 Thank you very much Stefan, Marie Cross, member of the Institute. Stefan, you have advocated that we try to develop, along with Mrs. Mogherini's plans, most strategic and effective CSDP and military capabilities. And indeed, the Foreign Affairs Council and Ministers for Defence have taken more active steps in this regard than they have for very many years over the development. Could I ask you to just look at the EU developments in this regard and NATO? I mean, to a large extent, there's quite a bit of competition between the development of EU capabilities and NATO. And what NATO is, the NATO objectives, because effectively you are drawing on the same forces. And do you feel that NATO inhibits the development of EU foreign policy strategy or EU, at least military capability development, because forces are finite even when they're developing towards the 2 percent? Well, should I answer? Historically, of course, you're totally right. I mean, the fact that for a long time this part of foreign policy could not develop at all was based on the fight between the Atlanticists and the Europeans, between the UK and France. Only in Saint-Malo, finally, this division was overcome. And clearly, there are still countries, particularly in Central Europe, but also the Netherlands, that are putting most of their eggs into the NATO basket. But I think probably also the Trump factor could lead to a situation where this notion of strategic autonomy, which was thought of being rather eccentric when Mogherini put it in, gains actually credibility and support in the EU. I think NATO will continue to be the primary factor for European security, but I think its emphasis will remain very much on territorial defense. So the anxiety, the concerns about potential Russian aggression against the Baltics, etc., that will be in the focus of NATO policies. But if you look at the security challenges around Europe, a lot of it comes from the Middle East, from Northern Africa, from Africa in itself. And there is probably a huge demand on EU training expertise, maybe sometimes peacekeeping forces, potentially sometimes even some kind of a more robust intervention, which NATO is unlikely to be the preferred instrument. So I think this is never really discussed out front. People avoid it to be very open about it. But I see some kind of division of labor with NATO continuing to focus primarily on Eastern Europe and territorial defense. And Europe focus, EU focusing more on the not very heavy duty, but still important and necessary engagement, capacity building, training, etc., in Northern Africa. And I think that this should be really the focus of the capacity development that is happening at the moment. Thank you. You mentioned the WTO and the risk of trade wars. I wondered though, maybe I misinterpreted, but that perhaps you haven't given it enough importance, given the really vital link that it is, both in transatlantic relations and for the management of the transatlantic economy. And also, I think, pretty much inarguable that the WTO is the most effective multilateral global institution as a rules-based, effective institution. Is that not something that needs to maybe go higher up in the priorities of Europe, protecting the WTO and keeping the US on board? Thank you. Well, my sense is a little bit that at the moment, Europe is waiting to see what the policy will really look like. Because so far, we don't know. If you can judge it by the tweets, it's going to be horrible. But we know there are also horrible tweets on NATO. And it didn't happen. And if you look at the team, again, it's very mixed. There is Mr. Navarro, who is a very eccentric economist with extremely protectionist agenda. But there are also these Wall Street guys. I'm sure quite much more open on trade and who will win the president's ear on these issues and actually define policies unclear. I think there has been a paper on renegotiating NAFTA, which is surprisingly weak in terms of substances, not radically in terms of substance. And the key question will be probably, is the president, is the administration ready to work within the WTO framework? Or will they somehow try to dismantle it or simply impose their policies beyond it? I think that's the key question. And I think that will be also on the agenda today with Mr. Xi. But I think at this point, it is taken very seriously. It's a huge concern. It can really brutally damage the EU's economy. But at this stage, we don't know yet what the policies will actually be. Thank you for a very discouraging review of the situation. You said that to develop a foreign policy that measures up to our need, it needs a change in mindset. Many years ago, wrestling with fiscal policy problems in Ireland, I was hoping to get a change in public mindset. And a very senior civil servant said to me, Minister, when I'm told that this just needs people to change the way they see things, I know it's never going to happen. You're in a country that has a mindset that is absolutely allergic to any coherence development of foreign policy in the EU. You're a native of a country that has almost the same allergy. I remember asking an Austrian ambassador here a good many years ago, what was the Austrian definition of neutrality? As she produced to me very quickly, 15 separate, very learned theses on 15 different ways of looking at neutrality, all of which were as much nonsense as the Irish position has always been. But I think there is an enormous job to do to get not even the populations, but the political systems in the member states to see a coherent value in a coherent EU foreign policy. And if I may say so, I think part of the confusion is illustrated by the debate, the discussion you've just been having about NATO. Personally, I think that all of the EU military or military related adventures have been posited on a refusal to believe that the system that's in place that engages the armed forces of most member states is the only one that uses armed forces. I don't see how you can argue that there should be two sources of instruction for the armed forces of the member states. There should certainly be a variety of instruction, but they have to come from the same place in the governmental structure. So if we're going to have a military capability of any kind to be coordinated by the EU, NATO is the only instrument we can use. And history shows us that. Ireland, for example, participated in military operations in the Baltic because there was a UN mandate. The UN, which didn't have the resources to do it, asked the Western European Union to take charge. The Western European Union said, well, we don't actually exist. So we'll get we'll delegate the task to NATO. And Ireland ended up participating in a NATO operation in the Balkans. Now, that was just a piece of absolute nonsense. We by accident managed to get an effective result. But the way of getting there was absolutely contorted and wasteful. And I think that until our systems recognize that reality, we're doomed to have an absolutely futile military half floor on the European construction. And I think that I see no reason yet to expect that we will be so appalled by what Trump does, that we'll actually do something sensible together. So I'm pessimistic, as you might guess. I think you're too pessimistic. I think what it's very clear that the kind of 27 working together, that's a dysfunctional approach to do things. But what strikes me as interesting in my talks with my colleagues in Brussels, they say that one country that now pushes more than anybody else on that front in terms of doing this little thing is Germany. And what I could imagine is that France and Germany together, if they realize that they will have more responsibility for the security of the regions for measures to take also in North Africa, not unrelated to sort of also the migration threat and things like that, that these two core countries can move together much more closely. Recently, I think three weeks ago, there was an announcement of a German-French deal for much closer cooperation. And they probably will prefer rather than doing it just the two of them to have some sort of the core of European countries around them. And there is this concept of PESCO, the Permanent Intense Structured Corporation in the Lisbon Treaty, which allows some countries, if not everybody wants to go on the basis of criteria to move forward together. And this can be done not through unanimity, but also qualified majority vote. And this is now being elaborated and Mogherini is supposed to make a proposal how to carry this out. I think this is an area where probably some degree of flexibility allowing some to participate and others not will be necessary. But it strikes me that there will be a real need for military activity in North Africa, Middle East, possibly also in parts of Eastern Europe. And not on all of the issues NATO will be the right organization. Some issues the US might not want to be part of the scene. So I think that the demand is there and there seem to be some serious European politicians in Paris and Berlin ready to push in this direction. So I see the difficulties, but I also see the political will at least of some important people to confront these difficulties. And I remember the institution. Stefan of the compacted and O'Brien's the subject that O'Brien raised, not not specifically WTO, but more generally our whole capacity to by our I mean the European Union, our whole capacity to negotiate with the Americans on trade and economic issues. Now, unlike the broader farm policy side, we have a well established and well respected, and I know this from the five years I spent in Washington, a well respected structure there led by the Commission with the involvement of the member states. Now, what's your feeling about the chances of that structure standing up to the kind of challenge we might get a little bit like the kind of challenges we had with Reagan in the 80s, where a US president who takes individual squabbles over individual trade issues blows them up on tweet and puts pressure on member states. The system works now because the member states cooperate with the Commission. Do you think the Commission is in shape to maintain the discipline and to be able to deal with that kind of situation from what you've seen in Brussels recently? Well, I think as you say, the different thing from most other areas is the competencies of the Commission are very strong, basically. And now you have this dispute between Germany and the US about the dumping, steel dumping, fines that are being imposed. And Germany obviously respects the fact that it's the Commission that has to trigger WTO action to do it. So I think the US administration, they should know, but to the extent they don't know yet, they will find out very clearly that on this issue, they have to talk primarily to Brussels itself. And I don't see, ultimately, I think professionals will prevail in the handling of the issue. But I think, of course, the Commission needs the backup of the big member states to make the case. Jerry Fitzgerald, a member of the Institute, and I'm coming from a military background. And I'm recalling the attempts of cohesion in Europe. We're talking about the pooling and sharing that we've had, the battle groups that we've had. And I must say, I share an injurious pessimism about the future. But I wonder if you would comment on previous comments that we've heard about European Army and the likelihood of such. That's my first question. And my second question is totally different, totally diverse. I wonder, if you would give us your best view on the purpose and strategy behind the most recent bombing that has taken place in Syria, the U.S. bombing. On the European Army, I think it's a dream, basically. I don't understand what the rights, Mr. Jumka, bringing this up again and again. I think the European Army requires a European government, basically. It requires a federal structure. And that is over and dead. I think that's very clear that the concept of federal Europe probably died with the fall of the Berlin Wall. At this moment, I think the EU became too big and two heterogeneous eastern enlargement was necessary to stabilize the region, but you can't, on that basis, build a federal Europe, and therefore also not the European Army. It's evident that whatever happens, whatever emerges, ultimately, will be a structure that still requires the decisions of the individual countries on the employment of military force. On the bombing yesterday, I can only speculate. As I said, it's in a way a total contradiction to what Trump stands for, because this is not the protection of US interests, which he says is the beginning and the end of future US foreign military policy. I think it is basically an attempt to show that Trump is different from Obama. So the chemical weapons have been used. Obama failed. Trump succeeds. It's as simple as that. It's part of the public relations exercise. And in terms of follow-up, I think it will be a very isolated step. I think the administration has already clarified that this will not be a bombing campaign now against Assad. This is actually exactly what Obama should have done then, because I think I understand very well that the US administration didn't want to get involved in the war, basically, and there was no public support in America for moving in this direction, but they could easily have done exactly the same kind of sort of symbolic step to show that the red line cannot be crossed without consequences. But I think it is not going to affect the Syrian war in a very significant way. There will not be a much stronger US engagement now in the future. I think there will be a bit of a Russian fuss, and they are angry and annoyed. But again, I don't think this rules out future deal-making between Trump and Putin. It's not a world-changing event, but it is a significant development. Well, thank you very much, Stefan. Could I, in summing up, pick out two of the guidelines for the future that you mentioned, safeguarding international order and defending liberal values. I think we should not underestimate the weight that the EU can bring to bear on these questions. And indeed, on even wider reaching questions, such as the regulation of international trade, the regulation of international production, and this kind of thing, I was reading recently, for instance, that the system called REACH, which is a regulation of the chemical industry, is a very strong point which the EU can bring its weight to bear decisively on international questions. And indeed, the same goes, I think, for and you mentioned that climate change and for the environment more generally. And it also goes, I think, for the United Nations system, which I think we can have a decisive weight on. So let's not undervalue ourselves too much. At the same time, I would come back to the point I made earlier, how Donald Trump can save EU foreign policy, it's up to us to do it. And it's a case of something that used to be mentioned a lot 20 or 30 years ago, political will. I mean, political will is one of those notions, I think Alan Dukes referred to it. If you say political will is needed, it means you can forget about it. But what disturbs me finally about the whole thing is one of the last things you mentioned and that is the contingency this year of what will happen in the French elections and what will happen in the German elections. Now the German elections are perhaps somewhat less worrying, but the French election is really worrying because if the French election goes the wrong way, I think we can forget about our European Union undertaking and that is a frightening thought. On that basis, thank you very much for provoking all this thought. Thank you for coming here and for giving us the benefit of your thinking on these matters.