Transcript: Will Germany lead Nato?

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Will Germany lead Nato? ’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, February 15th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt is ready to make some big cuts to public spending, and Germany is trying to beef up its military. Plus, the FT’s Madison Marriage discusses the dangers of some meditation retreats.

Madison Marriage
My sources would say that they seem to kind of maximise psychological disruption so sleep deprivation limited calorie intake, limited physical movement . . . 

Marc Filippino
I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Sources tell the FT that Jeremy Hunt is considering cutting billions of pounds in public spending. And the reason that’s even on the table is that he wants to make tax cuts. These tax cuts are really important to Hunt because his Conservative party is doing poorly in the polls. In the run-up to the UK’s general election, Conservatives are behind the Labour party by nearly 20 points. The problem is that Hunt can’t turn to borrowing money to finance these tax cuts. Interest rates are so high that it would be just too expensive so he’s considering cutting public spending instead. Hunt is expected to say more about the UK’s budget plans on March 6th.

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Nato defence ministers are meeting in Brussels today, and a recent comments from former US President Donald Trump will loom over that gathering. The presidential candidate said he would support Russia attacking Nato allies if they didn’t contribute enough money to the defence fund.

Donald Trump audio clip
No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.

Marc Filippino
It’s a warning that American support for Europe might just depend on who wins the November election in the US, and this increases the already intense pressure on Germany to step up its military capabilities. Here to talk to us about this is the FT’s Berlin bureau chief Guy Chazan. Hey, Guy.

Guy Chazan
Hi.

Marc Filippino
All right, so get us up to speed. What’s the security situation like right now both for Germany and Europe more broadly?

Guy Chazan
Well, generally, you know, Europe has a big war still raging. Obviously, in Ukraine, we’re talking about sort of, you know, 1.5 hours flying time from Berlin. So the Europeans are very, very acutely aware of Russia’s aggressive imperialism. So there’s a real sense of urgency at the moment in Europe about rearming, about recreating that deterrent capability to make sure that they’re not next on Vladimir Putin’s list.

Marc Filippino
And that urgency, Guy, I can only imagine that it’s falling on Germany pretty hard right now, especially because it’s one of Europe’s biggest and richest countries. So how is it looking to step up?

Guy Chazan
The problem is that Germany has been underspending on defence for many, many years. Nato took a decision in 2014 that its member states should spend at least 2 per cent of GDP on the military. And Germany has never met that goal. This year will actually be the first year that it has ever done that. And that’s largely because of the Ukraine war, just a few days after the start of the war, Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, gave a very important speech where he described the war as a watershed moment in German history. And it essentially meant that Germany had to start to get serious about restoring its defence capabilities, which had become very, very depleted after the end of the cold war. Scholz said that from now on, we will be hitting the 2 per cent goal that Nato prescribed in 2014. And he also created a €100bn special investment fund for the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, which has been allowing it to make big weapons procurements that had been held up for many years.

Marc Filippino
OK, how’s that going so far? I mean, is this big funding package enough to update Germany’s military?

Guy Chazan
Well, that is the key question. The investment fund, as I say, is €100bn. And the problem is that Scholz and his government have been using it to reach the 2 per cent goal. Now, that fund will be used up by about 2027, when all these enormous procurement programmes have been accounted for. And the big question then is: what happens after the fund has dried up? So there is this long-term lack of clarity about German defence spending. And that is causing a lot of anxiety in the defence establishment.

Marc Filippino
How important is it for Europe that Germany gets this right?

Guy Chazan
It’s extremely important because Germany really, at the moment — thanks to this big Bundeswehr investment fund — Germany is actually the biggest spender on the military in Europe. Its budget, military budget has expanded massively. That is seen as very important because Europe is very much under pressure now to do more to provide security, especially with the looming sort of prospect of Trump getting into the White House for a second term. It’s going to have to really look to itself, look to its own resources and try and boost its own defence capability. And Germany is an absolute linchpin of those efforts. So if it fails to get it right, then really, that does not bode well for the rest of Europe either.

Marc Filippino
Guy Chazan as the FT’s Berlin bureau chief. Thanks, Guy.

Guy Chazan
Thank you.

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Marc Filippino
Citigroup is making its private bankers report all of their phone calls with clients. This is a new tactic for Citigroup to boost its wealth management division, which has been struggling lately. The company is also telling bankers to call each of their clients every 90 days. A lot of bankers, they’re not happy about this. They think it’s a waste of time, but it looks like employees don’t have a tonne of other options out there right now. Global banks eliminated tens of thousands of jobs in 2023, and Citigroup is expecting to cut 20,000 positions this year.

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The FT has a new investigative podcast out now. It’s called Untold: The Retreat. It’s a four-part deep dive into the dark side of meditation. In particular, one network of intense retreats which are widely known as Vipassana retreats. The FT’s Special Investigations editor, Madison Marriage, has been speaking to people who went on these retreats. She joins me now to tell me more. Hi, Madison.

Madison Marriage
Hi, Marc.

Marc Filippino
OK, so what exactly are these retreats that we’re talking about?

Madison Marriage
So the funny thing about these retreats is if you’ve never heard of them, you’ve never heard of them. But once you have heard of them, you’re quite likely to start meeting people who’ve signed up to them. And otherwise, they’re really popular. They are typically 10-day courses. You tend to hand in your phone and keys on day one, and then you settle down for 10 days of intensive meditation, 10 hours a day. And lots of people are really kind of fanatical about them. They think they’re brilliant, really altruistic, the kind of purpose of this network is to really improve people’s lives. And I think that’s important to point out. However, there is a kind of dark underbelly to them, which is, my sources would say that they seem to kind of maximise psychological disruption so sleep deprivation, limited calorie intake, limited physical movement, the ban on making eye contact. Obviously, you’re there in complete silence. And that those things combined can lead a subsection of participants to quite extreme psychological outcomes.

Marc Filippino
Like what?

Madison Marriage
Having a kind of messiah complex? It wasn’t unusual. So quite a few people who told me that effectively, they thought, they became convinced mid-retreat that they were here to save mankind. And actually quite an alarming number of people who became convinced that the only way in which they could achieve that would be by dying — a kind of saviour complex. And, that’s obviously extremely concerning.

Marc Filippino
Yeah, I can imagine. I’m curious though, the meditation industry isn’t something we usually cover here at the Financial Times. Why did you investigate this?

Madison Marriage
So it ended up being on my radar because I was emailed by a concerned father last January, nearly a year ago, who said that his now-adult twin daughters had drastically changed after becoming involved in this organisation. They ended up having quite devastating breakdowns. And he was really worried. And as soon as I started kind of digging around into it, I could see how widespread these retreats were. How many people had signed up to them but also quite a few kind of red flags on social media and blog posts from individuals who signed up to them and said that they had also encountered something quite scary.

Marc Filippino
Madison, for people who aren’t super aware of the meditation industry, why is this story important? What are the broader takeaways from a story like this?

Madison Marriage
So I think the common thread that links my investigations together is abuse of power. And normally when I talk about abuse of power, there’s a kind of powerful figure at the centre of an organisation who is exploiting people for their own gain, whether it’s wealth or power or sex. That doesn’t apply in this instance. So it is an unusual investigation for me. But I do think this organisation has power over the individuals that sign up to the courses and that it’s, it is not doing right by those people in terms of looking after their welfare. And as a result, people are suffering.

Marc Filippino
Madison Marriage is the FT’s special investigations editor. Thank you, Madison.

Madison Marriage
Thanks, Marc.

Marc Filippino
You can listen to all four episodes of Untold: The Retreat wherever you get your podcasts.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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