TRANSCRIPT OF THE PODCAST INTERVIEW OF MRS EVA BERNEKE, EUTELSAT S.A. CEO PUBLISHED BY THE DANISH NEWSPAPER RADAR MEDIA 4.5.2022

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Original in Danish :

Eva Berneke: Om russisk-europæisk krydsild, storpolitik, it-monopoler og Elon Musk

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Interview by Peter Christian Bech-Nielsen 

You have ended up in a somewhat penitent situation in connection with the war in Ukraine. There was criticism recently because you have some Russian TV providers, NTV+ and Tricolor, who have removed Western news channels, the BBC and CNN, from their TV packages. The criticism against Eutelsat is that you are helping these channels to be censored away in Russia? What do you think of the criticism, is it reasonable ?

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• It was probably us (the EU, ed.), who started by taking the Russian channels, Russia Today and Sputnik, out of all Western bouquets. We did that sanctioned by the EU. We were the ones who started that ball. What the Russians did afterwards was they also peeled off the BBC, so you have to know that when you go into that sort of thing, and those were sanctions that were taken at EU level and that were implemented in law. We deal with that, we're subject to a regulator just like in the telecom world, it regulates everything that's about broadcast, and they said we should take down Russian Today and Sputnik, and then the Russian regulator certainly said they should take down the BBC and CNN as well. On the other hand, there are some German and English channels that are still being carried, just as there are some Russian channels left. The one with the censorship, we probably started ourselves. We said we're neutral and the regulation that's coming, we're implementing it and we're doing it quickly, but if I had to deal with that, then I'd have to have a hundred men studying the channels, because there's not the only consort in the world. We relate to what our regulators say to us because otherwise I have to assess the content in a lot of language.

Is that a viable path, do you think we're removing each other's TV channels? It looks like double standards that we say we can't have Russian Today in Europe, and at the same time we want them to watch our channels. But in terms of ideals of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, does it look just as bad in your situation that we remove channels?

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• We relate to the fact that Arcom and the EU have dealt with what should be removed and how. And we're neutral about that. Whether you are politically on one side or the other, the order is the way it is. You could say that we started out, and do you get so frustrated that you're doing the same thing in Russia? Yes, but what, did we expect?

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I think it would be super healthy for many Russians to be able to watch CNN or BBC?

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• Yes, I think so too. But the vast majority of Russians who would like to see it here see it on the web with a VPN connection. Most people watch news on the internet, and then there's some flow TV with some in-depth coverage that you can miss, but the news flow comes through a different way. Therefore, there are many other networks that we then have to shut down.

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We live in an information society, so is it hard to navigate this when we get some lines of conflict that crash into very practical reality?

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• I relate to the regulation that is being laid out and the authoritarianism that is over our world, and I relate to it one hundred percent and do just as it says. 

• Because I'm not sure I can be smarter than the many talented people who have read the legislation and looked at the content of these channels, so if I were to be smarter than them, I put myself in a situation where I am at the very extreme.  There are a lot of talented people in the EU and in France where this regulator is located, have been through it and said that this is how we do it and that's what we have the legal authority for and we can't go further than that, so I say it's nice that there are some who have taken a position on it for me,  because then I don't have to deal with it myself, because I'm not actually sure I have the competence to do it, and I'd have to have a much larger regulatory team if I had to deal with it.

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Could you have refused to follow the guidelines of the Russian authority?

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• This was not the Russian authority, but it was the customers who have the channels who had to follow them. Obviously, then we were going to wave goodbye to some Russian customers, who would then move over to some Russian sattelites or something else?

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But that's the situation that, for example, Ecco has also been in, where you've said that you have to say goodbye to that, because that's the cost of war?

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• In fact, we have that debate in many places, for example in Egypt, where our customers know that we are under these different regulatory authorities and that we expect them to live up to their regulation, so it is part of our contractual basis that they relate to the regulatory authorities, because otherwise we would rather not do business with them. So it is with African, Middle Eastern and all sorts of other regimes. That's why I'm really trying to say that right here I'm standing on top of a very solid publicly regulated foundation, which I'm really happy about, because they make it so that I know some rules of the game here in relation to my customers, who have been completely open from day 1, and I think that's really the fairest solution for everyone.

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What would it have cost you if you had to throw away your Russian customers?

Russia is about 6-7 percent of our turnover. Is it that big or small, I don't know, but it's not nothing. It's a business we've spent many years building, and we wanted Russian customers without solutions and a lot of Russians without sattelite coverage.

Have you considered whether you were at a point where, on the other hand, you could risk other parts of the business because the Russian leg simply became too expensive to maintain?

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• I've flipped it with my board and asked what they'd like? The French state owns 20 percent, and I've asked them what they'd like us to do. They have said they would like us to follow the authorities' recommendations. It's a wonderful response and a very clear answer from my board about what they want, and I've explained to them what kind of business we have. If you're going to be trusted as a collaborator, and that's what you've said to the Egyptians, the Turks and all sorts of others who have been and asking if we couldn't just do something, if you're going to be a creative collaborator in the future, it's no use that you start saying, such and such,  and change it. Then it is important that you stand on top of this regulatory foundation that the authority gives us.

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Transcript and translation by courtesy of John Strand