Finland¡¯s former prime minister Alexander Stubb has believes that travel will come back this summer as vaccination programmes roll out but that business travel will be reduced.? ?
Stubb, who became Finland¡¯s PM in 2014 and is currently director of the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute, was speaking at this week¡¯s Nordic Business Travel Summit, organised by the business travel associations of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
He said he expects 70 per cent of Europe¡¯s population to be vaccinated by the end of June at which point it will have caught up with the vaccination rate in the UK despite the later start and slower initial rollout and this will unlock travel - but not all travel.
He said, ¡°Leisure travel will continue but I think business travel will be reduced and that is a reality that you have to cope with. I used to fly to China and the US all the time but they are very easy to do virtually and, as we move to 3D and holograms, I think we can skip the business travel.¡±
Stubb said he also believed that Brexit was the ¡°biggest mistake in the history of modern nation states¡± but has argued that the UK and EU need each other.?
He
said, ¡°[Brexit] is utter stupidity. You can see that in the export and
import figures and in the political mayhem in the UK. I say this as an Anglophile
who is married to a Brit and who did their PhD in the UK. I love the place. But
for me, the UK leaving the EU is like someone leaving the internet.¡±
Stubb predicts an eventual improvement of the relationship
between the UK and EU but this is looking difficult at the moment. ¡°Boris
Johnson will do everything to prove that the UK is better off outside the EU
than inside,¡± he said, ¡°which is, of course, not the case.¡±
¡°I do think the UK and EU need each other,¡± he added.
The former prime minister is convinced that the EU will
survive, despite the breakdown of freedoms that Covid has brought about.
He said, ¡°What happens in a pandemic is you turn native. You
close borders, stop the freedom of movement of goods, services and people
because you want to make sure the population is safe and sound.¡±
?¡°The EU can always be criticised but I think we need to be
more realistic; no nation state is a Utopia. The EU will survive. People are starting
to understand that borders are artificial governance measures and in a world
where we don¡¯t really need borders or nationalities, I am convinced that the most
successful experiment in international relations and governments will continue.¡±