Catherine Field: Europe Correspondent on Biden approving long-range missile use for Ukraine

Joe Biden's approval of long-range missile use for Ukraine has been met with a mixed reaction in Europe.  

Hungary's Foreign Minister has called the decision desperate, but Poland's President says it's a decisive move which will allow Ukraine to defend itself from Russian aggression.  

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is being criticised for a call he made to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Europe Correspondent Catherine Field told Mike Hosking he didn't strike the right tone.  

She says it was felt that the phone call hadn't been approved by other allies. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Did France Casman feel very good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Make Now how angsty are we given what Biden's done
in the last twenty four to forty eight hours.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I think everyone's very angsty. And when you look at
the reaction, not just to that announcement from President Biden
giving Ukraine permission to use those US made short range
weapons to use them inside Russia. There's also concern that
the German Chancellor Schultz was just out of line by

(00:31):
making this phone call to Putin just the last couple
of days. It was felt that this was a phone
call that hadn't been cleared by the allies. It didn't
give the right message to Vledimir Putin that the war
in Ukraine had to end and he had to end it.
And it came just as the allies, in particular France,
the US, the UK were all trying to get together

(00:55):
to decide who was going to phone Putin and what
they were going to say. So a lot of unhappiness
about that. There's also a lot of unhappiness not just
from these allies but also from the Polish government saying, look,
Germany should be doing more, It should have stepped up
and really put forward the possibility of supplying those long

(01:16):
range cruise missiles to Ukraine. However, Mike, as we know,
there's a lot of public support in Germany for Ukraine,
but the German Chancellor, of facing elections next year, is
just so fearful that Germany could get dragged into the war.
But he just doesn't want to take that. Show.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
A question to come out of that, one of you
partially answered, was he acting Schultz unilaterally? If so, why
and if that's the case, does that, in some way,
shape or form show what an inep did he it
he is in terms of his government collapsing in the
last couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
I think that's pretty much yes to all of his questions. Mike. Yes,
he was acting unilateral, and there are allegations that he
was acting simply from an electoral point of view. He's
got these elections coming up to deal with his party
who feel that he's just been a dud chancellor and
he's dud for the party and they may well ditch
him ahead of the election. So it was pretty much
a domestic political act on his part, all right.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
So then we come to Marina Penn who, along with
her fellow operators isn't caught at the moment, and I
note this is due to be wrapped up at the
end of November and they're asking for a couple of
years in jail. So several part questions is she in trouble,
is she going to jail? And where where's that whole
the pen movement at She's in a lot of trouble.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I've been to a couple of days of this court
hearing now, which has been going on for about six weeks.
It does look as though there is evidence to convict
her and some twenty other members of her party and
of officials within her party and employees for embezzling funds. Essentially,
what they did, Mike was that when what was in
the National Front were MPs in the European Parliament, they

(02:54):
were taking money as European Parliamentarians and using it to
pay for people to work for the party back in France,
for the French part of the party, and that's in
Belzemontane's We're talking about millions and millions of euros on this,
So it does seem the evidence is there. You do
have to remember though, that this is just the prosecutor's request. Nevertheless,

(03:14):
last Mike. It is pretty clear in the legislation that
was put forward by Parliament version by Parliament that if
she is found guilty on these charges, then there is
an automatic withdrawal of her ability to be able to
stand for public office and to serve in public office
for five years. This is a real nail in her
coffit of the judge decides on that, because that takes

(03:36):
her out of the running for twenty twenty seven presidential election,
which was the one that she's been looking at as
a last possible chance. Certainly, a lot of people say, well,
you know, if she's found guilty, that's the end of it.
Good for her, Off she goes. Others are saying, well,
is this what we really want to see? How we
want to see the end of her career.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Oh, it's a pleasure. Catherine ketchup next week Catherine Field
in front by the way. Just before we leave Europe,
German menu Factor is warn of what they're calling a
formidable crash. So manufacturing is a problem interesting to read
about Germany. Germany once, as I keep saying, the powerhouse
of Europe has completely fallen by the wayside. German firms
have been hit by a number of problems. What are
those problems? Energy prices, that's Europe wired, the Russian invasion,

(04:16):
europe wide general inflation, competition from China, but the rundown
German infrastructure, rail network, bridges wrotes. Who would have thought
that Germany's literally falling apart and just quickly. If you
want something else to worry about out of Europe, palmer
Ham's in trouble, all sorts of diseases in the pigs.
The cost is going up. It's an old family process
or an age ol process from Amelia Ramana. And you

(04:38):
can add it to the oil, you can add it
to the coco, you can add it to the coffee.
Everything's becoming more expensive, if not very very hard to
get hold of. Palmerhm. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
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