A few points.
This is not a discussion.
The moderator isn’t moderating.
People arent bouncing off each other, or even reacting to each other.
Half of the panel gets trapped in “if I say something with big feels, an internally coherent argument will follow”.
More than half of the panel is optimizing for social media likes, in a format, where there are no social media likes.
A panelist suggests, that maybe this is all about entertainment. More entertainment.
No one has any idea how to address the public, because, everyone would still very much like to feed it PR, and then not deal with it.
A few people don’t seem to know what the Montan Union was about.
People are still captured by the question, if the EU should build train tracks to get the grain out of Ukraine. Here is what Putin is probably telling the southern hemisphere where you are loosing your “war for the hearts and minds of people”.
“We opened harbors for them, they are not using them. We’d probably steal 20% of the grain Ukraine wants to ship through our facilities, but thats food that you are still getting. At a good price. We currently need the currency. When we are capturing land, we are sending you the food we captured. The europeans call that stealing. Ukraine will loose the capacity to produce as much grain in the following years, we will not. Russia and China can provide you with fertilizer next year, Europa can not. The US wont care to.
Then President Charles Michel holds a 20 minute speech on who seamined Odessa. To which the response diplomatically will be:
Yes. If they demine it, we would have to give up the city in the middle of a war and gift them a trade route (equipment goes in). Do you think thats a likely solution to your problem? How about some of our grain and more fertilizer next year?”
Here is what Europe is doing:
“We have no gas, we have no copper, we have no nickel, how about we build an infrastructure to get last years grain out of the Ukraine now?”
I hope this is just an effing PR mess (After all, it’s just the Erste Foundation…), and not a reflection of the state we are in right now. Oh god, I sincerely hope so…
(At least some of the questions/statements are decent.)
edit: Russias official stance on grain exports from Ukraine isnt so far removed from my ramblings.. 😉 Apart from the Ukraine itself currently not wanting to demine Odessa.
edit2: Turns out the most coherent voice in the “debate” was briefed. As in represented Carnegie Europe, not just her personal output/opinions. Oh well… Good to know that at Carnegie Europe some people are still asking relevant questions, I guess.
