 You know, the group executive chairman of Banco Santer, then we have Cecilia Malsturm, who is the commissioner for trade of the European Commission. But we welcome you more as a member of the European Commission and not especially related to trade today. Then next is the prime minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiewski, and finally the t-shirt or prime minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar. Particularly welcome because you are also one of our young global leaders. Is he still young? Yeah, he's still young. We all are young here. Slightly less. So let me start talking about being young. I'm someone stillborn before World War II. And for me, when I grew up in Germany during the Second World War and afterwards, the question was, what identity do I have? And there was only one identity left, which was a true European identity. I chaired the European, the French-German youth movement. And for me, all about Europe was, no, never war again. And if you look today at the young generation and just in one or two sentences, what would be your message to the young generation, to the young people, to still have a European identity and still to feel proud of being Europeans? Three words, I would say. Prosperity, collective safety, the fact that we work together in itself, being embedded in a strong structure, creates a sense of safety, but also a reality of safety. And thirdly, values of democracy, of human rights, of the equality between men and women, black and white, home and heterosexuals, the liberal values which we all hold dearly in the European Union. Tishok, what would be your response? I think I'd say three things. The first thing I'd say is that Europe works. We've had, it's not perfect, but it does work. And as a result of it, we've had 70 years of peace and prosperity and security. And human rights, a 70-year period, that it's hard to find a period as long in European history going back down the centuries. The second is that the problems that young people care about, in fact, everyone cares about, but young people in particular care about, whether it's tackling climate change, managing migration, whether it's how we manage massive trans-global corporations, financial markets. No nation-state is big enough to deal with these problems. They can only be dealt with at a multilateral level. There isn't a single country in the European Union that's in the top 20 in the world in terms of population anymore. More people live in Vietnam or the Philippines in Germany. So we're all small countries, and we can only deal with these big problems through multilateralism. And then the third is that, whether we like it or not, Europe's influence is diminishing in the world. The population shift, the power shift, and the economic shift is to the global south and east. And by the time young people are old, Europe might make up 7% of the world's population and maybe 15% of the world's economy. And if we have any chance of preserving our values and our way of life and the way we believe things should happen, we need to stick together. Commissioner. Yes, I think history is still valid as you started this with. And I had that European moment when I was watching with friends at the fall of the Berlin Wall. That was a very strong emotion for me. But I think history is still valid and we must really keep talking about that, especially among young people. But for them, of course, the future is more important. And the only, I mean, the one word is together. We can only save this planet. We can only make life better. We can only defend our values. We can only save the planet. We can only increase global justices if we work together, together in the European Union and with others. So I think we need to emphasize this and clear, clear coherence here, but together. Prime Minister Moriwaj Buriak, you joined Europe later, but what would be your message to the young generation? No, no, we joined Europe much earlier than many other countries 1,050 years ago. And we joined, just joined the European Union a little bit later because of the Second World War, which is quite a difference. So I would base the European identity actually on diversity because Europe is very diverse and we cannot abstain from it. We cannot pretend that this is not. And this is a foundation which used to work before for many, many years. And we could build on this into the decades to come. That's the one point. Another one would be empowerment of people because there is this sense of lack of empowerment, lack of our vague democratic procedures in Brussels, across Europe, which is quite visible. So I think that rethinking of the transparency of procedures, of the legislative process and so on, would be empowering people and would bring back this feeling of empowerment to people. And also, I think we should ask this question, will the European Union be stronger with strong member states or weaker? And my answer to this is that, of course, with strong, vibrant, more equal member states, the European Union is going to be stronger. So this cohesion policies, structural reforms, structural policies are going in the right direction. I would support very much continuation of those very good programs into the next multi-annual financial framework as well. Let me follow up exactly this point. We have heard great ideals for Europe. But if you look at Europe, let's say, reading newspapers and so on, you read about Brexit, you read about all sequels, you read about, let's say, the North, South tensions, East-West tensions. So maybe Prime Minister Witte, what could we do to correspond to those ideals? And what reforms, just to follow up the Polish Prime Minister, what reforms are really necessary to give Europe back its vigorous, let's say, existence? Well, I think you hit the nail on the head because the North, South divide and the East-West divide is the big issue. But before coming to that, there are three huge opportunities for Europe to work on this year. The first one is competitiveness. We all talk about the internal market. When people ask me what I think of the internal market, I always say it will be a good idea because my thesis will be there is no real internal market only for goods, but not for services, not for digital, so it's only very limited. There is a huge scope. It will add twice the size of the Dutch economy. It would add 1.5 trillion euros extra to the overall wealth of the European Union if you would really implement what is already agreed on services, on digital, on the capital market union, et cetera, et cetera. Secondly, Trump is also an opportunity to, from the European Union, in a concerted way, deal with the necessary reforms, for example, in the WTO system, in the UN system. So we can all say, yeah, Trump is against multilateralism or in favor of multilateralism, whatever we might think he is doing, but he is also an opportunity to make use of his criticism of multilateralism and then from the EU being the multilateral organization par excellence to take leadership in those discussions. And thirdly, on climate change, we have to step up our commitments. We cannot stick to the 40% target we have already. We have to move to 55% if you want to get even close to the Paris climate agreement goals. And we have to decide on that this year or the next year. But there are two big issues why we might fail. First, the East-West divide. There is a total lack of solidarity on the issue of the refugee problem. The numbers are not that big, but it cannot be that countries like Germany and the Netherlands and Sweden have to basically shoulder this burden. We have to do this collectively, all 27 remaining EU countries. And if that is not taking place, this will create a total lack of trust in the EU between the East and West. But also, as you mentioned, the North-South divide. The commission not acting on Italy, we have seen the Italian budget, the commission not acting on Italy. And finding them for the fact that they are not implementing the stability and growth pact has again alerted the Northern European countries that whilst we are implementing all the necessary reforms and savings and reforming our economy, the Netherlands is now moving into the biggest budget surplus in the whole of the European Union, even bigger than Germany. But people start to ask me questions if Italy and in the past France can get away with not implementing, but we have collectively agreed getting their own house in order. If the commission is not doing that, why should we? Well, we should because we want to have our house in order, not because some European treaty requires this from us. But this is creating distrust between North and South. And given those two dividing lines, I'm not optimistic about whether we can achieve uncompetitiveness on reforming multilateralism and on climate change. Commissioner, why is the European Commission not moving on those points the Prime Minister just mentioned? Well, on many of the points we are, I'll come back to the budget, but we are indeed moving. And I think the current tensions globally has also created possibilities for Europe. Because yes, internal tensions are there, but it has also with Brexit and with our traditional ally, the US not taking the global road that we used to see. It also gives a possibility to the European Union. So we have actually tried to deepen our cooperation in many areas with the digital market. We should do more on the internal market. I fully agree with that. On security and defence, there are things moving on the social Europe, on the strengthening of the Eurozone, fiscal escality, innovation, especially reaching out to young small startups and so on. So lots of things are happening in this regard. I fully share your frustration on the migration issue. The Commission has really tried to push to find an issue there. It is a question of solidarity. We are many enough, we are strong enough, we are rich enough to receive people who really ask for asylum. But we also need to make that in a responsible and a solidary way all 28 of us. And that, of course, is looked upon as a weakness of the European Union, which it is. On the budget issue, I agree with the Commission's role is to be tough, but also seek a dialogue. Because, of course, you need to evaluate all the consequences of toughness with Italy. There is a very intense dialogue. We have seen some quite considerable backing down of the first rhetoric, but also of the action. So we have not let Italy out of the hook. Absolutely not. But for the moment, there is a dialogue and we hope that we can get them to comply within the margins of what has been agreed upon. But there's lots of things to do. And when I travel around in the European Union and I do a lot and I meet a lot of young people, and the thing that is brought up is not migration anymore. It was a couple of years ago. Now it is climate. It is climate. And the belief, but also the frustration that Europe can do more, but isn't doing enough, that we should take the global lead there to save our planet. And here we can absolutely step up our efforts. We are trying, without the European Union, there wouldn't have been an agreement in Katowice, neither in Paris. But this is one of the issues to regain the trust of the European youth to show that here we are taking bold action and we're living up to our promises. Prime Minister Mori, we actually... So what's the question of lacking solidarity, particularly in the refugee issue? What is your response to it? And then I want to say something about that also. Maybe... Yeah, first, Prime Minister, on view. Maybe a couple of points to what was just said, how to repair the state of matters. I think from the socioeconomic point of view, the issue of inequality has been neglected for too long. And in Poland, we were able, over the last couple of years, to marry the two aspects of huge importance to the whole population. Strong economic growth, at the same time, limited budget deficit or budget deficit, actually close to zero. And at the same time, solidarity-based approach for different groups of the population. Our Gini coefficient and other indications of inequality go in the very right direction, which is why, at the same time, Poland is very pro-European and also quite proud of our achievements and pro-American, not too many countries like this, which are at the same time pro-European and pro-American in Europe. One connected issue with this is a taxation issue, we've just briefly discussed about this with Anna before this meeting. There are tax havens in the world, but also in Europe, which use their power or abuse their taxation systems to the detriment of other countries. And we should stop this because this is not helping the European Union to build trust towards each other. And this topic is discussed quite recently, thanks to the strong voice of President Macron and Chancellor Merkel in the context of digital taxation. And we fully subscribe to this aspect of the discussion. But on top of this, I would be in favor of eliminating all the tax havens from Europe because this would equalize, this would bring the level playing field. And the third aspect is avoiding different standards for different member states. Like there was mentioned by Mark about North-South. Okay, but actually I've seen that Italy was treated differently than France and it shouldn't be so because there is this feeling of pride and equality equals standards and we should apply the same standards for different member states. And in terms of migration, Klaus, we cannot turn a blind eye on what is happening in the Eastern flank of the European Union. And there was a Russian aggression in 2014 on Ukraine and there are millions of people migrating out of Ukraine into Poland and some of them are refugees but our procedures are differently shaped. They are shaped in such a way that so that these people who are coming to Poland, they can very quickly take advantage of our economy. They can apply for jobs and this is why you don't see so many refugees, people having refugee status from Ukraine or other Eastern European countries but we do contribute a lot to this, to easing off tensions at the Eastern flank of the European Union. Thank you, Anna. You represent prisoners, how do you react? What would you like to be seen to be accomplished? In Europe, yeah, I just like to challenge Mark on the solidarity on immigration because I think, you know, I'm a big fan of looking at the facts and it's probably not known that between the years 99 and 2008, Spain, which is a country of then 40 million people, received 5 million immigrants, 5 million. And so I think this is something which has to be considered. Spain is competitive. We have 19 million people working today versus 13 million. We have created most jobs but we have had by far the biggest flow of immigrants of any European country. And honestly, I am a passionate European but I think sometimes we need to look at the facts and understand, you know, not just what happens today but what has been happening. So this is quite important as we speak of solidarity and just one other fact which is important and Chancellor Merkel was a big sponsor of this. By the end of this century, Africa will go from 1 billion to 4 billion people. And I agree climate change is a challenge but I would say this is as big a challenge for Europe than the others. So now on the European question, I think first that again, looking at the facts, not just the world but Europe has really done incredibly well over the last 40 years. There is no question that it has done well thanks to the market economy, thanks to freedoms and all the things that we as Europeans value. But I also believe that we now have a challenge and to me the big challenge is institution building. Now we have done a lot of that in the last few years but I believe for us to take Europe to the next stage and with a commission on trade here on my left, I think that as we see America saying America first and China clearly saying China first, my ambition would be that Europe punches its weight. We are the second largest economy as a group. So I would ask of politicians around me here and others three things. The first, I mean, and I'm very much in your camp on the being pragmatic and the one line I would say for our young people, let's be pragmatic and let's make it relevant to them. And I think the first thing and you said that but it's hugely important, let's complete the custom, the single market for services. Super important. And let me tell you why. Again, look at the facts. We are two thirds of the US economy. We are the largest bank by value in Europe. We are one fourth the size of the largest American bank. We are one tenth the size of the big American platforms that compete head on with all of us today. So my first point is scale matters because the largest two banks in the Eurozone, we have less than 2% market share, less than 2%. And the relevant market shares today are operating systems are things that we didn't look at before. So single market for services. Second, we need European banking union desperately. And I know here the North and the South maybe think differently, but if anybody in the room thinks that this is about banking, that this is about the non real economy, think again. Because if banks are competitive, if banks can operate at scale and scale matters, we need single banking union. We need the common European deposit insurance because that will reduce risks so then we can share risks. And I'm sure I'll get some challenge here, but this is important for my SME customers. And the other fact I'd like to share is that banking in Europe is important to the average person, to the small company because 90% of financing comes from banks. In the US that's 50, so it's super important. And then the last third thing, and Mateus touched on that, and I think I really believe that this is a unique opportunity for Europe to lead, not just for Europe, but for the world. And I think this goes way beyond digital tax. It goes to a new framework, a new governance for the digital age. And we need politicians and governments to understand how the economy works. There are no barriers between sectors. What is a bank? We do payments. All the big platforms do payments. Why should I be subject to different rules on payments to others? And that's what PSD2 does. So I think the three things for Europe and the new commission on this area to do, of this governance, which by the way, should be global, not just for Europe, but we can show the rest of the world away around competition. How do we think about competition? Is it the same as in the old world? Who is competing with whom? It's about taxation. The principle that you pay tax where you make your profits is not being followed. And that creates a lot of problems in communities, in jobs. And the second, sorry, the third one, which is related to the first, is regulation and supervision. Same services, same rules. And that is not happening. And I think the commission is very much aware of this. But my last recommendation would be, we are famously known in the world for being slow in Europe. But we also try to do the right thing. And so when we wrote the e-commerce directive, we didn't know what the world was gonna look like today, but now we do. And I think people like Mark and Matteo understand this really well. And a lot of the commissioners. And so the one thing I would ask of Europe is, let's prove everybody wrong. Let's do the right thing, but let's do it a bit faster. Mark, you will have an opportunity, but first, Leo, what would you add here? Yeah, I don't want to repeat what's already been said, except that I do very much agree on the single market. The opportunities there, on digital, on services, and also on banking union in Ireland is a very strong supporter of us getting the job done. And I think we can over the next couple of years. What I would add to that would be around international development, and particularly Africa, and providing adequate space in the MFF for us to do much more as Europe in Africa and in the developing world. And I think that's something that our citizens would like us to do as well. And I had the chance to visit Africa in the last couple of weeks. Went to Mali where the Irish Defence Forces are part of the EU training mission there, part of our security contribution, and then to Ethiopia, which is one of our, it's our single biggest international development partner. And I already knew it, but you have to spend time there to fully appreciate the extent to which problems like drug trafficking, like human trafficking, illegal migration, climate change, radicalization and terrorist risks, that all of those big problems that visit us on our streets in Europe have origins or have transit points in countries that are politically unstable, that don't have human rights and democracy, that don't have economic opportunity for their young people. And that's an area where I think we could make an enormous difference if Western countries spent what's been spent on a war in Syria on international development in Africa. We wouldn't have half the problems that we're talking about now when it comes to migration and security. And that's something I'd like to see form a very big part of the new MFF and a much greater part of the European Union's political mission. Leo, I would like to come back to one issue, an arrest, which is taxing the platform companies because you are hosting some of those... We're more than halfway through the panel and nobody mentioned Brexit or tax yet. Some of those platform companies are the European, you know, as the efforts to create a common policy, just one comment related... Sorry, I didn't say taxing platform companies. I said fair taxation for all types of companies. This is very important because I am absolutely not in favor of a digital tax. I'm in favor that you pay taxes where you generate value. And this is quite... Because if we say, you know, it seems like we're against... I'm not against, we work with all of them. We just want to have a fair level playing field on taxation. It's very important. Leo. Sorry about that correction. No, it's good. Because otherwise, you know, it seems like Europe is anti... No, we're not anti. We are absolutely for innovation. But we want to be able to invest billions. And if we have, you know, everybody paying a bit more, then we pay a bit less, maybe. I have a very simple view in this. I think big companies should pay their taxes, should pay the taxes they owe and should pay them in full and should pay them where they are owed. And the best way we can respond to the changes in the way the world economy has developed is to agree these things at an international level through the OECD. And one of the things that Ireland has done in recent years, we've never taken more money in from corporation tax in the last year than ever in our history. And that's part of the reason... Part of the cause of that is the fact that we have closed down things like the double Irish. We no longer tolerate status corporations. We're forever closing loopholes that exist in our tax system. And we do that through the OECD and through the BEVS process. We're going to continue to do that. Our objection to a digital tax is that rather than being that the... Sales taxes like VAT fall where sales happen. Profit taxes are applied where profits are made. And what was imposed in the digital tax was to impose effectively a levy on turnover. And you wouldn't apply that to car manufacturers. You wouldn't apply that to aviation manufacturers. You know, if you applied the same principles to aviation, Ireland through aircraft leasing and Ryanair probably buys more aircraft than almost any country in Europe. We don't get any of the profits of Airbus are Boeing. So the principles have to be that the taxes where value is created, not where there's turnover. Mark, your reaction. I see also Anna, you are, let's say, energized, but... No, no, just a few points. As you correctly said at the beginning, Europe is about Nivea the Greek. No more war. After the Second World War, we built the most successful defence organisation in world history, NATO. We built the biggest trading bloc in world history, European Union, which is also a community of values and by working together, providing a collective sense and reality of safety. But yes, I agree, we have to accelerate on the internal market and on the banking union. All the plans are there, all the opportunities are there. On the internal market, there are vested interests and some of the bigger member states and we need the political leadership there to overcome those vested interests so that we can collectively build a bigger market. Again, with twice the size of the Dutch economy added to the overall European economy. On banking union, this is directly related to the point I made on the North-South divide. Because if we cannot trust that the commission as a custodian of our treaties, of our agreements is not keeping Italy to the fire because there at this moment, blatantly, with a debt to GDP of over 130% with a too high deficit and then start to negotiate, it has to be much firmer. I absolutely believe that because otherwise, how can we explain in some of the other member states that we are putting in place the necessary reforms if somehow these bigger economies get away with it? Again, we will still do it because we need it. At this moment, the Netherlands is growing at twice the pace of almost all our surrounding competing economies. Why? Because we put in place all the necessary reforms and fiscal adjustments. And we do have now a budget surplus. So we do this because we believe it is necessary. But on banking union, there is exactly that lack of trust now happening because you can only really move to the next phase of banking union if we know that the risks in the system are reduced. And it starts at the state level. And then in the banking sector, take for example the non-performing loans, we have to reduce those risks before we can really move into the next phase because otherwise, their tech space will feel that one day they will have to pay for banks in other countries which have not taken the necessary steps to make the banking system healthier in those countries. And we need to do that because banking union separating the sovereigns from the banks is crucial for more financial stability in the European Union. Completing the single market is core to the basic promise we made each other that was Europe, New Year's Creek, no more war is about collectively being successful in terms of competitiveness. And that means jobs for people. And secondly, by being a successful bloc with common values also being successful in terms of our collective safety. And again, I see those opportunities. My frustration is that I feel that this year we might again lose a lot of time discussing migration, east-west finances, state finances, north and south and it should not be necessary. We are coming unfortunately to an end of this session but I would like to have some conclusion. So Leo, what should be actually in your opinion the next concrete steps we should undertake to reinforce trust into the future of Europe? Not only internally, but also in the whole world, Europe to recreate the necessary trust. And I will ask the same question to each of you. I think that what we have to do over the next maybe five, 10 years is to move Europe from just being an economic power in the world, an economic force for good in the world and a trading bloc into an international group of nations that is politically influential. America has decided to move away from its former role in world leadership regrettably. At least for now, China is becoming ever stronger which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I think that Europe needs to really be able to have a common foreign policy in particular and act in the world and to be a force for good in the world on all of the issues that we've talked about economic development, international development, climate change and also on international development as well. Security shock and Matthias. Well, first I think we have to again learn how to listen to people because Vox populi is not populism which is sometimes stigmatized as this, some movements in some other countries in Italy, in France and so on. Whereas this is a signal what is happening around us that people want to get empowered, they want to better understand what is going on in European institutions. So grassroots integration, this would be my first proposal. Second, let's go back and accelerate with the projects where almost everybody agrees, if not everybody, like for instance, Capital Markets Union which is bringing more financing for small and meat-sized enterprises and in particular in comparison to the United States, Europe is so much dependent exclusively on the banking sector rather than credit from banks rather than diversity of financing for small and meat-sized where the jobs are created and this could bring additional new dynamism and new optimism for many European middle-class type areas. The third one is level playing field in terms of taxation and we differ a little bit with Leo and Mark on this but we are ready to talk about those. Much of what is happening today in Europe stems from this very first division. Oh, second world war, there was an iron curtain. Holland was on the right side of the rainbow but we were left. We were left. We were left. We were left. We were left within the communist bloc so for 50 years we couldn't develop technology-wise and so on. And now in terms of taxation, in terms of many other critically important systems for socioeconomic environment, we need to take this into account to have a real level playing field. This was an interesting intervention by Leo about where the taxes should be paid. We need to turn over versus where the value is created. So this would be my gut feeling that we have to find out a common denominator of all of those. And the last one between the member states and the European institutions like an example of yellow card which was introduced into the Lisbon Treaty but was really not taken into account by the European Commission because 11 countries have agreed on yellow card procedure a couple of years ago in the context of posting of workers directive. So this procedure is this procedure and such procedures are extremely important from the point of view of empowering member states and in particular national parliaments. And without full engagement of national parliaments there should be this feeling of disconnect between Brussels and the rest of Europe. And we have to avoid this so we need to introduce procedures which will bring those two worlds closer to each other. Very short, we are running out of time, Cecilia. Well, Europe is so many things. It's the Commission, it's the Member States, it's the Parliament, it's the national parliaments and right now we are preparing for the European Parliament election and we see a rise of xenophobic populists and nationalist movements but it's also possibility to take, to show that leadership, to show an alternative. What we have achieved so far, what we could achieve together if we deepen the cooperation politically as well, foreign policy, not only economically, if we do the reforms we have said that we should do and if we focus on some targeted issues that we need to do. So it is a fantastic possibility to gather and to show that strong pro-European leadership for the Europe we want to create and that I really hope that we can do and then it is about delivering. That's in the end what counts to the citizen. Do we deliver on our promises and that the Commission can do more but it's also very much about the Member States. And now? Yeah, I'd say the three things I said before which is single market, banking union and it's important because that's the only way Europe gets growth and it gets the scale to be competitive in the world and the third thing is we need the Commission to work on this new governance and taxation has to be fair, competition has to be fair and we need to understand that the sectors have no boundaries and we need to remodel the market system for the digital age which goes way beyond the digital tax. It's much more than that and this is essential because this is what will make Europe successful, as it's been for the past 50 years for the next 50 years. And by the way this one thing we haven't spoken about nobody but I think it's crucial which is education and re-skilling and we haven't discussed that but that's the other thing we should reinvent education. It served us well for the past we totally need to change that for the next 50 years but not take 50 years. Locke, why is someone a member of an organization as an individual, a member of a community or whatever or a country, a member of the European Union because you strongly believe that the collective is bigger than the sum of its parts. For the collective to be bigger than the sum of its parts you have to stick to the rules a deal is a deal, promises made are promises kept and why do we have these two divides in Europe at the moment because we don't keep our promises and that's really my worry if we would we could make huge progress yes on banking union, yes on internal market yes on the migration issue it would be easy. Why my European identity is reconfirmed by the discussion we have here I think we defined very well the remedies for the many let's say deficiencies we have now what counts is that the medicine is taken very fast because we cannot lose time the world is moving and it's no excuse to say we are now in the time of the European elections of the parliament and so on we have to make absolutely sure that 2009 is not considered to be a year lost and I think we had many proposals here so I wish that really with the good will which we have seen demonstrated here we move forward to build the European economy in Europe as I as it was my dream when I grew up thank you very much and please remain seated because we will immediately proceed with the state of the world message of the Secretary General of the United Nations thank you the panel