Nordic Leaders

39 - Alexander Stubb - On sleep, gratitude and life after politics

• GMV Media / Alexander Stubb • Season 3

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  • What is Alexander Stubb, former prime minister and politician and now Director at the School of Transnational Governance, hopeful about in the future of Europe?
  • How does he manage to achieve so much in life (and does he think of himself as an overachiever)?
  • What's the problem with how media tell the world? And what's their role in the future?
  • How is life after politics?
  • What is leadership in today's world?
  • What can the Nordics export to the rest of the world, and what should they import?
  • Who will win the premier league this season? 

Tune in to hear about these and more into this episode of the Nordic Leaders Podcast.


Mentioned in the show:

Stefano Mosconi:

Hello everyone. And welcome to today's Nordic leaders podcast. I'm Stefano Mosconi, and I will be your host today together with David Goddard and Nick Vertigans. Today we have with us a special guest Alexander Stubb. He's a former politician and he has held several positions in the Finnish government, including prime minister between 2008 and 2016. He also has been a member of the European parliament from 2004 to 2008 and vice president of the European investment bank from 2017 to 2020. Right now, Alexander has gone back to his academic roots and is director and professor at the school of transnational governance at European university Institute, based in Florence, he's an avid sportsman, a golfer, a marathoner, a cyclist, a triathlete. He speaks five languages to which probably we now have to add Italian since he lives in Florence. Is it so Alexander?

Alexander Stubb:

No, no. I had my lesson this morning and it's more like grunting than speaking.

Stefano Mosconi:

So it's like my Finnish then you're also an avid writer. You've wrote 16 books in the last five years. Is that correct? Alex?

Alexander Stubb:

I think a few more. Some of them I edited. so, but it's all in the past.

Stefano Mosconi:

Well, you also are very active on social media. You've wrote a lot of tweets in the last five years and well, in light of all of this, we would like to ask you the first question. Do you cook as well?

Alexander Stubb:

Yeah. I mean, I guess when I'm living my bachelor's life in Florence and the restaurants are closed it does require some cooking skills. I'm not a phenomenal cook, but I do try to put in a fairly good ingredients.

Stefano Mosconi:

So we all pale in comparison to you now that you also can cook that kind of doesn't make me very happy. Anyway. So let's, start with our podcasts. And the first question that we'd like to ask you, it's about your work at the school of transactional governance. the website says that you prepare the leaders of tomorrow in the practice of governance beyond the state. So what we were wondering, What are the keys, things that you believe are really important for leaders today and tomorrow?

Alexander Stubb:

First I'm a former politician, I did a jump into politics from 2004 to pretty much 2016. And then I moved on in life. It's never been. How would I say an obsession of mine nor something that I felt I needed. I was very privileged to do a lot of politics, but I've always seen myself more as a civil servant or an academic as I am right now. Having said that future leaders, our basic thinking is that. Most issues in the world today are transnational. And that basically means that they go beyond national borders decisions don't take place in a vacuum. Everything is somehow connected to everything. So in order for you to understand leadership, you need to understand politics. You need to understand government, you need to understand civil service. You need to understand regulation. You need to understand journalism. You need to understand civil society. You need to understand academia and all kinds of different aspects of society to get a broad picture. So we're very much sort of how would I say liberal arts thinkers of governance and, beyond I don't think there's one particular trait that leadership requires, but I think a lot of the youngsters that we're training at the moment , uh, we have a brand new master's program, what we try to do is give them the impulse to think about things from a broad perspective and analytically. So it's very much a multi-track line rather than a one track line

Stefano Mosconi:

Got it. Well, given that the school is based in Florence, what you described resembles a lot the classical Renaissance man, is that, a chance or is it, done on purpose that the school is in Florence?

Alexander Stubb:

Well, the European university Institute of which we're part was, was founded in Florence in 1973 by then member States of the European union. it's like an international organization or an inter-governmental organization. And right now has 23 out of the 27 member States as it's owners. It also holds the archives of the European union. And our thinking is that, you know, we have one track, whih is the PhDs and the other track, which is the executive training and masters program, and we think the Florence, of course, with its convening power, I still think it's probably the most beautiful city in the world you know, it's a good place for people to think about governance and, and we're able to attract a lot of the superstars of yesterday and today to do it. So basically the school is in Florence because the University is in Florence.

Stefano Mosconi:

You said that everything is connected to everything. In this podcast we had in some previous episodes journalists that are trying to reconnect the words because the social media changes a lot, the way how we experience the world. And they were talking about this very similar thing that now journalism, it's not any more the same, but it's role is even more important. So in, in this world where everything is connected to everything and there's so much that you have to know to be a good leader. how do you think that people can really grasp so much stuff? So what do you tell your students? What is the importance you said, approaching things from a broader perspective. but is there any information overload. how do you pick the right things?

Alexander Stubb:

No I think fact checking is a good starting point and we actually just founded something called EDMO, the European Digital Media Observatory. It's a big project sponsored by the European commission basically to fight fake news. And that's a good start. And I think you're right though. I don't know which journalist you've been speaking to, but I do think that traditional media has a huge responsibility at the moment and it can go one of two ways. One, it can become. How would I say, site noise, information overflow tabloid, press, click, press you know, selling press or a little bit like social media where, you know, there's no real filter to what's what comes out of the system or. Alternatively, it can become serious and try to provide the platform where rational human beings can get a sense of what the reality is. The problem today, I think is that a lot of different platforms, both traditional media and social media. They should not be escaping this We're creating virtual realities, and so for instance, let's take the United States as an example. I think a lot of the supporters of Donald Trump were probably living in a virtual reality, which had very little to do with facts, but because they liked it and it sounded good, they were prepared to vote for Donald Trump. But I, I think it's a job with the media to try to sort this out. and that's why I think that, you know, when it's freedom of speech with traditional media comes a hell of a lot of responsibility. I'm just not convinced that all traditional media can cope with this. Yeah. the journalists we were talking to.

Stefano Mosconi:

he's the head of artificial intelligence at YLE. And his name is Jarno Koponen and he was talking about alternative realities created by these bubbles inside the social media. What about you guys? What have you heard?

Nick Vertigans:

Thanks guys. Alex. Well, one thing you described yourself as a former politician, what's it like to be a former politician?

Alexander Stubb:

Oh, it's very liberating. I mean, you know, I've said this before and I said it in my end of second quarter of life memoir as well. You know, the moment when I lost the leadership challenge in June, 2016 I gave my goodbye to the media. And after that, it was basically all smiles I think when you've grown up in a world where politics is not in your DNA or it hasn't been, you know, your planned life and at the same time, you basically achieved everything that you can in politics. You can only. be grateful and show gratitude. I think a lot of former politicians have a tendency to feel rejected and many of them become bitter and that's the wrong way to go about it. I've had a wonderful experience and I can now use that experience. for other purposes, for instance Chairman of the Board of CMI, Matti Ahtisaari's peace foundation, or working as a Professor and Director at the European University Institute at the moment. I had always planned to go back to academia, as I said, early on. And now of course, I, hopefully I can, I can give some of my insights, some of my experience, not only to the students, but to the professors around the world.

Nick Vertigans:

Hmm, that's interesting. And I think David might ask a few questions later on about resilience, but right now I'm interested in gratitude. You mentioned gratitude a few times and being positive and you come across as a very positive guy, but where does that come from? How do you, where do you get your positivity from?

Alexander Stubb:

Well, some of it's probably genetic I think both of my parents , uh, my Mother, s was - she passed away in 2008 - but my Dad is still around, active and he's always had an extremely positive approach on life, in, in a good kind of, way. I have to be grateful for that because I, at the end of the day, it's, it's kind of, you know, nicer to have more good moments than bad moments. It's, it's better to be an optimist than a pessimist, at least in my mind. Positivity, I think also feeds upon itself if a certain driver, so, you know, something good happens and that will then lead to something else. it's also an element of resilience there that even if you know, you screw up or something, doesn't go as you wanted it to go, you're able to bounce back pretty quickly. Some of it probably also comes from not only nature, but nurture. I mean, sports is a big part of my life has always been. In sports early on you learn that, you know, you win some, you lose some And if you keep that attitude in life, I think you go, fairly far, but I must also admit that that some of this stuff is just pure luck. You're in the right place at the right time. Yeah.

Nick Vertigans:

The harder you work, the luckier you get, you work quite hard. I believe.

Alexander Stubb:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was actually Gary player South African golfer, who said that he always wore black and I think he had a few well US Opens British Opens and Masters under his belt, if I recall correctly. And I think he's 80 plus now and still in great shape and works hard at the gym. Yeah, working hard is a big part of it. But, I also think, you have to have targets in life, I believe in having targets. Goals towards which you work. They don't always work out. But you know, planning is, is half of what you do. And, and I, I put in a lot of work with everything that I do. So when I was young and I wanted to become a professional ice hockey player. I worked at it a lot when I wanted to become a professional golfer. I work to did a lot. Well, they didn't work out, but then when I wanted to become an academic, I, I, you know, from a BA early on, I decided I'm going to do a PhD. And that requires a lot of, well, how would I say, you know glute muscles, if you will, if nothing, nothing else. And then the same thing that went with politics. I mean, you really have to study or stuff. You have to know your stuff. if you want to manage.

Nick Vertigans:

Indeed. So thinking about targets and goals and plans, what is the plan for you?

Alexander Stubb:

Well right now, the plan is basically to set up if not the best, one of the best governance schools in the world in Florence, We want to become the Kennedy School of Governance of Europe. And it's an extremely exciting project in the sense that, you know, when I well, was actually interviewed for the post, it was a typical long academic process, but when I was interviewed and, and then accepted on the first 31st of January last year we were only 30 people at the time with faculty and staff and fellows. By the end of the year, we had faculty staff Fellows and the new batch of Master students, and that had brought us up to a hundred. By the end of this year will be 200 people. And by the end of 2022, 2023, it will be 300 people. and next summer we'll move into a new building downtown Florence. So it's a lot of sort of exciting stuff that, that drives me right now. And, and you know, I used to sort of live in 2-year cycles, I guess then when you grow a little bit older, you get married, you get kids the cycle is a little bit longer, but, I don't look that far ahead. I let things happen. And right now this project for me is it's a five-year contract. So it's at least a five-year project.

Nick Vertigans:

Yeah. And what kind of leadership is required of you to bring this project to fruition? You mentioned, the Kennedy School over in the States, what's required of you to make that happen?

Alexander Stubb:

Yeah, apart from good delegation. I think the starting point is respect and respect of the whole team. So there is I would assume a certain element of excitement of the fact that, you know, you have a former prime minister who comes back into the academic sphere and wants to train. What's probably expected of me is team building and institution building. And for me, that's always been a sort of instrumental personal contact. I happened to become good friends with people I work with. I know some people have a hard time with that, but I've always felt that, you know, I've kind of enjoyed that part of it. For me, that's, you know, motivating and I, I learn a lot myself. Secondly, apart from team building and, and motivating the different teams I'm expected to do fundraising. Yeah, because we're supposed to be 50-50 self-sufficient by 2024. Thirdly I'm supposed to do branding. So basically getting the school known globally, and I hope I've taken it to a certain extent to the next level. But essentially of course I think apart from the monetary side of things, and apart from the branding side, I want to have people who enjoy the work that they do. And I want to have students who learn and can go home and then spread the word. So two concrete things I did straight in the beginning. One was to set up a strategy exercise because we didn't really have a, strategy with ownership for faculty and staff. So I, you know, huddled everyone in albeit virtually with a facilitator, we actually ended up using a company called Fjord that helped us out and came up with a strategy, which we're going to publish at the end of the month. And secondly I reworked our organigram, which everyone who has been in different office will understand that organigrams are quite sensitive because it boxes people in. But I wanted that to be an inclusive process as well. So I wanted people to explain to me, you know, what they felt that their job was. And from that we were then able to slot people in. And for me, at least so far, it's worked out.

Nick Vertigans:

Excellent. And I'm going to hand over to David shortly, but just to pick up on a point that you had to do this virtually, what is the, what is the difference between Alec Stubb face-to-face and Alec Stubb virtual?

Alexander Stubb:

Nah, virtuallI he usually wears very sloppy clothing you know, just shorts and t-shirts and things like that. No, I don't think that there's that much of a difference. It's got good sides and bad sides. So when I started officially on the 1st of May, I had already had the time to work unofficially for three months online. And I had had the chance to go to Florence twice to interview and subsequently hire five new permanent Professors. So that was very good that, you know, I could get both the physical experience and then the virtual roundups. Then it was wonderful in the next stage to go to Florence for a week when the lockdowns were relaxed a little bit in the summer to, to meet the staff and the faculty. And then finally when I moved to Florence from the 1st of September, we've been, you know, like anyone juggling between the virtual, the hybrid and the physical world. But it hasn't really worked to our disadvantage; on the contrary, I think we've been extremely efficient. But I do think that most of us including the students, a yearning for the real life experience, and one of the big move for us is we're now a bit dispersed in different buildings up in Fiesole, the hills above Florence, and one of the big things that will happen to us, as I said earlier, is that we're moving downtown Florence in the summer, that'll bring all of us together and again, that'll be a bit of a renaissance of what do we do.

Nick Vertigans:

Yeah. Nice. Nice. Thank you, David. What have you heard so far and what questions have you got?

David Goddard:

I'm hearing a very active person. So what I really like to know is what time do you get up in the mornings?

Alexander Stubb:

I, I, yeah, I guess I am active on quite energetic but I can be as lazy as anyone I get up between six and seven. It depends a little bit on, on when I go to bed, I actually go to bed quite early. I try to go to bed between nine and 10. The rest of the family laughs at me, but ain't much I can do about it. So I tried to slot in my eight hours of sleep and, and for me, the mornings are quiet time and usually actually quite productive time as well.

David Goddard:

It sounds very productive. before breakfast you do a bit of fundraising and branding and then make sure that the institution is growing and then after breakfast, maybe, run a marathon, edit a book... What do you do after lunch?

Alexander Stubb:

No, I mean, it's, it's always, I think, you know, I think all of us have a story or a narrative behind us in, in one way or another. I, I, to be honest, if you look at the story of the narrative that's created by you in the public eye say through newspapers, or media it's always false. You're never as good as the media claims, nor are you ever as bad as the media claims. And because we have this narrative of who we are and what we do people always sort of hook up on something. It's a bit like your life CV. So, you know, if you're, I don't know an engineer who plays the violin, people think that that's a pretty cool combination, or if you are an author of books who loves to build Lego, you know, some of them might think that's really exciting. For me exercise or sports has always been an integral part of my life and I've also always, been quite open with what I do. I don't have a problem, but then people think that you're sort of some kind of an overachiever. And I don't see myself as that at all. Quite the contrary you know, you do things that you're interested in, then some things work out and happen, others don't. I think it all starts actually from the calendar. And I've been fortunate, I'd say ever since 2004, when I went into politics, I've been able to construct or have a team who constructs my calendar in the kind of a way where I can maximize efficiency and where I can maximize downtime as well. So I've talked quite a lot about this sort of, or I wrote about it and when I was writing a column for the Finnair in-flight magazine.

David Goddard:

Yeah. I remember those.

Alexander Stubb:

I, yeah, I wrote the column. Which was called 8+8+8 and it was a bit idealistic that you can divide your day into, you know, eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work, and eight hours of time. Now it's obviously pretty impossible nowadays, especially with modern communications, you're online all the time, but you need your mini breaks and you need to have a good sequence in the day. So that, that gives you a little bit more of efficiency.

David Goddard:

I'm just going on, what I'm reading But what I actually really like to ask now is how do you handle your recovery? Life today is not linear, even if constant Zoom meetings and scheduling is trying to make us behave in a linear way, we are not linear as human beings. So how do you handle the, recovery in between all those bursts of activity?

Alexander Stubb:

Well, I work on it a lot. And I think about it a lot then, and that sort of has come actually through sports. So I've always had good coaches, good doctors, good physios, et cetera around me, which have helped me to manage what I do. I mean, for instance, the late Aki Hintsa was very helpful. He was a doctor, a medical doctor, and, and in many ways, a mental coach too. Formula one drivers and I'm business leaders. I've Antti Hagqvist as my coach in triathlon over the years. and you know, we talk about it a lot and I personally have a philosophy whereby the pool of stress that a human being, or at least I can contain is limited. And this pool say if it has a figure of 10 one part of it is physical stress, the other part of it is mental stress, and you need to try to find the right balance. You cannot only have physical stress or only mental stress, and equally you cannot be in a situation whereby if you are mentally very stressed and you have a difficult period of work, you put in the same hour or so of training. You have to work at it at all times. So now of course you have a few gadgets, you know, there's the Oura ring which I end up using. So that monitors my heart rate variability, monitors, my sleep and quality of sleep and the rest of it. Then I have different types of other gadgets, which monitor my sports activity how much I can do and how much I can contain. But I guess at the end of the day, the most important element is how you feel. And at some state you learn, you know, what works and what doesn't. Am I saying here that everyday is pitch perfect? And I'm full of beans and energy and perfection? No. I mean, some, some days suck and you get tired and the rest of it. So, but, but I do think recovery is extremely important. All of this, excuse my language, but bullshit about people who sleep only four hours and, and brag about it. I think they're idiots, you know, that that's not the way in which you recover.

David Goddard:

Margaret Thatcher's was a good example of that. Um that's the word that I would use and she was a famous four hour sleeper. So that maybe proves your point.

Alexander Stubb:

Yeah, but, but remember that also then, there's, there's plenty of evidence. And the sad thing is of course, medicine hasn't studied sleep that much, you know, it, you could say that about a third of our life is spent sleeping yet the study of medicine has been limited on that, But there is clear evidence that, if you sleep only four hours that doesn't allow your brain to recover. And at the end of the day, then that will lead to all kinds of mental side effects either during your professional life or at a later stage in life in form of dementia or Alzheimer's. So I guess the choice, the choice is yours to sleep or not the sleep, you know?

David Goddard:

You said that you work at resilience, and it sounds like you have a lot of positive habits and routines that you were mentioning there. I was just thinking in this COVID time, what's been compromised? Is there something that's been under stress or pressure in, those maybe the eight, eight, eight segments?

Alexander Stubb:

Nothing really. I mean, I hate to say this, but for me, you know, in terms of energy levels training efficiency, recovery, I think COVID has actually been a little bit of a blessing in disguise. And I say this because one of the things that used to drain me out was travel. So when I worked for, when I was Foreign Minister, you can imagine, I think I was the most traveled, Finnish Foreign Minister. I just saw, saw a statistic of that in, in the past, since 2020, if you take it by countries visited per annum When I was an MVP, I flew to Finland every week from Brussels, where I was living with a family. When I was at the EIB, I flew back and forth to Luxembourg every week because the family was here. 2019, I counted 120 flights. And I think I had something like 16 flights before COVID struck. And after that I basically had poof, what can I say so that I'm not lying? I'd say about 10 flights. so that, gave me a lot more time to do stuff. So for instance, and this is not a good example, but I'll use it, on a given day when we're really pushing, we're not doing that anymore, I would be able to do eight meetings or webinars in eight different countries on five different continents. Now I realized quite early on that I have a tipping point as well with how many Zooms I can cope with, and for me, it's roughly around four or five. That's a maximum, if it goes beyond that, I'm shite. You know, I just lose concentration. I'd be on the screen, but I'm not really on the screen. I'm thinking about something else I'm faffing with Twitter or, or, or I've just lost my concentration because it, you know, it, it requires a lot of brain capacity. And I, I look at my kids who are doing a long distance, university and school at the moment. I look at my wife who is. Who is doing teleworking. I mean, yeah. And I put in a lot of hours really, really big hours, but we can all feel it in the evening. So, you know, it's got both sides, less travel, more screen time.

David Goddard:

Fantastic. So you are , improving your carbon footprint and keeping your energy levels up at the same time. And thank you so much for talking to us on a Friday afternoon on a Zoom call. Is it Friday today? No, it isn't. Is it ? I've lost it. Yeah. This is my 75th zoom of the week.

Nick Vertigans:

It's your 75th birthday.

David Goddard:

At least. I love birthdays. The more, the more birthdays I have, the longer I live,

Alexander Stubb:

This is for all the Finnish listeners. This is the British sense of sarcastic humor. We like it!

David Goddard:

I did have one more question, which is actually the question I was supposed to ask, so I'll just throw it in. Alex, you're a really committed European. It seems at the moment that there are some pressures on, let's say the European project we've had Brexit and we have rise of nationalism or populism, and the pandemic is hitting hard across Europe and also there are some irregularities in the response to COVID- let's put it that way. But my question is what are you optimistic about? You said at the beginning that, you're an optimist, so what are you positive and optimistic about?

Alexander Stubb:

Yeah, well, I think we all always need to differentiate, differentiate between the big picture and the day-to-day noise. There's a lot of day-to-day noise in, in whichever branch of politics you are in, whether it's local national or supernational, in other words European. So there's always going to be one event after another happening around and being reported. It can vary from a financial crisis to an asylum crisis. To an election to a scandal to a pandemic to negotiations on a budget, whatnot. And this is always going to happen. And I just have to keep the big picture mind. we, human beings, Iare kind of silly in a sense that we have a tendency to do three things. We, we over rationalize the past. So we try to draw examples from the past, which. Really people at the time we're not connecting. Secondly, we have a tendency to over-dramatize the present, which all of us are doing at the moment. and then certainly we underestimate the future. So I tried to keep an eye on the ball and sort of not underestimate the future and in my argument, that is that in the bigger scheme of thing. You know, I think 1989 was when we felt that ideologically, we were on the right side of the historical argument. In other words, that liberal democracy, social market and globalization is a better thing than communism controlled economies and nationalism. Then 2008 things started to change. Again, again, this is the wisdom of hindsight over rationalization. I think that's when the lack, for lack of a better term capitalistic system of government was challenged, and in a democracy that's possible or allowed. And the ramifications of that we're then seeing quite hard with Brexit done. And the elections in the United States. But while all of this has been going on, I think the world has gotten closer. It got closer with the asylum crisis. The European union, you know, for better or for worse, got closer during Brexit and was united for the first time ever. Um with sort of an aversion to Trump, united as well. And I think when the pandemic- I mean, let's, let's give credit when credit is due and let's criticize when it's time for criticism - last year, it was the Commission that pushed through the lockdown systems. It was the Commission that pushed through a historic rescue package of 750 billion euros. And it was the commission that negotiated the vaccines, just because with all due respect, Boris Johnson is now trying to tout the United Kingdom vaccine rollout as some kind of a success. I would perhaps tone down that a little bit if, as is the case in the United Kingdom, you are the Prime Minister of a country where a hundred thousand people have died in the pandemic. So, you know, this is simply going to move, it's going to go back and forth. It's going to oscillate. The pandemic is, is not only going to mutate in a viral form, it's going to mutate in economics and politics and and societal aspects. So at the end of the day, what keeps me optimistic, the optimistic thing is that we can't live without each other. And I think we're better off in a borderless world than with the world with borders. So the EU final point always advances in three points, sort of three points, number one, crisis, number two, chaos, and number three suboptimal solutions. So let's just live with that.

David Goddard:

So back to, to Stefano who started our questioning. I think we heard a lot there about perspective, the value of perspective, and I think you had some questions on taking perspective.

Stefano Mosconi:

Absolutely. actually want one thing, which I didn't mention is that my Grandpa he was from a place called Pontassieve, which is just, yeah, my Grandpa is from there.

Alexander Stubb:

It's fairly close to where Matteo Renzi was born and I actually cycle on my way to pass it up.

David Goddard:

Okay. Don't, don't mention Stefano's name when you're there.

Stefano Mosconi:

Well, nobody, nobody knows me because my, my Grandpa that's where he was born, but, uh

Alexander Stubb:

but yeah, close to quite good wine coming from a place called Ruffino.

Stefano Mosconi:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's a very good one. Very good. Yeah, so sorry for the, for the diversion. but so the, the last thing, the last question we wanted to ask being conscious of time is about the fact that we, these, this podcast is about telling the word of the Nordics to the rest of the world, You are, you're a Finnish guy. You're a Nordic guy, which has traveled a lot. the last question that I wanted to ask is when, really it comes to leadership, is there anything that you believe you would like the rest of the world to import from, the Nordics?

Alexander Stubb:

Hmm. Well, I guess it's a little bit easier to talk about your model of society when you come from an essentially non-aggressive remote peaceful Nordic country, as opposed to perhaps someone who's been a little bit more involved in, the belligerence. So world politics. So, so I guess there are a few key elements. I think it all starts from, from basic things, such as freedom democracy, human rights, fundamental rights equality, protection of minorities and the foundation for all of this is basically a society with equal opportunity, which means equal access to education. You know, if, if you don't have that, then I think it's very difficult to talk about an equal society. I'm not saying that every human being is born equal. We are not because we're born in different types of places and we're all very different, but you can have a few basic elements in society, which increase that equality and give an opportunity for everyone to, to flourish in the best way that they can. And if then for one reason now that they fail, that should always be some form of a network that picks you up and helps you out. We're never going to have a perfect society that's for sure. But there are a few key elements, which does make society better that seem to be working fairly well in the Nordic countries, actually all five of them. And I am glad to say that. I, I do think that most States in the European union at the moment are what we would call traditional welfare States. They're not all pitch perfect, but they work.

Stefano Mosconi:

And what about the other way around, what do you think that should be important from elsewhere to the Nordics? So what is something which is missing and in the leadership behaviors, in the way of being should be important?

Alexander Stubb:

No. Apart from Italian food and wine? I guess it's difficult for, for me to judge and say directly because I know that this podcast will be, you know, the Finnish media will listen to it and on the rest of it. And I but, but I, I do think there are a few elements that we could improve on one is a certain element of, of openness in relations to each other. I know that we are ranked frequently by our own judgment as the happiest people in the world. Well, perhaps sometimes we can show it a little bit as well. You know, there are too many people who, you know, sit in a bus, a train, or a tram and their facial expression is as if they were going to a funeral and you know, that's one thing. Probably another thing is being a little bit more open to things international. I think we do lag a little bit behind when it comes to internationalization, when it comes to immigration, I think we're moving in the right direction all the time. But for me, that essentially means that you need to understand the other. It means that you have to be curious. It means you have to be open. And, and that's one element where we could improve a little bit, but what I do love about multiculturalism and having lived in, in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Italy, and Luxembourg is it's the variation that you get. And there is not a bog standard Finn and there is not a bog standard Italian and we can all learn from each other. I think that's the coolest thing.

Stefano Mosconi:

Very very cool. And I think you you tweeted recently that you were missing hugging. So I think that in that sense, you're, you're already, you're already you know ahead of many other many other Finns here.

Alexander Stubb:

That's true. That's true. people used to laugh at me when I kept on using hand disinfectant after all the hundreds of handshakes that I did every day, but they don't laugh at me anymore.

Stefano Mosconi:

All right, Alex would it be okay if we take a screenshot of the screen? Okay.

David Goddard:

Go just for the the listeners that want to picture you in your casual clothes,

Alexander Stubb:

That's fine.

Nick Vertigans:

Absolutely. Alex, can I ask one more question about your lunch the other day with Aki Riihilahti uh how did that go? I just want to bring it back to the football game.

Alexander Stubb:

It was really well, I was glad he didn't do a sliding tackle on me. but he did it, he did it pea soup. and unlike me, he had some pancakes after that week. Cause there's the thirst day and I keep on going on about his weight because he's put on quite a bit.

Nick Vertigans:

Yeah, I did see the photos and I, yeah. Yeah.

Alexander Stubb:

Oh, it's always good to great. Okay. That's great.

Nick Vertigans:

Yeah. He is a potential future guests guys.

Alexander Stubb:

Oh, he would be very good. Yeah, it would be very good. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Go for it.

David Goddard:

Who do you think is going to win the premier league? this season?

Alexander Stubb:

Oh, hi. I, I really don't know. It's I'm not Liverpool that's for sure. I was sort of, uh Yeah, I was, I was, I was hoping for Tottenham at some stage because they haven't done it in such a long time, but they seem to be where they're in a way, a little bit. But yeah, but I mean, I must say that it's fun to watch the sports, but it's not the same without the fans,

Nick Vertigans:

so not the same, but Liverpool will win it again.

Alexander Stubb:

I don't think so. all right, got my next one. But it was really nice talking to you. Thanks for doing the podcast and making the Finnish community more international and vibrant. Much appreciated.

Stefano Mosconi:

Thank you for coming Alex.

Alexander Stubb:

Nice talking to Bye. Bye.