Episode 30: Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid — Davos preview — MEP of the Week

<p>This week's show features an interview with Estonia's President Kersti Kaljulaid, the first head of state to appear on the podcast.</p> <p>Kaljulaid explains why Estonia wants to pay more to the EU, reveals a promise Jean-Claude Juncker made to her about the post-Brexit EU budget and talks about how Estonia is struggling with Russia's turn to militarism.</p> <p>POLITICO Managing Editor Florian Eder joins us to preview the World Economic Forum in Davos January 22-26.</p> <p>Sign up to POLITICO's daily Davos Playbook coming out next week. And listen out for our daily pop-up Davos Confidential podcasts, which will be on the same feed as EU Confidential.</p> <p>With our podcast panel, we launch a new feature: MEP of the Week. We draw MEP names out of a box and see whether the panel knows who they are or what they've achieved.</p> <p>Some more highlights from our interview with Kaljulaid...</p> <p>Estonia ready to pay more to EU budget: &quot;I'm hoping for a lot of change because we have lots of common, supranational goals which we need to develop,&quot; Kaljulaid said.</p> <p>Juncker's promise to the Baltics — No Brexit black hole: Kaljulaid spoke to EU Confidential directly after meeting European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. She said Juncker promised that the financing of projects like the high-speed Rail Baltic project would not be affected by Brexit.</p> <p>Estonia's place in the world: “Fully intertwined with Nordic economies … We stand on the liberal Democratic value base.”</p> <p>On Russia: “I want to set one thing straight ... We definitely thought that Russia will undertake exactly the same development path to democratic nations as we ourselves were undertaking … We definitely didn't want it to turn out this way and we are definitely in no way benefiting from the fact that it turned out this way,” Kaljulaid said.</p> <p>Data is Estonia’s designated survivor: Asked about Estonia’s plans for coping with an invasion or top-level threat, Kaljulaid focused on the country’s data embassy (essentiall