this? Do we see that this was something that happened by the hand of the
15:27system in Russia? Or do we not agree on that? And that was also today a debate, of course.
15:34And there are parties, people here in the parliament, who go to the chair and they stand
15:41up and they say, you know, this was not something that was done by the Russian system or by
15:48Putin. It was just, you know, a coincidence, an accident. And that is where, and I do think
15:54we have a strategy here in Europe to fight this. But it all demands that we do stand
15:59up and speak up and fight for the values that we have. That's our only defence.
16:04Of course, Navalny was not the only one who died. I mean, in Russia, it's the joke, the
16:11Christmas calendar by Putin is you open the window and you fall out of it. I mean, there
16:16are so many people who are losing their lives. Navalny is just one example, OK? We try to
16:22use it, but the autocracy and the terror in Russia is to that extent the same as it
16:29was 100, 200 and 300 years ago. So the narrative of the statehood has not changed. And therefore,
16:38he understands only power. There is no way that he is playing ice hockey and we try to
16:44do figure skating around him. That is not the way. And that's kind of what Navalny's
16:49wife said, Yulia Navalny, when she was here last year, she said, stop being boring when
16:53it comes to dealing with Putin. Marketa, your thoughts?
16:56Yeah, thank you. That's a great bridge to what I wanted to say, because I sort of wanted
17:00to disagree that our values and everything is all we've got, because that's super weak.
17:05We exactly, as my colleague said, we need power, because as Karl Popper already said,
17:10with the paradox of tolerating the intolerant, you know, we will lose our democracies. You
17:17ask what happened in those past two years. Well, the fascism is on the rise. If anybody
17:23ever wondered, well, how was it in the 30s in Germany? Well, now we are living through
17:28it. And we cannot just claim, oh, we are Democrats. We should let everybody speak five minutes
17:34Jews, five minutes Hitler. That's where it left, you know, astray and wrong. So we need
17:38to fight for our values.
17:40But please don't get me wrong. That's my point. We have values. We have strong values together
17:46in the European Union.
17:48But we need to fight for them. And that goes from defence to when we are in the parliament,
17:54when we are in the plenary, to stand up and fight for what we think is right.
17:59I think I know what to do. We have to listen to the people and address the problems the
18:03people have. If we don't, then all the lefts and the rights will take it over from us.
18:09I think people would really appreciate that, if politicians would listen to them very carefully.
18:14But we also wanted to check in with some Russian journalists who are living now in
18:17the European Union in exile since that full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. So we had the
18:21opportunity to speak to Peter Koslov while he was briefly in town.
18:26Media cannot actually get funding from Russia. They cannot have sponsors or advertisers from
18:33Russia. That was a Russian government move to cut independent media from funding. Many
18:39journalists who were forced to leave Russia up to the beginning of the full-scale invasion
18:45are subject to pressure, even though they have been outside the country. So they are
18:51being actually jailed in absentia. And they have been labelled as foreign agents and so-called
18:57undesirable organisations, which actually aim to prevent journalists to do their job properly.
19:04Peter Koslov there describing the plight of Russian journalists who don't perhaps agree
19:10with the politics of President Putin. Has the Parliament been able to do anything to
19:14support these exiled journalists, Marketa?
19:17Not enough, but it's also a complex situation of those journalists typically not knowing a
19:24lot of context. I have just been yesterday or two days ago on an event where an exiled
19:29Russian journalist explained to us the perks of being exiled and everything he has to go through.
19:35And we asked him, how can we help you? And he said, please contact, network. I have nothing.
19:40He doesn't know anyone because they are, of course, also being sidelined in Russia
19:45when they were still able to do their job.
19:48And trying to rebuild their lives and their careers and their bank accounts, quite frankly.
19:54It's not easy being a journalist.
19:56So just include them.
19:58And sometimes it is so annoying when media here in Europe talk about the elections in Russia.
20:05I mean, that's not elections.
20:08Or the president of Russia.
20:09It's just one big theatre.
20:12If you don't have free media, if you don't have people that would disagree and where you
20:18exactly can respect your citizens so that it's their choice, you cannot call that elections.
20:24And I was looking at the Reporters Without Borders index,
20:27and Russia has dropped down to 164th on that list.
20:30Obviously, the situation going from bad to worse, Riho.
20:34Well, Russia has...
20:36Well, I don't remember times where Russia had a free journalism.
20:41Perhaps a short moment in the mid-90s, there was one confusion,
20:47but it was very quickly solved by Putin as he arrived in power.
20:53There is no free journalism as such.
20:57Free internet gave a certain possibility to people to inform themselves about the real life,
21:06but that has been now controlled completely by Putin's system.
21:10So don't believe in that.
21:12But I have lived in the Soviet Union, and every evening my father took out the radio
21:19and listened to Radio Free Europe or Voice of America, which President Trump wants to close now.
21:26But that was the kind of fresh air coming, and there were the journalists
21:32who have been expelled from Estonia, and then they broadcast it back to real life.
21:36So this is the way.
21:38This is the way.
21:39On that point, Riho, we can close this conversation.
21:41Stay with us, though, here on Euronews, because after the break,
21:45we'll be breaking down the massive AI summit that took place in Paris this week.
21:58Welcome back to Brussels My Love, our weekly politics show,
22:02with me, Maeve McMahon, coming to you this weekend from Strasbourg.
22:07As usual, we're taking a glance back at the news of the week,
22:10and one we wanted to break down takes us to Paris,
22:13where global leaders met with tech giants to write the future roadmap for artificial intelligence.
22:19The global gathering was hosted by the French President Emmanuel Macron,
22:22with the help of India's Narendra Modi.
22:24And its timing coincides with China's release of DeepSeek.
22:28That's the AI app that hopes to wipe chat, GPT, off the market.
22:33So, Marketa, was the summit a hit?
22:35I guess not really, because nobody signed the final document.
22:39Yeah, I am quite disappointed.
22:41However, of course, for France, maybe it was a hit,
22:45because President Macron promised that there will be huge investments into AI.
22:49Also, now everybody talks about Mistral AI,
22:51which is like the first European champion among the generative models.
22:57So I think it's going in an interesting direction.
23:00But of course, Europe is under-invested in this regard.
23:04Well, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was there talking about
23:07invest AI, pledging 200 billion euros for AI.
23:10Where will this money come from, Steen?
23:12Two billion.
23:12Well, there is only one source, and that is all of us.
23:16So that is the honest answer.
23:19But we have no choice.
23:21I mean, if we really want to make sure that we can compete
23:24against both China and the US and maintain our position in the world,
23:30we need AI to be heavily invested in.
23:33And of course, we also need AI to make sure that the way that we govern,
23:37that the way that we rule everything, it is such a powerful tool.
23:43And there is no other way that we just deep dive into it.
23:46What could be said positively is, even though we're a bit late,
23:50sometimes it's good in tech to be a bit late,
23:53because you don't need to have all the sort of illnesses from the beginning.
23:57The teething problems.
23:58We do have our AI Act, of course, which regulators here are very proud of.
24:01But we did see the US Vice President, J.D. Vance,
24:03warning against, quote, excessive AI regulation.
24:06We could see potential transatlantic fights here.
24:09Yeah, well, I was part of the last parliament.
24:12I was part of the AIDA,
24:16which was Artificial Intelligence, the Digi2Date discussion.
24:19And the discussion led by Germans was only about
24:22how to regulate something they don't understand.
24:24Do you understand it?
24:25I have the feeling that we can lose again like we did in early 90s.
24:30What was the Queen Elizabeth Awards for Technical Innovation in the year 1991?
24:36Do you know?
24:37That was the little widget, you should know,
24:39in the Kinescan to make phone.
24:41And what came second?
24:43That was the Internet,
24:44because we were not able to recognize the importance of the Internet.
24:48And this battle we lost completely.
24:50We lost about these tablets and phones.
24:56Now we have the possibility, perhaps, to do something.
24:59But in the year 2027,
25:01the computing capabilities capacity will increase the GDP by 100 times.
25:08We don't imagine what it causes to our labor market,
25:11because it takes away jobs.
25:15You said that, obviously, for Emmanuel Macron, this was a success,
25:18because he promised to prioritize this area.
25:20And he obviously was all over the news this week
25:22and telling the press as well,
25:24we have to be in the race.
25:25We want to be part of it.
25:26We want to innovate.
25:27Otherwise, we will become dependent on others.
25:30And he said France will step up with 109 billion euros.
25:34Do you think that France can become a tech leader, Maketa?
25:37Well, I do hope so, because we definitely do need some tech leaders.
25:41However, I still think this is not enough.
25:44I have personally read the book AI Race between the US and China
25:49like six years ago from Kai-Fu Lee.
25:51And Europe was barely mentioned.
25:53So we are already way back.
25:55But I sort of agree with my colleague here
25:57in terms of what DeepSeek showed us,
26:00in being open source for a fraction of the money of open AI,
26:04because they came later and they could learn from them.
26:07So let's also copy and modify our own models.
26:10And let's jump on the bandwagon.
26:12It did not depart yet.
26:14So we still have a chance.
26:15And as you said, it's OK to be a little bit late
26:17to avoid the teething problems.
26:18But where do you find the balance there
26:20between making sure we protect ourselves
26:22and, of course, human rights,
26:24but also making money and making sure that all our brilliant people
26:27don't just head off to America?
26:30I think there's a lot of things that can be done.
26:33And I do think that the framework that should be in place
26:36and is in place, but it could never be,
26:39you know, it's not a stale thing.
26:40It has to be further developed.
26:42Has to be protection of our citizens.
26:45Having said that, that should not hinder good business.
26:48That should not hinder young people who are innovative,
26:52who have full of ideas to make real good solutions.
26:56On the contrary, that should be something we could market
27:00also for the US and also for other places in the world.
27:02And we saw this week a lot of NGOs worried
27:04that tech companies just want us to rip up all our regulation.
27:06I want to bring in one more view from AI expert in Brussels,
27:10Andrea Renda, who's been working on these regulations
27:13for a couple of years.
27:13Let's just take a listen to him.
27:15Well, there is a lot of doom and gloom at the moment
27:17as to whether Europe can compete with the US and China.
27:20The situation is changing quickly.
27:22We actually have good things in Europe that we can rely on.
27:25For example, Europe trains more leading AI scientists
27:29than the US every year, according to our data,
27:32but then many of them end up in the US working.
27:34So we need to build a more attractive career
27:37for these people and also a situation
27:40and an environment in which they can start their new ventures
27:44and obtain funding for their ideas.
27:47But then you also see that in China,
27:49some of the leading generative AI systems
27:51could be replicated with a fraction of the cost.
27:54So Europe has the possibility to bet on open source AI
27:58and we do have a world-class open source community in Europe
28:03that can really make Europe competitive going forward.
28:06So pretty positive there, Andrea Renda from CEPS.
28:09So we should see this as a growth opportunity
28:11and not just as a threat for you.
28:12Absolutely.
28:13And I think we have an example where people talk
28:16about Estonia as a very advanced in the computing.
28:20Why we are there?
28:21Because our president started the Tiger Jam, so-called,
28:24brought the computers to every school in mid-90s, early 90s,
28:29and then the generation grew up.
28:31So we need to start AI education from the first grade
28:35and we should do it in all schools.
28:39We need teachers, of course, that takes time,
28:41but the education that the people who have to deal with AI
28:46know what they're dealing about.
28:47Today, they don't.
28:48We don't either.
28:49Final comment, Sinuisa?
28:50No, I just want to say also when we talk about this regulation,
28:54and I do think it's good with solid regulation,
28:57protecting citizens,
28:58but what makes young people jump to the US
29:01is also access to capital.
29:03This is not only for this industry,
29:06but for many industries.
29:07So we have to make sure that our young people with good ideas
29:10have easy access to capital,
29:12venture capital from the starting point and then growing.
29:15And there's a lot of talk, of course, in Brussels
29:17about the Capital Markets Union,
29:18a topic we will come on to another day,
29:20but for now, we can close this conversation.
29:22Thank you so much to our MEP guests for being with us
29:25and thank you so much for watching.
29:26Take care and see you very soon on Euronews.
29:37Welcome back to Brussels My Love,
29:39Euronews' weekly political chat show.
29:41I'm Maeve McMahon and along with some MEPs,
29:43we're just taking a look back at the topics
29:46under discussion here in Strasbourg.
29:48And as well as lengthy talks about AI,
29:50MEPs also discussed China's dominance
29:53in the trade of textiles.
29:54A number of outlets from Shein to Temu to Lexpress
29:58have been booming over the past few years,
30:00grabbing consumers' attention on social media
30:02to lure them to buy them.
30:04But often items are fake, unsustainable,
30:06full of dangerous chemicals
30:08or quite frankly, bad for our health.
30:10Now, the Commission has launched an investigation
30:12into these Chinese online stores
30:14and is considering measures
30:15to combat unfair competition.
30:17So we're trying to see here,
30:18will the EU manage to reign them in?
30:20I do think so.
30:22And I think that the latest initiatives
30:24are also very well taken.
30:27And I do think it is a very wrong perception
30:29to say that there's something that we can all deal with.
30:33People should just think more about what they're buying
30:36and so on and so forth,
30:37because we should be able to trust,
30:39as when we enter a shop,
30:40when we go on the internet,
30:42we should be in a safe environment.
30:44And that means that we also demand
30:47from the platforms selling into Europe
30:51that they play by our rules.
30:53They need to play by the rules.
30:54Marketa, your take on that?
30:56I think you said at one point,
30:57bad for our health and for environment,
31:00but also bad for our markets.
31:01Because if they don't follow EU regulations
31:03and all the other companies,
31:04including the European ones,
31:06are following EU regulations,
31:08then of course they are also losing revenue
31:10and we are losing competitiveness.
31:12And I think there are some studies
31:13that we are losing up to 5 billion euro in revenues
31:16because they don't oblige and they don't pay taxes.
31:19So this is just a level playing field.
31:21Because these online shops, Riho,
31:23they've been accused of creating
31:25garbage routes across the planet
31:26with fatal consequences for the environment.
31:29All these cheap textiles as well
31:31that we're building up around us,
31:32textiles that we don't need.
31:34As a conservative, I would say,
31:36educate your children and make them to understand
31:38that this rubbish is not worth it.
31:41Buy a good suit and wear it as long as you can.
31:45Then it will not cause damage to your environment.
31:49How can you tell a young teenager?
31:51I'm too old-fashioned on that.
31:52But I have never bought a single item
31:55from the Chinese internet shop
31:58and I will not do it.
32:00And education is again a solution here.
32:03Of course, the second thing is,
32:05we should finish the tax exemptions
32:08for the lower price.
32:10But as a good conservative
32:11and also somebody who looks after businesses,
32:14I guess, you must admit,
32:16it is completely unfair competition.
32:20And we have to make sure
32:21that we don't suddenly have,
32:23you know, small towns without any shops.
32:26Because everybody, without knowing it
32:29and without realizing it,
32:30are just sitting there buying cheap stuff.
32:31But the free market decides
32:33if the goods are good quality or bad quality.
32:36I'm not supporting Chinese.
32:38I would close the borders with China
32:40and don't buy from there anything at all.
32:43Quite honestly.
32:44This point you make about the rural shops,
32:46I mean, this is huge across the continent
32:49in rural Europe.
32:50And it's fascinating if you look at the statistics
32:52when it comes to fast fashion.
32:54According to the European Environmental Bureau,
32:56to make a single cotton t-shirt,
32:58you need 2,700 litres of fresh water.
33:01Production is responsible for 20%
33:03of global water pollution
33:05and only 1% of used clothes
33:06are recycled into new clothes.
33:08That's also a problem, Marketa.
33:10Yes, absolutely.
33:11The environmental impact of fast fashion,
33:13as we can call it, is huge.
33:15We can also see on TikTok and other platforms
33:18that it's just about trends.
33:20They are trying to sell as much goods,
33:22as much t-shirts in one second as possible.
33:25So there are these halls, you know, and everything.
33:28They are even flying in China, influencers,
33:31so that they promote this fast fashion.
33:33So I agree to some extent it's about education of people.
33:37But of course, it's also about the same rules
33:40applying to everyone.
33:41We should do the same as Trump does.
33:43Tax it.
33:45We are taxing it, they are not paying it.
33:47Let's bring in the view from Else Brugman.
33:49This is a topic that she deals with every day
33:51in her organisation, Euro Consumers.
33:53Take a listen.
33:54One thing we absolutely need to have a proper look at
33:57is the amount of chemicals in our clothing.
33:59There's just too much of them, too many of them.
34:03And of course, we have now a look at e-commerce
34:05and fashion coming in from shops linked to China.
34:09Unfortunately, there's no guarantee
34:11when we buy clothing in a European webshop
34:13that in the end, it doesn't come from China.
34:15We need to increase, upgrade our European standards
34:18on chemicals in clothing.
34:20This has been blocked for years at European level.
34:24So there's just too much greenwashing right now
34:27and too little information
34:28on how sustainable a product really is.
34:31That's a summary there from Else Brugman.
34:33She's also very concerned about greenwashing.
34:35That's a topic that comes up a lot as well, Steen.
34:37Yeah, and we should be concerned about it.
34:39And that is why some of the rules now,
34:41even we are trying to simplify
34:44and getting some of the rules out of the way,
34:46but many of the rules are also there
34:49to protect us as consumers,
34:51because in this very complicated world,
34:53we need somebody to protect us
34:56against dangerous chemicals, greenwashing,
34:59people who are saying that they're doing things
35:02in the right way and they're actually not,
35:04because we need to be able to have the right choice
35:07as consumers and to be correctly educated,
35:10as you say, fair enough.
35:11We need people to help us in that way.
35:14And do we need to change our mindset as well
35:15about how we consume?
35:17I think that we said the words education a lot.
35:21I think that it's important to realize
35:23why a lot of people buy from Temu or Sheen.
35:26It's not just because they want the newest trend,
35:28it's because it is cheaper
35:30and they are in tough social situation
35:32and you will not persuade them to buy a T-shirt
35:34for 50 euro if they do not have the 50 euro.
35:37So of course, it's also about some social fairness
35:40and social awareness overall.
35:42But overall, I think that supporting domestic production
35:44definitely helps.
35:45And also I want to mention the due diligence legislation,
35:48because we mentioned environment,
35:49but what about also the forced labor,
35:51the fact that a lot of it comes
35:52from Uyghur concentration camps and child labor.
35:56And I think that this way,
35:58such as H&M, Decathlon, which now had a huge case
36:02of actually using Uyghur concentration camps labor,
36:05that we need to address it through that.
36:07And if consumers knew all that information,
36:09they probably would think twice perhaps
36:10when they buy a product like that online.
36:12Yes, but the European companies have caused that problem.
36:17They have decided to move all their production to China
36:22because it was cheaper,
36:23because they could have cheap labor.
36:26And now it pays back.
36:27So we need to deal with China,
36:29not only on the fashion and clothing.
36:32The same thing happens in the industry,
36:36in the machinery, in all ways.
36:38So we need to protect ourselves,
36:40but still the market should decide.
36:42And I feel that-
36:43And as consumers, we could be more responsible as well
36:45when it comes to disposing of our textiles,
36:48because a lot of things are ending up in the normal garbage,
36:50which is also causing a major problem.
36:52Well, on that point, we can bring this conversation to an end.
36:55Thank you so much to Marketa Grigorova.
36:57Thank you to Rijo Teras.
36:58And thank you also to Stine Bas.
37:00It was lovely to have you with us.
37:02Thank you as well for joining us here
37:03on Brussels My Love, Strasbourg edition.
37:06Do reach out to our email address.
37:08It's brusselsmyloveatyournews.com.
37:10We love getting your thoughts and your feedback.
37:12But for now, thank you so much again for watching.
37:14Take care and see you very soon.