This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you, including Chris Smith, Mark Gibson, and Reed Fishler. Coming up on DTNS, what is nothing's next move? Plus, we'll discuss the latest in Generative 8i, and if you miss your old calculator, well, we've got good news. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, January 30th, 2023. From Studio Redmond, I'm Sarah Lane. From lovely Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Richard Raffalino. On the show's producer, Roger Cheng. And we are joined by David Spark, producer at the CISO series. Hi, David. Welcome back. David, we can't hear you. The amount of incestuous that is going on in the show is astounding because I have worked with Sarah and Roger before, and Rich and I work currently together over at the CISO series as well. So it is awesome that we're all together. Well, I agree. And we're so happy to have you back to talk about all the things. But first, let's start with the quick heads. Tiktok CEO, Shozi Chu, voluntarily agreed to testify before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23rd. Representative Kathy McMorris Rogers, the committee chair, said the hearing will focus on how Tiktok handles U.S. users' privacy and data security, as well as how it keeps minors safe on the platform. Earlier this month, Chu met with European Union officials to discuss how Tiktok would comply with the EU's Digital Services Act. Bloomberg sources say that the Apple supplier J-Bill begins shipping AirPods and closures from India to China and Vietnam for assembly. This marks an expansion of Apple's Indian manufacturing footprint, which previously only included iPhones. Bloomberg sources are always saying something now. They're saying Baidu plans to release a chatbot service similar to ChatGPT in March. This will initially integrate with its main search services, providing a conversation-style search result. The service will be based on its Ernie machine learning model in development for several years, spent a lot of money on it, and finally getting a front-end for it at least. Also sounds like what Google's working on. Last week, Mercedes confirmed its DrivePilot automated driver assist system achieved the requirements of Level 3 autonomy in Nevada. That's the first system in the U.S. to achieve that level of automation. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration defines Level 3 as enabling the vehicle to handle all aspects of driving up to 40 miles per hour. So maybe not on the freeway, but it's going to take you some places. Drivers need to be attentive in the event that they must take control with their face visible, but they don't need to keep their hands on the wheel. That is interesting because my Volvo does the latter. The DrivePilot system is available on 2024 S-Class and EQS sedans. And begun the EV pricing wars have. Ford announced price cuts for its Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle. Top-end GT model with extended range saw a 9% reduction. That's the biggest reduction that announced its price down to $63,995 while the base model saw a more modest $900 price cut to $45,995. Customers on waitlist will see the price cut on delivery while current owners will receive personal offers to refund the difference. This comes of course as Tesla cut prices on its Model 3 and Model Y EVs from between 6 to 20% earlier this month. Alright, that was the quick hit. Let's talk a little bit more about nothing, Rich. Yeah, so last summer, Carl Pays Nothing Company made a big splash with its Nothing Phone 1. It's obviously, as the name would indicate, its first handset. In a world of increasingly similar looking Android slabs, it kind of found a way to stand out with a transparent back and an interesting take on notification lights all wrapped in this cyberpunk aesthetic that they've been chasing after they did it with their earbuds as well. It wasn't perfect. It used an off-the-shelf version of Android. The camera was just okay according to reviews and it featured a mid-range processor. But one of the biggest limits to its appeal, it didn't ship to the US. Nothing did open up a beta membership to provide the phone to US customers just to give them a channel officially to get one. But it only supported a subset of T-Mobile's 5G bands. They didn't change out the radios. They were just like the European radios and good luck. Well now, that is changing. Might be good news to some folks. CEO Carl Pays told Inverse's Raymond Wong that Nothing's next handset, the Phone 2, will come to the US in 2023 describing the market as its top priority. We still don't know a ton about the Phone 2, however, although Pays said it would be more premium than the Phone 1 with a version of Android completely made in-house. He also said its hardware differentiation is the major reason it's seen iPhone customers come to its brand and he wants its software to experience to live up to that. In this interview, Pays reiterated what he said when the Phone 1 launched that the company is resource constrained and it kind of has to choose its markets and its battles carefully. 2022 saw the company expand significantly, however, it increased its revenue almost 10 times on the year to over $200 million and it doubled the size of the company to 400 people. That being said, nothing may launch the phone into a shrinking market. IDC reported the overall smartphone shipments felt 11.3% in 2022 and just looking at Q4, it saw shipments down 18.3% on the year. So David, I'm curious, we have a declining smartphone market. Is that an opportunity for nothing or maybe bad headwinds that they're launching into? To tell you the truth, I'm kind of confused as to why they're doing this because there's kind of so many things fighting against them, but obviously they may know something that we don't know. I mean, the things that are fighting against them is getting people to switch off of the platform they're in. People get pretty attached to their platforms. Second, they're kind of first to manufacturing. You're up against people or companies that have been manufacturing phones for a very long time and the first of anything rarely does very, very well. And honestly, the real money is never just hardware, it's software, so it's unclear if they even have a software play here at all. Yeah, I'm kind of with you on this one, David. The declining smartphone market in general is just bad for everybody. If you're a boutique, I was about to say iPhone maker, phone maker, like nothing is, at least at this point, not even being in the US, kind of saying, hey, we're trying to be nimble as we roll out our variations of phones. We've got the nothing to coming out. Don't really have much to say about it, but it's going to be way better. And we're going to be able to enter new markets that we weren't quite ready for. That all sounds fine, but not when you hear these stories about the smartphone market shrinking as much as it does. If you really want this phone, you're going to get it. And this might really speak to a lot of folks, but in a very crowded market, I think that's a tough sell. Here is where I think their strategy lies because I do agree. It is a tough market, but part of this interview also talked about nothing's initial success. They opened a retail store in London. It's right next to a Supreme store in a very posh area. I'm told that's what the kids say over there. But the idea being that like, okay, we're linking, we're putting ourselves in cool areas. We're putting ourselves next to cool brands where people that might be more inclined to something that speaks aesthetically versus this has the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen Plus Gen 5, you know, SOC or whatever like that. People that are going to be attracted by that look and be like, okay, I'm, if I'm spending money on Supreme shirts or whatever, I might also spend money on electronics that speak to me more on a design level. I don't know how big that market is, right? But they talked about, Karl Pei was talking about expanding their retail presence, kind of with a similar strategy. And when we've been talking on this show about, you know, increasingly seeing phones as almost like retro fashion, right? We're talking about flip phones coming back because part of that is like the 90s millennial aesthetic. I think we can increasingly, or I think what nothing is thinking about is that increasingly this is all within the milieu of fashion. Everyone has to have a phone, the same way you have to have a pair of shoes. And they're saying, why not? Why don't we just be the trendy one? David, to your point, I think Karl Pei would like nothing more to bundle in a bunch of software and services and make a whole bunch of money on that. But they have 400 people and their revenue is like what Apple sneezes out in the day and like an afternoon or something like that. But again, you know, when these marginal players come out and if they can differentiate themselves as being a, quote, luxury phone, I don't know, then possibly. But, you know, the big thing is the guts is Android, although it's going to be an alternative Android and the question is, does anyone believe them? It's going to be better than the current Android? I have no idea. Yeah. So, sadly, and I hate to give this response because we say it to our own guests. It's a total wait and see. Well, this is the total nothing playbook. This is their hype playbook to every extent. They've done those every product where they dribble out some details. They get you excited talking about this. The particular thing that's interesting is the smartphone market is pretty cold right now. Basically, everyone is seeing shipments decline, even Apple with 50% market share. Even they are having to think about stuff right here when you're talking about a company that is going to have to fight for manufacturing space is going to have to fight, you know, for chip supply even and stuff like that. I also think the life cycle and phones are extending now like we saw with computers. You remember there was a period of time where you really had to get a new computer sometimes as early as every two years just because the chip processing power just became that much more that you could run software that you couldn't on your older machine. You're not seeing that the case with phones today being that, you know, the proliferation of 5G phones is huge. The processing power is off the charts. So it's really until you destroy the thing, do you need a new one? I think people are holding on to them longer. Well, I think to your point, Rich, about putting a store next to a Supreme Store, for example, anybody who's not familiar with that, it's like kind of a sneakerhead type thing like, oh, if you can afford it, you know, for like a cool sweatshirt or whatever, very cool. If nothing can be that very cool niche market, they probably have some play here because I think for a lot of folks, myself included, it's like, well, that's the iPhone. It's super expensive. If you don't want to be in the Apple universe, then you're going to go somewhere else. But that's kind of the very expensive phone that you don't necessarily need. You could get by without, but you want it because there's some cachet there. Yeah. And let's not forget, Carl Pay has experience with OnePlus threading that needle of what specs matter to consumers, what specs don't. I feel like he can put together a convincing package, whether that design speaks long term to move them from a niche to anything bigger. Again, we'll have to see the phone till we can come in further. Alright, moving on to some machine learning. We've talked a lot about generative AI systems on the show as of late, but they've been mostly sent around text or image generation. Well, there's another medium that's seen a lot of investment and that is text to music generation. These systems aren't new. You might say, yeah, I've heard of them before and you wouldn't be wrong. Back in October, we talked about harmonized dance diffusion, openized jukebox for example. And while technically they're impressive, neither seem to have achieved that human replacement level performance we're starting to see from systems like chat GPT or mid-journey that get a lot of press. Yeah. And back in October, we kind of talked about Google's AI system called MusicLM. There hadn't been a lot out there, just some like samples of output, not any details about how it works. But, you know, we hadn't really seen a lot out of it, but Google researchers have released a longer paper now about MusicLM and samples of what the system is capable of, much more extensive. And it's kind of, I'm not going to lie, it's pretty impressive. Google trained it on 280,000 hours of music, where MusicLM stands out is its ability to generate longer cohesive works from a text prompt. Something like dance diffusion stitches together, generated music a few seconds in length at a time and it sounds like that. There's a lack of structure, even as you can pull out kind of distinct elements there. MusicLM can output several minutes of the time. Of course, that doesn't matter if it doesn't sound good, right? So, Joe, let's hear a little bit about what, or let's hear a little bit from MusicLM right now. That's the video game theme, I believe, that they put out there. I mean, these are impressive. It's better than what I could generate at home by myself, even though I have lots of tools. So Google published 30 second samples from complex text captions, such as the main soundtrack of an arcade game, fast paced beat, catchy electric guitar riff. The music is repetitive and easy to remember with unexpected sounds like cymbal crashes or drum rolls. Okay, I mean, AI can do this, right? The audio mostly fits the bill. It sounds mostly complete. I mean, unless you're some sort of music genius, which I am not. It also shared longer five minute generations based on short prompts like melodic techno that also seem to hold together. The audio can still sound a little compressed. Vocals are a little more of an idea than an actual voice, but I think we're getting somewhere. Yeah. However, don't expect to see MusicLM integrated into your favorite audio workstation any time soon. The researchers don't plan to release the model citing the, quote, risk of potential misappropriation of creative content associated to the use case, aka we talk to our lawyers. Part of this may be due to intellectual property concerns. The researchers found that about 1% of music generated directly replicated content from its training set. But Sarah, based on what you've heard, I mean, like if you could play with it, I mean, would you have some uses for this? 100%. In fact, it definitely depends on the song, but I am always in the morning, for example, if I'm trying to get ready for a DTNS. Sometimes I like music, but I don't need lyrics. Lyrics just, it makes it hard for me to write. You know, it's distracting. So something that I could kind of put together like, this is what I'm in the mood for. Here's some keywords. Just give me something, you know, for the next five to 10 minutes, or maybe a playlist or whatever. I'm down with that. I can see where artists, especially artists who say, huh, that sounds curiously like my latest effort would have a huge problem with this. And that just, I don't know, falls in line with writers saying, well, I, you know, I don't want chat GBT to, you know, take over my job. And, and visual artists saying, well, you know, I don't want something like mid-journey to take over my job either. I think there are a lot of like, cool implications here. And a lot of people saying, ooh, but we're scared. What about us? Yeah, David, are we going to be like re-litigating the same AI data set battles for forever now? Well, this, this is, you know, and I think Google's response to this is kind of what I was thinking originally when this all came about is that, you know, we've seen all these sort of litigations in the past where one lesser known musical act goes after a bigger musical act because they lifted some riff from a song of theirs. And you, you see the court case where they play their riff and then they play the better musical or the more well-known musical acts riff. And, you know, they're trying to get some money out of this company stealing from them. But it's very clear that this AI, that's what it's designed to do is pull samples from a lot of locations, which is what artists do without AI often. And so this is, this is just asking for trouble in the market. But to people who need music, the desire for royalty free music is sky high. And this would be desirable. I know. I mean, there's definitely demand for it. Well, while we're not seeing Music ML right now or LM, excuse me right now, Google did release the Music Caps data set, which is a high quality music caption data set, basically to support for the research of one of the problems with doing music is captioning is really hard. Like when you have a two minute work, how do you caption that like succinctly as opposed to a static image? A lot easier to do that than it is to caption music. So while we might not see Google's product out there anytime soon, that might provide the data sets researchers need to, you know, use it in other fields as well. Well, if you have a thought about anything we talk about on the show, it could be about AI music, it could be about anything else. We would like to hear your thoughts. Email us at feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. You know, when you pop open the RSS reader and you click on your cybersecurity news, it's easy to think the situation only gets worse. It seems like we've been numb to seeing things like data leaks and breaches. You see like 10 million, you know, people's data leaked. You're just you don't even react to it anymore. But even in this jaded security landscape, the rise of ransomware as a major threat in recent years has been kind of hard to ignore. Yeah, over the past, let's say five years, we've seen the volume and the value of ransomware attacks explode. It might be conventional wisdom to just say, don't pay the ransom, because why would you that only encourages more ransomware? But the reality is a lot of companies do that because they want the problem to go away. Analysts data of cryptocurrency transactions show that ransomware payments increased from about 43 million back in 2018 to 766 million in 2021. These attacks seem to come from all sorts of actors, some ransomware as a service becoming a business model for organized cyber criminals. Which is why a recent report from Chain Analysis caught our eye. It found that in 2022, ransomware payments decreased on the year. And not just like a little bit or it stayed, you know, kind of flat just down like technically down 40% to 457 million dollars. That's still about 10 times the ransom's paid in like 2017-2018, so up still historically, but you know, definitely down on the year in a big way. That was followed by news last week that the US FBI and Europool coordinated to take down infrastructure of the high ransomware organization infiltrating their organization and basically alerting victims, leaking decryption keys, that kind of stuff. So David, you know, are we figuring out ransomware? We have like two kind of good ransomware story news out there which, you know, you know, this seems pretty rare. Or should we maybe hold off on rolling out the mission accomplished banner? I think we definitely have to hold off on rolling out the mission accomplished banner. That's for sure. No, you know, the reason we're seeing a decrease is I think mostly because this is on high alert for most businesses, ransomware, and on top of it, the number of cybersecurity vendors that are out there that are helping deal with this problem has exploded in the last few years. So you have companies paying greater attention and addressing the problem front end. The story of though taking down Hive or essentially hacking the hackers is really quite impressive in that the essentially the law enforcement did what we've always wanted them to do, and that is essentially cut off the ransomware companies at their knees. The thing about with ransomware that is astonishing to me is it is extremely low risk to get caught, unbelievably low risk to get caught, and the payout is enormous. I can't speak to any other crime that has those two extremes, which is what a criminal wants, something low risk of getting caught and enormous return, and ransomware has it. That's why it's been so damn popular and we see so much of it. And with ransomware as a service, which is what Hive is, technically anyone with zero skill whatsoever, just low morals, can issue ransomware. And the other aspect of this that's interesting with kind of the takedown stuff is I feel like we're also beginning to understand, kind of like understanding how the mob works or the organization of the mob works. Like we've seen with leaks from like the Conti ransomware group where there was the split between the, you know, kind of pro Russian and pro Ukrainian aspects of that ransomware group. We got so much internal detail about how these organizations work and really, you know, we call them ransomware gangs or organizations and stuff like that. They're really it really seems like business operations like when you're digging into the emails of these organizations, and I feel like that as we increase that knowledge base, it becomes easier. I mean, again, hacking back the shoe is on the other foot of, they're an organization, they have the same kind of weak points that any other organizations where it comes to fishing when it comes to, you know, humans being you know, kind of your least reliable chain in your security protocols. So I feel like as we come to understand these organizations more as organizations, it may be more common to see this. The bigger question though is security you know always has the saying it's a cat and mouse game as soon as you adapt to one thing, they're going to change how they operate they're going to become more dispersed or they're going to start using more anonymous messaging or something like that to defeat this. Is this just a temporary blip of we figured out at this moment how to successfully, you know, stop one. It could very well be just that, but I think what's interesting is from this event the FBI and the DOJ has a playbook on how to do this so at this very moment, while similar attacks are going on and ransomware is pretty standard and how it's dealt with. They could be talking to other agencies and give them the current playbook to show what exactly they did which hopefully this what we'd love to see is copycat examples of what just happened where their formula actually works for others as well. Now, to your point of cat and mouse. Yes, they are always looking for something different and because of ransomware and being so lucrative and so it's a low risk that I don't think it's going away anytime soon. Yeah, and I remember in video made some headlines, maybe a year or two ago that they were trying to hack back some people that had stolen some stuff. And I don't think we're going to see private companies doing that. That's a dangerous. That's an extremely dangerous game. This was a law enforcement agency that did it. And we talked about this. The big reason you don't want to hack back one is it's illegal. But to the other issue because I mean breaking into other people's systems, but to the issue is you do not know the can of worms you may be unloading here. You don't know who's backing these attackers. It could be a nation state. You could be getting yourself into something that you have no capability to deal with and that is those are the two big reasons you don't do it. Well, something that many of us do have capabilities with our calculators. They have changed over time, but the Internet Archive has a new collection called the calculator drawer with 14 calculators to choose from. This includes the HP 48 GX, the TI-82, TI-83 plus even the electronic number muncher. And if you're like, what is that one? It was a toy calculator. Some people might remember back from the 1980s. However, Internet Archive is going a step past emulation by incorporating each calculator's physical design and also buttons. So using one feels as it's kind of almost the real thing, even though it's really an emulator. The Internet Archive used the MAME artwork system, which is a branch of the open source framework that recreates classic games, classic arcade games on various systems. It can render an emulated device a couple different ways. If it needs additional drawing to, for example, augment the part of itself that's reflecting the screen or lights of the device. If this sounds cool, but you say, oh gosh, I need a refresher on some of these machines. Well, the Internet Archive has thought about you and uploaded a collection of original user manuals as well. I definitely needed the refresher. I was trying to like graph a parabola and I couldn't land on like my TI-86 or 89, I remember. And I couldn't. I was just like, I'm totally lost. I needed the manual, but it did make me want to load up some of my favorite side loaded games on those, play some illicit substance wars once again. David, do you have nostalgia for old calculators? You know, I did have one of those. I can't remember the model number, but I did have one of those HPs where you didn't type one number plus another, then type equals.  But I remember I did need it because I remember taking certain finance and stats classes in college that I did need the calculator. But that calculator is long gone now. Who knows where it is? Well, Internet Archive has made, you know, your new life possible. All right. In the mailbag, Michael wrote in about our coverage of the last pass breach from December, which we talked about in December, what we've talked about it since, as we've known more information. Michael says, learning that last pass was storing anything at all in plain text, like the URLs for password entries. That is the most incredibly damning thing for a company that was selling security and making all these claims about how zero knowledge they are. They should not be technically capable of getting unencrypted data from our vault entries in the first place. That is the 100% unforgivable thing here. Michael says, well, so I bailed. I took a week changing all my passwords, storing the new ones in something called KeyPass, that's KEE Pass. And now I'm using sync thing to keep all my devices in sync without making use of cloud storage for my password file. After three weeks of the setup, I can say that KeyPass DX on Android actually works better than the last pass app. So the fact that I'm having a better user experience and at the same time avoiding a subscription fee and increasing my security, is an absolute win-win. Yeah. I mean, that's a good arrangement for Michael. It makes me sad because I know I've recommended last pass to people before, and I can't ask them to do all that. That's not what my mom's doing. I mean, I'm still using last pass, even though I understand that changing passwords, especially for the accounts that I care most about and I feel would be the most vulnerable, so that is time consuming, but not difficult, but time consuming. The problem is, many of these programs are forcing you to save it in their cloud. There is actually a way, and I've done it before, is that you don't actually subscribe to the service if it allows you on the one, but you save your own backup of the thing. So there is a sync, but your own private backup, not to their cloud backup, because your private backup, all they have, what they would have to do is specifically target you versus if they target the whole organization and they get everybody. So that's more valid, and that's the concern of these large password management things. But again, if they're all hashed, it shouldn't be a major issue, but we did have a guest who went through the process of changing all his hundreds of passwords, and it was a multi-hour project. Indeed. Yeah. I am not done with mine. That's for sure. Especially when it's like, you have a compromised password, and I'm like, really? I feel like I changed this, like, somewhat recently. Okay. Change it again. I'll do what I have to do. Always getting pwned. Always getting pwned. Well, you know who isn't getting pwned? That's David Spark. Thanks for being with us today, David. Don't put a target on my back. No, you're never going to get pwned, because you're good at what you do. Never. Internet. You've heard it before. All right. Knock on wood, everybody. Knock on wood. But David, always a pleasure. Let folks know where they can keep up with what your latest is. Yeah. If you're a security professional, want to be a security professional, love to learn about security, and you want to hear more of Rich Strafilino and myself for that matter, then you should head over to CISOseries.com. That's CISOseries.com. We have five shows on our network. Rich hosts one of them, the headline show, and he also does our Week in Review as well. And then we have a super fun show on Fridays called Super Cyber Friday. Just go to the events page on there, and you can find all of our live shows, including the one with Rich on it as well. Well, we're so happy to have you with us, because you're obviously a very busy person. So thank you again. Also thanks to our brand new bosses. We got some over the weekend. We have Michael and Adam just started backing us on Patreon. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Adam. And thank you to whoever is our next patron tomorrow. You refer to your Patreon members as your bosses. So did they push you around? Yeah. I mean, we're doing the show for them, right? I'm wearing all this flair for them. Come on. We are merely cogs in the machine. The best bosses, we should say. The best bosses. Indeed. More bosses, more better. Speaking of patrons, do stick around for our extended show, Good Day Internet, which rolls right in if you're listening to the live version or if you're a patron of DTNS. You can also catch this show. This show here, Monday through Friday at 4pm Eastern. That's 2100 UTC. It is live Monday through Friday. If you need more information, check out dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We're back tomorrow talking about the Haiku Box. That's the bird song ID tool. Do you know about it? If not, Dr. Nicky Ackerman is going to tell you more. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com.


Good afternoon, everybody. You're most welcome today to our presentation. I apologize for some technical difficulties of the staff that we're a little bit delayed. I'm pleased to welcome you to this IAA webinar, which is part of our IAA Global Europe project supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs. And I'm particularly delighted to welcome State Secretary, Mr. Christian Danielson, the Swedish State Secretary for EU Affairs. Mr. Danielson, we appreciate greatly your joining us at what we are aware is a very busy time for the EU Swedish presidency. So our sincere thanks to you for being with us. And you'll be able to join the State Secretary Danielson will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so and then we'll go to answer with our audience. You'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screen and please feel free to send your questions during the session and we will come to them once State Secretary Danielson has finished his presentation. So a reminder that today's presentation and the Q&A are on the record. And also please feel free to join on Twitter using the handle at IAA. We're also live streaming this morning's discussion. So very warm welcome to all of you who are joining via YouTube. The Swedish presidency is occurring at a very difficult time, a pivotal time of course for the Union, especially in the context of the seismic upheavals of the war in Ukraine. The challenges to competitiveness of the single market from China with China and the US, and many other difficulties that have arisen. Of course, the tragic natural disaster in Turkey and Syria has also placed in a strain on international relations. The Swedish presidency has laid out very clear priorities in terms of security, competitiveness, green energy transition and democratic values and the rule of law. And they are in great detail in the presidency program with strong commitments to carry these forward and we look forward to the State Secretary taking us through the view from the Swedish presidency at this stage. May I introduce State Secretary Danielson. I think it's true to say that there are very few people in Europe as State Secretary has such a view of Europe, both from inside and from outside. The State Secretary has previously served as Deputy Secretary General of the Commission, Director General of European Commission for neighborhood and enlargement negotiations, and also before he was made State Secretary head of the European Commission for neighborhood representation in Sweden. He also served in the cabinet of as Deputy Head of Cabinet for Vice President Verhoygan, where he dealt with Turkey and competitiveness. On the other side of the fence, the State Secretary was in the Swedish Foreign Ministry during the first Swedish presidency 2001 dealing with enlargement and then during the second presidency in Brussels as permanent representative. So with that spread of experience State Secretary, I hand you the floor and we greatly look forward to hearing from you today. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for giving me this opportunity. In fact, this is the second time that I appear in front of the Institute of International European Affairs. Last time I was in Dublin and I think this must have been in 2003 or 2004 and the subject was enlargement. Now different times, different subjects. Now it's a different Europe that we are in front of and as you rightly pointed out for the Swedish presidency and for the EU I would say it is very challenging times. We are now close to one and a half months into the presidency and a major part of it to be honest is about seeing to that the work continues. This is in the midst of the legislative agenda of the European Union so we have numerous issues on the table where the expectation and our wish is to move that forward in order to see to that we are getting the legislation in place and getting the various instruments in place which are there in order to address challenges that the EU has in front of it. So that is a major part of the work now happening in Brussels with numerous meetings. I just realized that there are about 350 files that are open. We're not going to address all of them and we have numerous meetings that are going to take place down in Brussels but also here in Sweden. That being said, we are also facing challenges which are substantial by themselves and which are putting quite a lot of influence over the agenda that we are addressing. And the biggest one is the Russian aggression, the Russian war against Ukraine which is not just an aggression towards Ukraine but it is an aggression against us in a sense. The war that Ukraine is fighting is in a sense our war. It is a war about protecting or defending democracy, defending rule of law and international law. And also a war of standing up against that kind of aggression that we would have hoped would not exist in Europe in the 21st century. Clearly we have also a challenge when it comes to the economy and the energy which has been a major element here which is linked to the Russian aggression which has played up stronger than I think we would have wanted to see. And then on top of that we very recently got this tragic event in Turkey and Syria with the earthquake which also is putting challenges for us, particularly challenges for the people of Turkey and Syria. But where the expectation is that we should stand up and help as much as we can from the European side. Now those challenges being there, nevertheless we have put down for these six months as you rightly pointed to four priorities which we are trying to sort of set out what are these issues where we see most of the political emphasis will be put into. And here they are, if you take them in the order they come, we say security clearly. We see competitiveness as being an important one. We see the green and the energy transition as the third one. And the democratic values and the rule of law as the fourth one. Now let me us turn them to the priority of security, which is primarily Russia's aggression towards Ukraine. And for us, it has not only been there to see to that and so put like this that the most important element for us has been to keep the unity of the European Union which has been astonishing over this period. Keeping European unity when it comes to the support in concrete terms, that's humanitarian support. It is the economic support that is called for. It is right now as well and has been since the beginning, the military support, but also the political perspective for Ukraine for the future integration with the EU. And Ukraine is a Canada country, so there is a process that will have to go on in that context. Now, right now what we are focusing on are three elements. One is the sanctions against Russia, where the work is in a final stage when it comes to the next sanction package. We should be on the table for the 24th, which is on Friday, which is a commemoration, a tragic commemoration but nevertheless a commemoration of one year of war. The second element that we are working hard on is about responsibility and see to that the responsibility for the crimes that have been committed during this war that responsibility also falls on those who are responsible. And that boils down to very quite difficult issues relating to law, which is not only about the EU but beyond the EU because we're talking about international law here but which nevertheless is an important element of what we also should do within the EU. And the third element is about the frozen assets, where we have set up a specific working group to work on it. It's not easy. I mean, one can easily say that it would be great if we can use the frozen assets for the recovery, for the reconstruction of Ukraine. But there are also here important legal elements that needs to be taken into account, and this is exactly what we are working on right now. In addition to the security linked to the Russian aggression towards Ukraine, we have also put under that heading the important element of fighting organized crime, security of the EU internally. Where I think we all the member states have the sense of international organized crime being an element that cannot be addressed only by national measures and national instruments, but where the European cooperation plays an important role. And given the fact that we in Sweden over the last couple of years have seen a dramatic increase in particular when it comes to international organized crime linked to gang violence. This has been something which we have a certain interest to see to that we can do what we can as a presidency to drive that issue forward. We have also under security put the element of migration where we have seen over the last couple of months a substantive increase in irregular migration into the EU. Primarily through the Western Balkan route, and where therefore we have you in the last couple of months have a substantive increase when it comes to seeing to how we can work together in strengthening the external borders of the European Union. Most recently at the European Council on the, on the 9th of February, and this is work which will continue to to drive forward. And that we are doing in parallel with the important work on the migration pact, which is the long term solution to addressing the issue both of, of having a functional, well functioning asylum policy, but also having a policy when it comes to migration, which, which takes into consideration the different elements everything from irregular migration to legal migration. The second priority is competitiveness. And the background here is the fact that Europe over the last 10, 15 years have been lagging behind major partners such as the United States, such as partners in Asia, not thinking about China. When it comes to productivity and growth. And that part of that has a link to the way that the EU instruments, when it comes to single market and beyond is functioning, and that we have identified improvements there as an important element in order to see to that European competitiveness is strengthened. And this is something which is broadly shared among the member states and also by the institutions. So we are looking forward already now in March at the European Council in March to be able to have a very rich discussion on what is called for in order to strengthen Europe's competitiveness, not only for the coming months but in the longer term. And what we are landing on there is issues such as how the internal market can more functional and what we're talking about there is standardization and also eliminating barriers to the free movement of the four freedoms that still exist or are being developed over the last couple of years. We are also reflect one from our point of view we are also seeing important element and important element being the better regulation, namely to see to that we get the regulatory environment which is even more conducive towards growth while not, while not lowering ambitions when it comes to environment or, or, or other legitimate reasons for having joint legislation. We're also thinking about innovation, we're thinking about research and strengthening the research, the research community within the EU, when we are thinking about trade as such, which is such an important player when it comes to, to providing growth for the EU. We should be aware that the substantive part of the growth that we can see globally over the coming years is going to be in, in, in the areas, in, in geographical areas outside the EU, and where the way EU can, can integrate or can, can play a role in that, in that respect. We'll also have a direct effect on our ability to create prosperity and growth within, within the European Union. That, that is something we have put quite a lot of emphasis on what has come in, which we did not see that clearly when we started to prepare our, our presidency is the, the fallout of what is called Eva inflation reduction act in the United States, which on the one hand is something that has come, namely that United States is back on the scene when it comes to fighting climate change. And, but we, which also has a certain elements of it, which, which leads to negative risks leading to negative effects for European industry. So that is something where we have had to put quite a lot of emphasis of the last couple of weeks and months. In the European Union, I found a way forward now, which is, which is the right way. It exists of a number of elements. One is close cooperation with the United States, trying to find ways and means to see to that those elements of era, which are risks having negative effect for European industry that that one is being addressed in some way or another in our bilateral relations with the United States. The other element, which is not, should not be seen as a protectionist instrument, but which, because it's not, but which is addressing a fact, namely that we have reason to try to see to that environment for clean tech, which is what era is about in within the EU that environment becomes more conducive towards clean tech. But that is the second element that that that now is being addressed, and which points down to issues such as permitting, such as seem to that the provision of raw materials is being better taken care of, which also looks into issues relating to the energy and the electricity electricity pricing. Another element in respect to that kind of clean tech element clean tech that came out of the era discussion is about financing. It's true that for some areas there's a need for further financing of clean tech and where state plays a role. There is has been a quite substantive discussion on what that should look like. And there's one on the one hand state date very time limited and specified national such state date for clean tech, but on the same time, EU instruments that already exist and funding that exist, that also could be used for the same purpose. The further element is the whole issue of skills that is called for for the development of clean tech. So these we have been working on over the last couple of weeks, and it's something that we also is going to continue to work on when it comes to competitiveness, and that will be important elements. Our third priority is the green and energy transition. And it goes without saying that that is very high on the agenda for all of us, it is about climate change, but it goes beyond climate change. It's also about biodiversity, and it's about the whole transition when it comes to becoming greener and even better addressing environmental challenges that are out there. It's clear that the fit for 55 package, which is climate change primarily is one of those areas where we are going to put lots of emphasis, particularly a substantive part of that was already addressed during the previous presidency, the project presidency, but we have a number of elements that needs to be addressed now and agreed upon now in order for that package to come together and starting to also play its full role. And it's important that that happens during the Swedish presidency, because otherwise, there is an issue of timelines. The objective here is 55% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2030. And if we don't get the this legal framework into place, then there is a risk that we will not be able from the use point of view to to fulfill that that clear objective that has been set. So we're going to work hard on that one. And as it stands right now, I'm pretty, I shall say, I am cautiously optimistic that we will be able to deliver this while during the six months ahead of us. And then finally, we have the issue about democratic values and principles of law, which, which rule of law and democratic values being the basis of what the EU, which we stand on, and therefore so important, not only important from the point of view of, of, of defending democracy and being able to project our system beyond the EU democracy rule of law, the right to minorities, but also important and for the citizens within the EU, but also important for the EU system to work and to function. We are a union of law. And a Swedish court or an Irish court, when being when, when having to take a stand on issues which are related to European law is the European Court. And therefore the system much will must work and there must be be full confidence in that this is exactly what is going to happen. And that is how it will function. Now it's clear that over the last couple of years that have been identified deficiencies in the system, in terms of in particular two countries Poland and Hungary. And we will continue our presidency to work on that and help those countries to come back and fully, fully be sort of fully fully live up to the conditions that are called for for for creating that kind of confidence in there in the legal system. And we will also work in order to keep that whole issue on the agenda, and we will have certain certain manifestations of it, in terms of of a symposium in June, which we on rule of law, which we will hope will sort of lead to further steps in the direction of strengthening this within the cooperation in the EU. So there you have our our four priorities. We will, we are facing multiple crisis that's clear, but it's also clear that we need the European cooperation more than ever, I think. And I have a sense that we have a sense that that is broadly shared by the Member States, it's broadly shared by these bad European institutions, and therefore we are fairly confident that we are going to be able during this presidency to live up to the to the expectations that are on us from from the member other member states but also beyond beyond that. I think I stop here and open up for for questions or comments. Thank you very much indeed. That is very comprehensive view. I think it's made clear to us the extraordinary breadth of the challenges that you face on a number of fronts, and your outline of the dossiers that are open. Even just to keep business as usual, plus the the serious challenges that are there. But thank you very much for giving us such a very clear expose of where the Swedish presidency and the direction you are working in. I have just a number of questions. You mentioned the first priority of your list is security and security and defense and I note that in your the detailed outline of your presidency program. You said that we must build robust European security and defense policy in close cooperation with partners and you express strong support for the strategic compass. And I have a question from retired Brigadier General her and who his question basically is how does Sweden fund its armed forces so well. I have a few questions that the Irish defense forces suffer from underfunding because of budget is always necessary for education and health, and yet Sweden manages to fund its its defense forces, but basically could I just ask you. Do you see EU cooperation in the security and defense force going forward during your presidency. Because so much emphasis is based on nature but obviously there is a cooperation with NATO but how do you envisage during your presidency keeping the EU security and defense program going as well. Now it's an important issue and I think I start from the compass. I think that one sets out fairly straightforward areas where EU has an as a complimentary role to the to NATO which of course is the major provider of of of of of defense for for the allies. Now Sweden is not yet an ally but for those of our members and we hope to be a member very very soon. So the compass sets out a I think in a quite elaborate way where where we can work and should work more within the EU context. One is about this sort of new threats like cyber like hybrid, where the fact that the way the EU with its research competences but also with other competences within the union are able to provide and complimentary row to similar kind of activities going on within the other context. So that's one element. The second element is capacity and and that that is capacity which has to do with our EU's role in particular when it comes to operations such as the one we have had in Georgia for many many years in order to to help monitoring the the ceasefire situation there or other situation in Georgia, or for that sake any of the other I think close to 15 or whatever it is today. Operations that are underway where the compass sets out we need to do that faster and we need to do it better. And I think that is something that we should work on the third element has to do with the defense industry and where within the EU. We have reason to try to become more efficient in in both the development but also in the procurement of defense of defense material. And here EU can play a role together right now there is a piece of legislation on the way on on exactly that on procurement. And the fourth element is about the cooperation with international organizations so in all those strands, you will continue to to work and we we are going to continue as the presidency to work and see to that those elements but of course, what is overshadowing all of this is the war at Russia's war against Ukraine, where the EU has taken a role in helping member states to to finance the military support to Ukraine through the peace facility, where in total I think we have provided over 3 billion euros in in in defense financing or defense material from from member states. So that is one important element and right now there's a discussion within the EU, or whether we could do more in particular when it comes to ammunition for for Ukraine which happens to be a difficult area right now, and how we can see to that the producers in Europe can scale up. In order to see to to meet not only the demands of Ukraine but also the demands of Europe's own security, given that quite a substantive part of the stocks of ammunition has now been delivered to Ukraine from many many of the member states. So that is on the EU's road as such and then the question was how can we in Sweden finance our defense, defense, defense force. Well, we have, we have, we have gone down quite substantially in the in the when it comes to the financing or defense over the last 20 years. If we would have been sitting here in 1995, which is a bit more than 20 years, we would be close to 3% of GDP of for the for the defense. We went down and I think at the lowest level we were at one point, one point one or something. Now we have an objective to go up to 2% of GDP by 2026. And this is what we are doing right now. And the question that was asked, how are we doing that? Well, it's a question of priority. It's a question of finding the funding and of course that beats funding that is not going for other purposes, to be to be honest. But right now, situation in Europe is such that this is absolute priority. Thank you very much indeed for for that detailed outline of the EU contribution in the field of security and defense. I think it's true to say that there is a lot happening in this area but that most of our populations are not aware of the EU contribution in the security and defense area. It's something that has been kept quite low key and perhaps needs to be raised. Also you mentioned Georgia and I recognize the role you played in Georgia in 2021 on behalf of the President of the European Council and we're offering an agreement with the two political party with the government there, which was very welcome. And I have a question from the Irish examiner given the recent concerns raised by the Dutch military about the Russian threat to critical cables and energy infrastructure in the North Atlantic. Is there is this a major issue for Sweden in its presidency. And also, do you feel the threat applies to the seas around Western Europe, and given the difficulties and shortages in the Irish naval service. Is this something that the EU could assist Ireland with. I think it's the critical cables and energy infrastructure and the threat from Russia states actually a few. So is this something that Sweden is worried and conscious about on. I'm very conscious about it. There was. Well, we don't know who did it but you might recall that the. There was a major blow up of of the North Stream pipeline in the middle of the Baltic Sea, which I think showed the vulnerability of infrastructure as such. So we should be clear on that. So, so I think that that made it clear for us at least now I'm talking from Swedish point of view that this is issues that we need to take with quite some quite substantive seriousness, which we do. Now on the question whether we this is something which we are working on within the European Union, the answer is no. It's not part of the of the of what we are what we are discussing. I presume that this is something that the alliance is looking very careful on but of course we are not part of the lines so I don't know what the discussions are, what they look like well we do that. But this is not the object of the discussion that we're having now today, but on the reply on the way that this is an issue for the European Union. It is not for the time being. Yes. Thank you for that. Obviously it's something I think the Irish view and given the coastline here. This is something that needs to be seriously looked at and taken into account. Following on your mention of NATO I have a question from the colleague in the Department of Foreign Affairs Michael Tracy. What is the state secretary's view on Swedish accession to NATO will it ultimately succeed and what time scale you might have for that. And what are your views of the objection to the application by Turkey. We hope that the that the accession will will happen as soon as possible. Now we are joining NATO and it's of course for the NATO members to to agree to that and we have two of the members of the Alliance that has not yet ratified. And we know that with one of them, which is Turkey, we had a discussion in at the Madrid summit, which ended in a memorandum of understanding between us. And it was also outlined a couple of issues which should work together with. We have done on our side, what was called fall from that from that agreement. And so we are now waiting for the replication by the two countries concerned. I can't say anything about the timeline for that, but clearly it is important. It is important not only for the security of this part of Europe where Sweden is located. Sweden and Finland as part of the Alliance would substantially strengthen the Alliance ability for for defense of its members. But it's also important in terms of strengthening the capabilities of the Alliance. Sweden and Finland will both be net contributors to the to the to the Alliance when it comes to defense capabilities and that is beyond the the graphical theater of of the part where Sweden and Finland is located. So for all these reasons we hope that there will that we will be able to see become members in the Alliance and have their applications as soon as possible. Yes. And thank you. Yes, I think we all see, see the difficulties and wish you well in that. I have a question states actually from Sean Murray Euro news and she asks, can you give us some outline of the potential manifestations from the presidency regarding the rule of law and Hungary and Poland in relation to protecting the independence of courts respect the ECJ and values and principles of the EU. This is a difficult situation for the EU as a whole. I know we are we are going to continue the process that has been going on for a couple of years which is called article seven process so we will have those. Those hearings in the council with the two countries concerned that is going to be the major element when it comes to Poland and Hungary. We hope that issues are being addressed by the two countries so that we can we can close those processes because that would be the best best best outcome. In parallel with that we will continue the work on which are a kind of peer examinations between member states as regards the rule of law situation in in individual member states and we have, I think five countries up for our presidency which we will examine. So we continue that work and these are the two major elements that we are going to to have on that end up. Thank you that that will continue. Moving away in a different direction from plan she's some welcome. Priorities is out of the Swedish presence and see referred to this swift and decisive response to the invasion of Ukraine. But his question in fact is about Israel, and what the EU is response to Israeli violation of interlust in a law on human rights abuses have not been swift or decisive. Where does the Swedish presidency stand in relation to the situation in Palestine and in Israel. And do you think this is the main point do you think that the EU's lack of unity undermines its position in the eyes of the global community in relation to Israel and Palestine. No doubt we have conclusions which goes back to 2009 on the EU's position when it comes to this issue and that that is favoring a two state solution and supporting efforts to go in that direction. And and that that is the way that the presidency will also work on these issues during the six months. Thank you. Yes. Another question that we have a lot of questions and from Michael coil, could the state secretary comment on the impact of the sanctions against Russia. Have you a sense of of the impact that they are having in Russia. One reads that their economy is not as bad as we expected they're receiving help from elsewhere. What is your view state secretary on the impact of the sanctions. I will only refer to those studies that are out there and they seem to indicate that the impact has in there indeed being quite substantial for the Russian economy. And they will continue to be substantial. And that we are not. We have sanctions on important input for for the the oil and gas industry will in the longer term play or in the medium term or fairly soon play play an even more important role. So there should be no doubt that the sanctions has played has played an important role from that angle, what is now important as well is to see to that they are not so respected and that they are full respected. And that's something which an Irish has a specific role to play, namely David Salam, who is has been coming to the EU system again in order to help the EU member states and the institutions to to see to that the sanctions are being respected. No, so my take is that the now take is that the sanctions have been very important, not only not as a symbolic measure, but as a substantive measure. They have also had substantive, a substantive effect for individual Russians, who have been considered particularly, I would say, being part of the of the efforts when it comes from Russian side when it comes to this unacceptable war against Ukraine. Yes, yes, David Salam was stolen from the Institute as director general to go to I know to be the to be the sanctions are. It's not it's not an easy task I think and also there's the intention to set up a permanent unit in the commission to deal with sanctions which of course would track would track sanctions right across the board. I ask you, I have a question that I would like to ask you about the migration policy, State Secretary. It's, it's one of the most difficult policies to get to pull together in the EU, it has been for years. There's a resurgence of migration from outside the EU. It's just very difficult to see how it can be pulled together given the different attitudes to migrants coming into the EU, and to try and get a legal form of migration. Are you optimistic that in the Swedish presidency you could move it forward to try to solve what is an extremely difficult issue. We have experienced including our own increase. So there is a real demand to focus in this area. Yeah, no, I think one needs to do a distinction between the short term challenge we are facing right now, which is particularly true for, I think three member states. One is Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, which over the last couple of months has had a substantive increase of irregular migrants coming into their respective countries. Some of them has the right for international protection, many of them have not. And, and that has created a very strong, I think wish from member states of looking on in particular the external borders and see how they can be strengthened. That was the result of the latest European Council. And the work on that is now going on. It has to do with infrastructure, it has to do with migration management is that to do with concrete support via Frontex at the border as such. But it also has to do with fighting even even more efficiently. The international organized crime that are administrating this irregular migration from from countries outside EU. And finally it has to do with strengthening the partnership with the countries of source and countries countries of transit. So it's, on the one hand, helping them to build up the necessary instruments and administrative capacity to handle migration by themselves, controlling their own external border, but also to be clear to them. I'm thinking on particularly countries of source that our, we expect them to readmit their own citizens. But if we don't do that, it will have consequences for our relations. And, and what came out very strongly was this whole government approach, which means that we're not only thinking in terms of migration, but we also thinking in terms of how does that interplay with visa policy, trade policy and development policy. I, as being worked quite a lot with countries of source and of transit in my previous position, I believe strongly that this is the right way forward, because it's a bit odd that we should that countries from which citizens are coming refuse to to submit them to them countries when they have no right to be in the European Union. That is the short term elements that right now are being implemented slightly longer term. We have the migration pact. And there I am quite optimistic that Member States and European Parliament will be able to land that one in accordance with the roadmap that has been set up. And that is running from from now until next year at this time around this time. And here the challenge is to find this balance between on the one side responsibility for those countries for all countries, but in particular for those countries where the migration is coming in and solidarity from those countries within the country pressure is not the same. And I think the elements that the commission has set out and which are now being negotiated is the right balance is the right is the right elements that are there. Now it's time now it is you is to find the right balance. And in that migration pack there is also elements of legal migration, because on the same time as we have this challenge of irregular migration that needs to be handled. There are elements of scene to that we have a functional asylum policy which lifts up to our, our, our commitments when it comes to international law. We also need to see to that we have a policy of legal migration that holds water, and we know that that's an area where we probably will have more of an interest to have it functioning as we are looking ahead, given the development of our own workforce. So, these elements comes together in the migration pack and on your on your question, or yes, I am cautiously optimistic that this will fall into place. And during the Swedish president so we are going to work in particular on two elements which has to do with external border. One is the Euro deck, which has to do with the, with the information systems as such, and the other elements is about screening, which has a link towards the information system but which makes it more easy and more, more, more comprehensive when it comes to screening those migrants that comes over the border when they come over the border. Thank you very much indeed for that comprehensive reply. I think as I mentioned that Ireland is struggling as well with with a significant increase in numbers so a future path for dealing with with thought is an extremely difficult situation would be would be very, very helpful. In your case, in your case is primarily Ukrainians isn't it. You know, we have seen a significant increase from arrivals outside Europe, I think at one stage it was really a thousand. And yes, but that are 70,000 plus, but also a very significant increase in in migrants from outside of Europe. And as you say, it's difficult to distinguish between those who are genuine migrants and those who are requiring the treatment as migrants and that is just the problem. Inevitably states that we've come to a question about you UK relations. It's, it's how you're speaking here in Ireland and what do you think is the future of the UK relations, how do you see it I know Sweden and the UK have been and are particularly close and but how do you see the future of the EU UK relation. Well, I mean, I don't want to comment on the on the Brexit as such but only perhaps to say that you rightly pointed to that we work very closely with with United Kingdom. We're members of the EU and and it's of course unfortunate that they're not there anymore but that was a decision by the British people so that that were who are we to have any views on that. For the future. We have an agreement and the first thing is to see to that that agreement is being respected fully and that's why the discussions of the Northern Ireland protocol is so essential. And here we stand all together. The European Union and its member states. And I'm my understanding is that the, the discussions on a ghost or whatever we should call it between the Commission and the British government is, as I put it is ongoing and and our hope is that they will lead to a to result, which means that we can come out of that particular particular issue which has been there for quite some time now too long time. So, so that is on the Northern Ireland protocol. And as I said it's so not I mean there is this tendency from time to time to say well not an island but why is that important. It is absolutely essential for for Northern Ireland to be part of the single market that needs to be guarantees that we can trust whatever comes out of Northern Ireland that goes into the single market so full respect for that and fully behind the position of the EU from and and the unit is very very strong for the future. Well, there are there are elements of possible possibilities of developing the agreement that was reached. And to the extent that this is something that is going to be of interest for the United Kingdom and for the EU we would be probably among those who would say that would be a good thing. It would see to that that we can either have an even richer relation with the United Kingdom outside the but we're not there yet. Let's start now to see to that the what needs to be addressed needs to be addressed and that is the Northern Ireland protocol. Yes. Yes. Thank you and we all have a high hopes for that and hope that that can be can be addressed and we can move forward from that. The security and defence letter that was obligated we'd very much like to see obviously a security and defence relationship with with the United Kingdom. State Secretary you were responsible for quite some time for enlargement. We have a very large number of applicants in the waiting room. How what is your view about the speed that that is likely to to move obviously Ukraine has come in with strong moral pressure. Well over there also but also the Balkan member states who have been waiting for quite some time. Could I have you the view of your view and the presidency view as to how it might move or will there be quite a long lag. Well I think the the process as such is is well known and well understood. It's merit based and therefore it's linked to the ability of the country's concern to take on the the rather challenging commitments that you need to put in place to become a member of the EU and and it's both the technical ones which are by themselves quite substantive but it is also what we call the fundamentals which is the guarantee institutions that or other institutions that guarantee democracy rule of law respectful minorities. And on that one I think all of all the countries concerned are working very hard in order for that to happen and but there are still issues that needs to be addressed that goes for western Balkan that goes also for Ukraine. I mean there were seven conditions that were put when they got the Canada status is true for Moldova and it's true for Georgia. Now when they are able to move ahead, the process will move ahead and therefore it's very difficult to say anything about timelines. But what I have observed is that there is a I think has always been an openness from member states for the enlargement process every year. There has been manifested in manifested in conclusions from the from the council when on enlargement so that that has always been that political commitment that EU is a will enlarge when the countries are ready to become members of the EU. But what I think one sense now is that there has been more of a stronger priority to these issues. And that I think has to do with what we have seen the Russian war, but also the way that the world has developed and a recognition that for the EU. It is essential that these countries who would like to become members of the EU and happens to be our neighbors that they can develop in that direction. If I'm put it bluntly is like previous commission and put it, we have a choice of exporting stability or importing instability. And there's something in it. And I wouldn't say that that goes for all of them but that's something in it and stability by moving towards becoming members of the EU is probably true in terms of putting the various structures in place. So that's that's how I see it. I also I asked had a meeting today in fact with ambassadors from the Western Balkan campus here in Sweden and it's very clear that there is a determination on their side to to move ahead and I was last week in Kiev. It's very clear that the decisiveness of the Ukrainians to move in this direction and wanting to to do the necessary forms in that way going forward in the accession process. So that's where we are. And I think we will see over the coming years that this issue will be on the agenda and hopefully we will see further progress from the country's concern and thereby them moving forward to moving closer towards the EU. And but the timeline is something that is being going to be decided by their ability to take on the, the commitments that are called for. Thank you very much indeed for that. I suppose one can see that that's from an awful situation or war situation. There's something positive, more of a gathering of views that in in the European direction, rather than just coasting along as as things have been going. Yes, State Secretary we are very close to the end. Just one last question. What do you see as the biggest challenge to the single market. We are 30 years now in the single market and Sweden is a big trading nation. What do you, what would you see as the single biggest challenge for the single market. I do see that the single market continues to be a single market. And what it means in concrete terms is to continuously address the temptation by member states to put into place various kinds of measures that the factor is going to run contrary to the single market. And that is everything from abuse of state aid to various forms of of legislation which happens to be designed in such a way that they're particularly friendly towards the production from the country in the country itself and this this temptation is there at all levels. It could be at the local level it could be also at the leader. So that's I think is one element which is important. I'd like to mention another one and that is to continuously develop the single market. And that means being able to see to that the digital environment that we are going to live in. And that also means a single market that is not only in name but also in substance. It means services seriously becoming a single market for services, which has been a very big challenge over the last over the last couple of years. Okay, I think we all need to reflect on the legislation and the latest burden. There is also always a temptation to go for legislative instruments in order to address issues that are coming up. And doing that seem to that it doesn't become another layer on the layer on the layer, which leads to Europe and European industry being less less less less able to to compete, but also less able to create that prosperity and economic growth that is pending our system, underpinning democracy and rule of law, and which is essential for us to be able to to project in order to stand up against these other systems that are around. And that that we are the factor competing with today to an extent that was not the case a couple of years ago. So here you have a bit how I see it into the single market. Yes, that's a very good. That's very good advice, I think to each of the member states to look at things. And also the layers on layers of bureaucracy that certainly in a number of areas inhibit productivity, which we do need to look at compared to other areas and other trading trading networks, certainly from an Irish point of view, we would welcome services and digital added on, and we wish you well in in trying to bring that forward. State Secretary Danielson thank you so much for giving your time at this, as I say challenge in time for the Swedish presidency, we wish you the best of. It isn't the correct word, but we wish you that all the efforts of the presidency which we can see already are considerable will bear fruit during the six months. I know you have on the first of June the European political community as well to cope with. We have seven member states there. So good wishes go to you. And for a very successful presidency in a difficult situation. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. Thank you. And thank you to members who are joining us. Bye bye for the moment. We'll be seeing you again.


Here I am standing in the heart of Sant and CBD outside of Blackbrick. Now Blackbrick is a company doing something really different in the residential market and I think it is so cool. Behind me is one of their flagship developments, a vertical village that is pioneering the way through workspace and living and how they intermingle together and it's going to change the way you view it forever more. I have not only developed an exceptional product but also put an exceptional amount of thought into how to enhance how people connect and helping their residents achieve their individual goals within that living environment. If you're looking to advance your career, they have weekly guest talks. From corporate CEOs to multimedia personalities, Blackbrick is bringing you those TED Talks live and right to your door. If enhancing your social circle is more your thing, then they have not one but two cafes as well as a bar, gym and yoga studio, they also have weekly games nights for you to meet new people and create lasting relationships. And if just spending some time on your own while enjoying the convenience of living in Sant is what you're looking for, Blackbrick offers three styles of apartments, so stick with me and we're going to show you all that this vertical village has to offer because you really do not want to miss out. To the studio apartment, which is the smallest of the three apartments we're going to be touring today, the first thing you notice is the mixture of textures and colors and characters that gives us room a lot of character. The first and foremost would be this black facebrick wall. As the namesake of the building goes, I think that's a really cool touch. But not only this is black, so are all the taps in the apartment. So your sink taps, the mixer tap, as well as the taps in the bathroom. Now talking about the bathroom, you've got a walking shower with a glass front door. You've also got a big vanity as well as a mirror and plenty of under sink storage. There's also quite a bit of storage in the kitchen. You've got your under counter storage for your appliances, as well as your built-in stove and oven and there is space for a large single door fridge. Now moving a bit further into this apartment, you'll notice that not only is there quite a bit of storage space in a studio apartment this size, but also quite a lot of space in general. I have to admit I love just how much space and air and specifically light you find in a studio apartment like this with this window behind me. It's incredible. All the apartments also have aircon. So you're going to be kept cool on days like these. Now another very cool thing. Now Black Brick has got three locations, one in Santon, one in Cape Town and another one soon to be launching just across the road. Now these locations all tie into this card because if you are a member, you can access any of those locations. If you're in Cape Town and you're really looking for a swim, go and enjoy the pool in Cape Town. If you're here in Santon and you want to go sit in the cinema across the road at their other flagship, you can walk across there, swipe in with this card and you've got access to it, which is awesome. Isn't it? Isn't that community just so cool? You hardly see stuff like that launching essay and I love what Black Brick is doing. But they are looking at launching locations all over the world. So hear me out. You're in Munich. You need to answer some work emails.  So I love the way they've turned this into such a rewarding membership program. But let's talk about those amenities and let's not just talk about them. Let's show you them. So let's go take a look. The third floor is where our studio apartment was located. But this third floor has a few hidden gems up its sleeve. Off the hallway, you'll find a library where you can take some quiet time to enjoy a few books or brush up with some magazine reading. Opposite the library, however, you'll find the conversation room, a place just like its name, where you could find Black Brick hosting conversations with leaders of industry or something as enjoyable as a game tonight. So if you're a killer at 30 seconds, this is going to be one of your favorite places in the building. And here we are, fourth floor. Penthouse suite last is most certainly not least when it comes to the offering of the Black Brick Apartment Block. Now, this kitchen shares those same design cues as the studio and the one bedroom does with the gray cladding and the black accent on all of the taps. But what is different is there's a lot of space behind me for a nice seating area there on your dining room table. You can share breakfast with family and with friends. There's also a downstairs guest toilet. Now, moving into the lounge, we've got plenty of space. You can put your 65 inch flat screen on the TV and this old shaped couch shows you just how uncrammed a two bedroom apartment like this feels. There are also two windows on the walls giving you so much space and light flooding in. But it also affords you a really nice view of the hustle and bustle of Santon. And can you imagine what the night times must look here with all the Santon lights flooding through the windows? Now, upstairs are two bedrooms, both with in-suite bathrooms. But before we get to that, I wanna talk about the design cues. And these design cues go throughout every single apartment we've shown you. There's tons of minimalism incorporated into the design of this complex. Black brick is an industrial building and it feels like that, but in the most comforting way. You've got your metal light racks where your light housing is fitted. You've got your poured concrete ceilings and you've got that textured tiled back splash behind your cooktop that brings in the warmth through those textures and features that a normal industrial complex would never have. And I appreciate it and I'm sure you will too. The upstairs bedrooms both share the feature black brick wall. Both bathrooms have walking showers with glass fissades as well as the vanity with under sink storage. There's plenty of cover space in both bedrooms. However, the master bedroom has a killer feature and that is those two windows overlooking the Santon skyline and all the way down to Rosebank. I don't think there's anything better than waking up in the morning or going to sleep at night with a Santon skyline twinkling above you and that Michelangelo tower just really giving you such a feel of living in the city. I decided to change into something a little bit more comfortable to show you the rest of the amenities within black brick. Let's talk about this one bedroom apartment right here. Now the bedroom is separate from the hallway by sliding glass doors, which gives you a perfect place to sleep in quiet while also giving you a little bit of an airy and open feel because of the glass. But moving into the living area, we've got the kitchen and the dining area and your living area put together in a very space saving way and I love how they've done it because you can whip up a snack behind me while still watching your favorite TV program and the cherry on top within the department and within this building as a whole is the artwork you'll see throughout by South African artist Sarah Grace. Now what black brick likes to do is host competitions for South African artists affording them the opportunity to be commissioned for specific buildings and this building, black brick sand and you'll find Sarah Grace's artistry all throughout the building, within the apartments, within the common areas, within the hallways and even in the parking lot. So within black brick sand and a staple throughout all the apartments within the kitchen and in the bathroom, it brings such a cool touch and really conjoins it with those feature black walls. The vibe you get in this place is second to none and you fall in love with it so quickly. I'm sure you've seen at this point in time that a lot comes with this little card right here but right now you're gonna go watch a movie. That is right, black brick sand and comes with its very own inbuilt cinema that you can book to spend some quality time with whoever matters to you and right now I think it's time for me to kick back, relax and watch a movie. Now this cinema comes with an overhead projector and a huge screen right in front of you and Netflix built in. So all you need to do is book this baby and you can sit down and have access to hundreds of movies whenever you want. So you go grab the popcorn and I'm gonna meet you right here. No play within black brick sand and there is a fully kitted out gym on the top floor, something that all residents can take advantage of and right now as you can see, I'm pumping some iron, I'm keeping the health up and after this I'm gonna wanna come down, relax and enjoy the sights and for that we're gonna be showing you the meditation and the yoga room. This gym includes dumbbells, kettlebells, two benches as well as a tread machine and a salt bike if you really wanna get your crossfit going. There are three punching bags for you to let out a little bit of that steam and as I mentioned before upstairs, there's a yoga studio. So coming upstairs from the gym once you've completed your work and you want some time to relax there is a sun area located above even the bar giving you an incredible view of the Santa City skyline and some sunbeds there to work on your tan.  A little place of quiet and relaxation where you can ease out all the stresses of the work week. And what kind of sky rise in Santa would this be without a rooftop bar, a place for budding in tropinures and flourishing socialites to survey their kingdom. But this bar doesn't just come with a beautiful view. What it does come with is a whole host of furniture, two gas brides and these beautiful day beds behind me for you to use whenever you want. However, that is not even the cherry on top of the cake about this bar. What it is though is we have got a bartender that will serve all of your needs every day from midday ice on tap. You guys can come up here and have the best time. But right now what I want to do is I want to park myself off on this day bed and visualize myself sipping a cocktail and enjoying the sunsets right here at this bar. And if you can do the same thing, what I'd like you to do is contact black brick and inquire about their latest developments and any availability that they have. All of their details are going to be on screen right now. So for myself Chad and the entire team at Private Property thank you so much for joining us on another episode of the Home Shopper Show and we're going to see you next time. Goodbye.


We seem to become inured to the mortal threat of obesity. If you go back in the medical literature a half century or so, when obesity wasn't just run-of-the-mill, the descriptions are much more grim. Obesity is always tragic, and its hazards are terrifying. But it's not just obesity. Of the 4 million deaths every year attributed to excess body fat, nearly 40% of the victim are just overweight, not obese. According to two famous Harvard studies, weight gain of as little as 11 pounds from early adulthood through middle age increases the risk of major chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The flip side, though, is that even modest weight loss can have major health benefits. What's the optimal BMI? The largest studies in the United States and around the world found that having a normal body mass index, a BMI from 20 to 25, is associated with the longest lifespan. Put all the best available studies with the longest follow-up together, and that can be narrowed down even further to a BMI of 20 to 22. That would be about between 124 to 136 pounds for someone who stands 5 foot 6. You can pause the video here to use this unisex chart to see what your optimal weight might be based on your height. But even with a normal BMI, the risk of developing chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and several types of cancer starts to rise towards the upper end, even starting as low as a BMI of 21. A BMI of 18.5 and 24.5 are both considered within the normal range, but a BMI of 24.5 may be associated with twice the heart disease risk compared to 18.5. Look at this diabetes graph among women. A 5-fold difference in diabetes rates all within the so-called ideal range under 25. Just as there are gradations of risk within a normal BMI range, there is a spectrum within obesity. Class III obesity, a BMI over 40, can be associated with a loss of a decade of life or more. At a BMI greater than 45, such as a 5 foot 6 person at 280 pounds, life expectancy may shrink to that of a cigarette smoker. There are, however, so-called obesity skeptics that argue that the health consequences of obesity are unclear or even greatly exaggerated. They are a motley bunch, ranging from feminist, queer theorists, and new-ages to far right-wing pro-gun pro-America websites where the idea is that obesity alarmists are nanny state communists who simply want to stop us from having fun. Unlike activists who, for example, organized to raise consciousness and stamp out the AIDS epidemic, the size acceptance movement appears to have the opposite goal, rallying for less public awareness and treatment of the problem. They do have good slogans, though. We're here. We're spheres. Get used to it. I'm all for fighting size, stigma, and discrimination. I have a whole section on weight stigma in my new book, but the adverse health consequences of obesity are an established scientific fact. Can't you be fat but fit? In a study of more than 600 centenarians, those living over 100, only about 1% of the women and not a single one of the men were obese.  This raised the possibility that there may be such a thing as benign obesity or healthy obesity. It may just be a matter of time, though, before the risk factors develop. And even if they don't follow long enough, even quote-unquote, metabolically healthy obese individuals are at increased risk of diabetes and fatty liver disease and cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and or premature death. Bottom line, there is strong evidence that so-called healthy obesity is a myth. Many fat activists try to downplay the risk of obesity, even as they may be among the epidemic's greatest victims. You know, Lynn McCaffey is the Director of Medical Advocacy for the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, and routinely takes part in obesity conferences and government panels on obesity. I'm not actually particularly that interested in health.