This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Transatlantic alliance in danger’
Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast comes from Berlin. My guest is Mathias Döpfner, the chairman and chief executive of Axel Springer, Germany’s most powerful media group.
National elections take place in Germany this weekend. The far-right Alternative for Deutschland party is expected to surge to a record score in the polls. Germany’s mainstream parties shun the AfD, but the US vice-president JD Vance says that’s the wrong approach. So what future for Germany and for transatlantic relations?
JD Vance voice clip
What no democracy — American, German or European — will survive is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief are invalid or unworthy of even being considered. Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t.
Gideon Rachman
That speech by JD Vance was made in Munich just a week before the German election. His barely coded call for the AfD to be allowed into government caused shockwaves in Germany and in the conference hall of Munich, where I witnessed the reaction of the crowd. It also posed very profound questions for those Germans who are committed to their country’s long-standing alliance with America.
There are few more convinced pro-Americans than Mathias Döpfner. He’s written a book called The Trade Trap, arguing for the creation of a transatlantic free trade area and for the west to curtail trade with China and Russia. He owns the German tabloid Bild and the conservative broadsheet Die Welt. And as the owner of Politico, a major news site, Axel Springer also has big business interests in the US. Döpfner is regarded as a leading conservative voice in Germany. But the Trump administration has started cancelling subscriptions to Politico, accusing it of liberal bias. It’s a reminder that in an era of tariff wars and real wars, it’s impossible to disentangle international relations, domestic politics and business.
To add some business expertise, I enlisted the help of my Berlin-based colleague Laura Pitel, who came with me to the meeting at Axel Springer HQ. You’ll hear from Laura later in the interview, and this episode will be a bit longer than usual.
I began with that JD Vance speech. It’s been widely denounced in Germany. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats, who the polls suggest will be Germany’s next chancellor, accused Vance of open interference in German domestic politics. So what did Mathias Döpfner think about the reaction to Vance’s speech?
Mathias Döpfner
I have a lot of criticism for the reaction to the Vance speech because I think that is unstrategic and I think it’s even dangerous. We need a transatlantic security alliance and we need a transatlantic trade relationship. And just to react to everything in a kind of bitter way and then calling for a kind of European isolationism, I find that very inappropriate.
And yes, I think there are a lot of points in the Vance speech that I would love to discuss, where I think he has a point. And I also see a lot of things where he was, I think, intentionally misunderstood. People are saying he smashed the door and said that’s the end of the transatlantic relationship. I don’t read it like that.
Gideon Rachman
OK. So what bits did you agree with?
Mathias Döpfner
That we have to discuss what Europe stands for and what needs to be defended. That we have to discuss how we deal with political movements, parties, voters that we fundamentally disagree with. I think the firewall discussion is an appropriate discussion. And if it’s not let in Germany, then I think it is inspiring . . . if a foreign politician is asking the question if it’s smart to simply give to 20 per cent of the voters the message that whatever you do, whatever you vote for, you will not be heard, I think everybody is free to agree on a potential coalition or not.
And I personally think it would be a big mistake to treat the AfD as a normal political movement and to form a coalition with it. But to exclude it right away, I think has made it big. And so this is a valid point and a good discussion that he had. And then also the discussion about free speech, of course, it’s interesting. Of course then you also can have the discussion, to which degree does the American administration live up to that? And then it gets interesting, it gets lively. But to just ignore it and say it’s an interference in German politics, I think that’s really stupid.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah, but it seems to me that it’s quite a fine distinction you’re drawing between saying that it’s wrong to have a firewall to saying the AfD can never join a coalition. But to say but actually, personally, I think that we shouldn’t have a coalition.
Mathias Döpfner
Exactly. I think that is a very important distinction, because after an election, if you won the election to decide this is a partner and this is no partner, that’s one thing. But to exclude it upfront makes it so easy for this movement to simply say we are outcasts and we are not part of the discussion. I mean, they never have to really explain it. We see it in the recent past. Just a few months ago, it was this taboo. We cannot even talk to them. We cannot invite them to a debate or to a talk show. We cannot have interviews with them and so on. What did they do? It made them bigger and bigger and bigger because it’s so easy to always be against everything, never have to really explain, never be challenged. And now suddenly that has changed. And what we see is one occasion after the other, pretty poor arguments, pretty weak defence and I think that is demystifying it. It’s, I think a valuable discussion that we have to have and it is really about the fundaments of democracy.
Gideon Rachman
And you got attacked for running a piece by Elon Musk defending the AfD. But presumably, I mean when Musk says the AfD, like, there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re a perfectly normal party. In fact, both he and Vance, I think, came pretty close to endorsing them. If you have to then explain to Musk, whom you know, why you think actually the AfD are not a normal party, am I characterising your position correctly? What would you say to him in response to that piece?
Mathias Döpfner
Well, I think it’s an interpretation and I cannot speak on his behalf because I’m not living in his brain. But I’m pretty sure that he sees a necessary disruption of very inefficient, dysfunctional political rituals and systems that need reform. And that’s why he is very much in favour of these disruptive movements from Milei in Argentina to Meloni in Italy to Trump in America. And he sees perhaps the AfD in Germany as the next example in that context.
What I think he may underestimate is that the AfD is on many levels uncomparable to these other movements because it is in sharp contrast, for example, to Meloni, literally very pro-Russian. I mean, we just heard a recent interview where the simple fact that Russia has started the war, an aggressive war in Ukraine, was not even mentioned or criticised. So there is a very pro-Russian, pro-Chinese, and I’m speaking not about the people, but about the Communist party. And the geopolitical aggression of Putin is something that is not perceived as a threat or as a negative, but as something that we should accept and that we should have a positive relationship with.
It is a party that has very, to put it mildly, wobbly positioning towards antisemitism in some parts of the party. It’s fair to say that it is in any case very anti-Israel. And you could say to a certain degree it is also very anti-American. Against, for example, American weapons on German ground. So I just think one should see these factors and not put it in comparison to these other disruptive movements that I’ve mentioned.
Gideon Rachman
And what about its relationship to the Nazi past? I mean, you write quite movingly in your book about the impact on your father, your father’s generation. These guys and Musk himself said, you know, Germany’s got to take a more positive attitude to its own history.
Mathias Döpfner
Whenever it’s about the remembrance of the German past, during Nazi times and the Holocaust, you get at least mixed signals. And in the very recent past, there was a Holocaust survivor speaking in the German parliament, and large parts of the AfD did not applaud. Some people even left on other occasions the room. I mean, those are gestures and we should take that seriously.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And it seems to me that flowing from that, Germany has a particular place in this free speech debate because of the Nazi period, you got quite strict rules on what you can say and you are what maybe Musk would call a free speech fundamentalist in certain contexts. But is it still right for Germany to have a slightly different view?
Mathias Döpfner
Absolutely, yes. I’m really a free speech evangelist, but I think the German history is reason enough to treat that topic differently. And if somebody denies the Holocaust, then that is under German law a crime, and I think rightly so.
Gideon Rachman
Right. And yet you’re saying these guys should still be part of the political scene. And presumably, you also think that they do raise some legitimate issues. I mean, Bild has been strong on migration and so on.
Mathias Döpfner
That’s the whole thing. Just because the wrong person or the wrong party or a personal party that you dislike says something that is right, you do not have to necessarily say the opposite. That’s a very dangerous trap. We spoke about some topics where I think they are fundamentally dangerous, but if it is about migration, the fact that the other German parties have addressed it too late or not decisively enough and not efficiently enough, and things are getting more and more out of control, that is something that we should just accept. And the denial of the migration problem by large parts of the political left is, I think, the most counterproductive thing because it strengthens the radical right and it leads not to less xenophobia, it leads to more xenophobia. It leads not to less racism, but to more racism. And that’s why I think it is of ultimate priority to tackle that topic. And again, just because one party says it, it doesn’t need to be completely wrong.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah. I mean, if the opinion polls are right, the AfD will do well in the next election, you know, unprecedentedly well, but they won’t be in a position to form a government or even necessarily make it into a coalition. In fact, they probably won’t be in the coalition. But some people have said to me, this is the old system’s last chance, that if Merz wins and becomes chancellor, he really has to succeed, because otherwise the next election, the populists, the AfD, might win.
Mathias Döpfner
Nobody really knows the exact outcome of the next election. We all have seen how un-precise the polls are, particularly if it is in the context of more very leftwing or very rightwing movements. But one thing I think is certain is really the last chance of centrist parties in Germany, because if Merz is forced after a potential win of the election to form a coalition, perhaps even with two parties, with the Greens and with the Social Democrats, and if then as a fundament for this coalition agreement, there is a very small common denominator and not enough substantial reform programme and reform action, then I think the AfD will be strengthened further and the likelihood that they would then be the biggest party four years from now is very high. And to avoid that, we need now a very determined and convincing reform agenda and structural reforms on many levels.
Gideon Rachman
You know Merz very well. I assume he’s a slight unknown quantity. Well, I guess he’s been in international business, but outside those circles . . . If you have to describe him to a foreign audience, what’s he like as a person?
Mathias Döpfner
He’s a very serious person. He’s a real transatlanticist. He has business experience. And those are all preconditions for the reform agenda that we are all desperately waiting for. The question is, in which coalition can he do it? And the question is, how much courage does he really have personally to push things through? I mean, this famous Bismarck sentence — politics is the art of the possible — is very often misunderstood. It’s misunderstood in the sense that people think you do what is just possible at the moment because the polls are allowing it and the majority of people think like that. I think the art of the possible is to do what seems to be impossible at that very moment, and that requires courage.
Helmut Kohl has written his plan for reunification without asking the party and without asking anybody. That was leadership. And this leadership more in the spirit of Winston Churchill, that is now desperately needed. We need at least a little Churchillian moment in Germany.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah. OK. So you mentioned Merz’s atlanticism and your own atlanticism. I think one of the reasons that people’s reaction — and I have to admit my reaction to Vance’s speech, I think you probably disagree with what I’ve written, but you believe in free debate — was that they felt it wasn’t just a criticism of European attitudes to free speech. He was in some sense saying we don’t recognise a community of values any more. And combining that with the fact that Trump is unilaterally opening negotiations with Putin over the heads of the Ukrainians, people are saying, gee, you know, the transatlantic alliance is in real trouble.
Mathias Döpfner
The transatlantic alliance is in real trouble. The trouble started in the times of Angela Merkel and Barack Obama and has not improved since then. And if we now do not redefine it, I think Europe and America will be in trouble. If the idea of America First means America Alone, it’s not going to work. It’s not going to work with regard to the big security challenges and geopolitical challenges, and it’s not going to work with regard to economic prosperity and trade.
What has the war on Ukraine and the war on Israel and the potential takeover of Taiwan in common? It’s the attack on democracy. The goal is to weaken the biggest democracy in the world. The goal is to disentangle, to split America and Europe, and with that, weaken democracy in their economies. And nobody can solve that alone. We need an alliance. And if Europe is a difficult partner because too regulated, because too slow, because of many, many aspects, yes, but still, it’s better with Europe than without. And that is also true the other way around. If the American administration is very unconventional with regard to style and communication and some decisions, maybe, but we have to understand it.
And the big European misunderstanding is that we take Trump literally, and that’s wrong. We should take Trump seriously, but we should not take him literally. And if he, for example, in the context of tariffs, is threatening Europe with an announcement of higher tariffs, then this is the invitation to dance, then this is the opening, the start of negotiations, and we do not even react to that. Instead of being kind of bitter and offended, we should now sit together and discuss the situation.
And I think the situation is pretty clear. The US is paying on average 5 per cent tariffs on European goods. Europe is paying 3.3 per cent on average on American goods, so the Americans pay higher tariffs. There is room and need for negotiation. What we have to do is we have to lower the tariffs. We have to lower the tariffs symmetrically. And in return, we have to define a common strategy and an alliance in dealing with China and other non-democratic economies.
If then America and Europe would sit together in China at the negotiation table representing 800mn people, the likelihood that we are going to achieve a good outcome for a more symmetrical, for a fairer trade with China is much higher than if America does it alone, and if Europe tries it alone, it’s impossible. If we do not achieve something like that, the outcome will be really damaging and particularly for Europe.
Gideon Rachman
So you haven’t given up on the theme of your book, The Trade Trap, at all? You still believe that the way to go is a transatlantic trade agreement and actually excluding the autocracies Russia and China.
Mathias Döpfner
I think it is more acute than ever. That’s exactly the big question. I mean, we see and we know that the WTO is dysfunctional. I think it has to cease operations and should be replaced by a trade alliance that is way more minimalistic, more in the spirit of the old guard. But in any case, the fundament and the basis for any successful new trade architecture is the European-American alliance. It is literally inconceivable that we are not managing that because what that would then do, it would definitely strengthen the non-democratic economies. China would then, for certain, become the biggest economy in the world. The dependency of European countries, particularly of Germany from China, would be unlimited. Other autocracies in the Middle East and other players will get stronger. And Russia, we have seen, I mean, Russia is a relatively small economy, but nevertheless a very aggressive 19th-century geopolitics player. I think the combination of threats then is to be taken very seriously.
Gideon Rachman
But, you know, we’re all guessing because Trump is volatile and says something surprising every day. But if I had to guess, I think he wants to lift sanctions on Russia as part of a deal with Russia. If that happens, how serious is that?
Mathias Döpfner
For me, the whole Russia-Ukraine topic is a kind of test case with regard to Trump’s actions. We have seen in the past that we have to clearly distinguish announcements or statements from decisions and actions. I still do not give up the hope that the outcome of peace negotiations will be surprisingly difficult for Putin so that nobody can really call it a dictated peace, which would mean a victory of Russia, which would mean a continuation of the conflict, because a Putin who has achieved his goals will go further.
It’s totally naive to think that Putin is going to stop once he has Ukraine. In the past, we have seen that the kind of situation in Georgia has just encouraged him. Then he went for Crimea. We accepted that. Then he went for large parts of Ukraine. If he achieves that, he will continue. The Baltics will be next, Moldavia in between, and one day, perhaps Poland or Germany. I mean, where is the end? And the cost and the price for the United States will get higher and higher. So I’m convinced that this administration realises that. And perhaps we just have to wait for the outcome of the negotiations. And if it’s convincing, if it’s acceptable, if it’s really a kind of fair deal that also shows to Putin, I did not achieve my goals and I should definitely not try it again, then I think we have to accept that he did it and he did it better than predicted. If it is this dictated peace and Russia wins the war, then I think it is truly a turning point in world history.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And at that point, would even a dyed in the wool kind of atlanticist like yourself have to reassess?
Mathias Döpfner
The short answer is yes.
Gideon Rachman
And we may know quite soon, I guess. In your book, you start by saying the rule of law is fundamental to democracy, and it’s what saves us from fear and gives us a basis for prosperity, etc. So what do you think when — I know one shouldn’t react to everything that Trump says. That’s certainly right — but he has just put out this tweet saying, when a leader acts in the interest of saving the country, he cannot be breaking the law. And he’s pinned that. That’s a quote from Napoleon, and Musk has retweeted it with 14 American flags. That sounds like a leader saying I’m above the law.
Mathias Döpfner
Yeah, that is for me exactly the red line that should never be crossed. I think every person, whether it’s a business leader, whether it’s an artist, whether it’s a scientist, and most importantly, if it’s a politician, if such a leader or an influential person thinks that she or he is above the law, this is leading to disaster. The law protects us and sometimes it protects us against ourselves. It protects us against the common sense of the moment. So we should all respect, the more power we have, that the law applies also for ourselves.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And you write, again quite interestingly, in the book about your different encounters with world leaders. So I’d just like you to tell the story of the contrast between meeting Putin and meeting Blair.
Mathias Döpfner
Well, yeah. I mean, it really illustrates that, because when I visited Putin in 2005, not only did he let me wait for a couple of hours as a gesture of authority, but also then because I really had to catch a plane in order to get back, he said, no problem, we will give you an escort. And then I went with 15 motorcycles and cars and screaming megaphones to the airport, which was quite an embarrassing experience. But of course, this also was a gesture of power to impress.
And I have many meetings with other autocratic leaders who basically said, well, if there’s a problem, we fix it. They took the mobile phone, made a call and said, we are going to fix it. Whenever I had, let’s say, a real democrat, the gesture is basically, it’s interesting to hear about, I can’t do anything because we have our institutions, we have our law, we have our authorities to deal with. So this attitude “I can fix it” is for me almost an indicator that something goes wrong with the rule of law and with the respect for that.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah. Last question from me before I hand over to Laura. And in a way, it’s kind of segue to it, because as a businessman, if the rule of law really is in question in America and you’re somebody who makes big transatlantic investments, you have to think twice. Don’t you?
Mathias Döpfner
If I look on the transatlantic relationship from a political point of view, I would always say the transatlantic alliance is way stronger than any administration, than any political leader. It should be an overriding goal and value and project. And the same is true on a company level. America is, for us, the biggest market. We are the only real transatlantic publisher. We have incredible growth in America. We believe in the prospects of the American market. If we have to deal with some setbacks, like a few days ago when suddenly Politico was identified as the arch-enemy of this administration because it’s perceived as the leftwing media symbol, then we should react a little bit more relaxed, perhaps.
I mean, for me, it’s almost funny, honestly, to see it after two and a half decades being portrayed in Germany as the centre of the rightwing conspiracy, I’m now portrayed in America as the centre of the leftwing conspiracy. Honestly, that’s exactly the position where an independent publisher should be in, and we believe in America and will continue to invest and grow in America.
Laura Pitel
My questions fall on very neatly from that. The first thing I wanted to ask you about was this bout with Politico, and it’s easy to sort of laugh it off and say it’s kind of comical to have this criticism coming from both sides. But that’s, you know, also, certainly quite a serious threat coming to the media from the Trump administration. And how should big media owners like yourself handle that?
Mathias Döpfner
Well, first of all, I hope that it is a misunderstanding. It can only be a misunderstanding. We did not take, in 18 years of Politico’s existence, a single cent of government subsidy or government funding. What has been portrayed as government subsidy is the subscription that we are selling. So I don’t know if it’s just a misunderstanding or a mix-up between subsidies and subscription. But we are selling Politico Pro subscriptions at a high price like a Bloomberg terminal to people who are working in the sphere of politics and policy. And they need the real-time data and that in-depth analysis of Politico Pro dealing with legislation in order to do their job more efficiently. That’s why they want this product and why they pay a price for that.
To portray that as a subsidy is really an almost funny misunderstanding because if you take that seriously, that would mean that every Boeing aeroplane that the government buys is a subsidy to Boeing. Every Palantir subscription a Secret Service uses is a subsidy to Palantir. Every real estate that you rent in order to have a government office is a subsidy to the real estate firm. This can only be a misunderstanding, and I hope that it will be clarified. And listening to the speech of vice-president Vance, freedom of speech, yes, I’m very much for it. As we have said, I’m a fundamentalist, but I hope that this principle will also be upheld for journalism that you don’t like.
Laura Pitel
Do you think there’s a grain of truth in some of the Trump administration’s criticism that the media has a sort of inherent leftwing liberal bias?
Mathias Döpfner
Of course, and that is proven in many polls and analysis of media bias. That’s a fact. But I think you cannot fight a bias with a new bias.
Laura Pitel
You’ve always been a big admirer of American entrepreneurs and tech pundits, people like Mark Zuckerberg, also Jeff Bezos. What do you think about how they have responded to the re-election of Trump? Do you think Jeff Bezos was right to pull out the Kamala Harris endorsement?
Mathias Döpfner
That’s really interesting because I’ve asked myself, is it that they now can say what they always thought? Or is it just opportunism? Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t want to judge. I just say in our case, we have not to move or we have not to shift because we have never described Republican government as the end of civilisation or the end of democracy. But we would now also not try to sit in the first row of the inauguration. In any case, for a publisher, there’s a particular need for a certain degree of unpredictability and being not in one or the other camp.
Laura Pitel
You helped to take the company private along with KKR about five years ago and recently that deal has come to an end. And now you and the widow of the founder of this company, Friede Springer, you’ve achieved what you always wanted to, which was to be the sole private owners after parting ways with KKR. Can you talk a little bit about what you want to do with that newfound freedom and what direction you’re going to take the business in?
Mathias Döpfner
The new structure bears the opportunity for true entrepreneurial decisions. There are no short-term restrictions that are sometimes given by the capital markets and the publicly listed company. The goal is really to do things that will pay off in the midterm and then will make sense entrepreneurially in the long term. And I think that is truly a new freedom and a new opportunity, but also the risk exposure is higher. There is no excuse in the future. It’s only up to us to really make the right moves.
Laura Pitel
There’s been speculation for some time that you’d like to make another acquisition in the US, like The Wall Street Journal is a name that always does the rounds. Is that right? Would you like to buy the Journal?
Mathias Döpfner
This Wall Street Journal thing is really funny because there’s almost no interview in the last two years that I gave where I wasn’t asked about that and always in the spirit we know that The Wall Street Journal is for sale and you are going to buy.
According to my information, The Wall Street Journal is not for sale. And if it would be for sale, I mean, of course, we would most likely look into it. But the likelihood that we would really buy it, that we would get it is close to zero. So I think it’s a highly theoretical topic, and that’s why it is so funny to speculate about it.
Laura Pitel
You would like it. You would like to buy it if you could, let’s just say.
Mathias Döpfner
We have in general said we would not buy newspapers. We are a digital publisher. Our business, with the exception of two assets in Germany, Bild and Welt, which still have a kind of little print element, is a digital portfolio which is structurally growing with double-digit organic top line growth. We would double and triple check to add to this portfolio a print element.
Now there are two super brands in the world that I’m very passionate about. That is the Financial Times, which we tried to buy unsuccessfully once (chuckles) and The Wall Street Journal but I would take a bet. First of all, I don’t think The Wall Street Journal is for sale. Secondly, I think we are not going to buy it.
Laura Pitel
So, not a no, I would say.
Mathias Döpfner
One should never exclude it. We spoke about firewalls at the beginning of our conversation. Why would I erect a firewall? But it’s not happening. (Chuckles)
Laura Pitel
Let’s ask you about the topic of Big Tech, because obviously that’s a big competitor to conventional, established journalism. You know, the likes of X, Instagram, TikTok. These are taking readers away from you in a way, and you said that TikTok should be banned in Europe.
Mathias Döpfner
I said three years ago in America at the Code Conference that in every democracy of self-esteem, TikTok should be banned or sold because under this Chinese ownership, which is in a direct connection to the Communist party with regard to the usage of data and the surveillance aspects that come with it, I think it is a fundamental democracy problem and I’m very excited that now in America this problem is about to be solved through a sale to a different owner. And then TikTok is the smartest product, the algorithm in social media. And that leads to the other part of your question. I think in general, social media, it’s not black and white, it’s not good or bad. Social media is a wonderful enrichment of our media landscape. And also journalists and media brands like ours benefit from social media, but it comes also with certain side effects or developments that can be dangerous for society.
For example, the principle that a publisher has to take the responsibility for everything that is published that is inaccurate and has to take legal consequences for that, and for social media, that is not the case — I think that is an imbalance. And also given the power of social media and their reach with an even overproportionate effect to societies, I think that’s a pendulum that is swinging and we have to make sure that it is landing in a healthy centre.
Laura Pitel
Do you think that Brussels, the European Commission, is right to be looking into X and how its algorithms work?
Mathias Döpfner
I think it’s right to look into every platform of that dimension. I think we need a transatlantic regulation. I think EU alone regulation cannot do it. So either we find also here a transatlantic solution that other democracies can join in the world or the regulation will be inefficient. If America, which has a lower level of regulation, is deregulating, and Europe, which has a very high level of regulation, is regulating even further, then I think that is self-destructive for Europe. We are on a very dangerous path here, although I strongly advocate for a very realistic regulation that leads to a fair framework that stimulates innovation and empowers or fosters competition and the diversity that comes with it. Because all these developments, whether it’s social media, whether it’s search, whether it’s artificial intelligence — and artificial intelligence is all of that on steroids — the only question is: Is this power in the hands of very few and including autocratic or totalitarian players, or is this power in the hands of very many? And if it’s in the hands of very many and you have a healthy competition, then I’m not worried. And particularly with regard to AI, I think the opportunity is way, way bigger than the risk.
Gideon Rachman
Last question, Mathias, we were both at the Munich conference, Laura and I, and it did feel like a historic moment, but not necessarily in a good way. And I mean, your offices are right on the Berlin Wall. So you lived in Germany through an incredible historic change, which was a positive one. Do you share our view that these weeks are really history-changing, but in a slightly more alarming way?
Mathias Döpfner
One thing is for sure, the speech of vice-president Vance is a historic speech. Whether it’s turning out to be the beginning of the end of a transatlantic relationship and of a rules-based world order, or whether it turns out to be the wake-up call as it is always portrayed now, although a lot of people define that wake-up call “Now, Europe has to do it alone”, I would give it a very important twist and say not Europe alone, but America will only like to partner and continue a transatlantic relationship with a strong Europe, with a Europe that is innovative, a Europe that understands the digital opportunities, a Europe that is less regulated, a Europe that is powerful with regard to economic growth and a Europe that is strong and powerful with regards to a credible defence. If we achieve that, then it has a double effect.
On the one hand, it is the Plan B, if the transatlantic relationship really fails because then we have more autonomy as Europeans. But hopefully it leads to what I would call the real desirable scenario that a reawakened, rejuvenated Europe that is successful and strong will be a much more attractive partner for America. And then perhaps this Vance speech will turn out as the beginning of a refreshed transatlantic relationship.
So I think there is a need for a more self-critical approach. And that’s what I would like to see in Europe in a forward-looking spirit, to say we didn’t do well enough in the past, we really need America as a partner out of a position of strength, and now let’s go for it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Gideon Rachman
That was Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks for listening. And please join me again next week.