 Welcome to this Christmas special edition of the Young Professions Network. It's great to see so many people here tonight. I think it's a really great panel we have and it's also really nice to see some new people. I'd like to thank Nancy, our outgoing colleague who helped a lot of organizing this. So thank you Nancy. There were 20 people signed up before she got involved so it was a bit better event. And I guess most of you noticed maybe conspicuously that Lisa Chambers wasn't able to make it today. She just let us know earlier today that she fell sick with an illness. I don't know what else to do but she fell sick and she wasn't able to make it. But we are very lucky to have the opportunity to now invite Hannah DC onto the panel. Hannah is our Director of Communications here at the IAEA but also has a huge amount of experience and knowledge in both Irish and European politics. Having worked in the European Parliament for the party of European Socialists for five years. And she's also Deputy Chair of Labour Women here in Ireland. So it has a great experience. It can bring a lot to the table regarding that. Then beside her on the left is Ben Tonra who is a Professor of International Relations at UCD. One of Ireland's kind of foremost thinkers in... Pressure! A leading scholar and has held other prestigious roles in his life. Most importantly, Director of Research at the IAEA here. And then finally, certainly not least is Shona Murray who is with us today despite undergoing emergency dental surgery. Only three hours ago. So thank you very much Shona. Some people are hardy. Shona is one of Ireland's leading journalists. She spent a lot of time in the news talk and then was a correspondent for the Irish Independent. She has also been a freelance work for time. But now is the Brussels correspondence for your news which would be interesting to hear your thoughts on maybe how that has changed and how your perspective has changed going to a kind of Europe-wide news agency. So we're really excited to have Shona here. And the format of tonight is that we're going to ask each of the speakers just to talk for maybe five minutes to maybe they have part of what they thought were some of the significant events both domestic but also international of the last year. And then we'll open it up to a discussion with the panelists and I invite you all to get involved and ask questions. Maybe if you think that they missed something that you thought was an important part of this year we'd love to hear your thoughts about it as well. This is a very open discussion and we want to get a good perspective of what you think was the most important event in 2018. And then after the talk or after the panel discussion we'll have a few more drinks there. I know we ran out of prosecco but there actually is more prosecco downstairs. So there will be more prosecco. We just had to keep this thing to stay. So I'm going to open the discussion with Shona. So thank you very much Kate. I was trying to take your pick of the amount of things that have happened this year that there were discussions. But I think sometimes it's always nice to be able to draw some sort of comparison or draw Ireland into some of it. And you kind of at most things the EU although in Ireland I think very problematically we see Brexit and the EU in isolation. We very much in Ireland mentality when it comes to Europe. But a few things anyway. Well first of all of course Brexit is one of the most obvious that Ireland has a relationship with Brexit. But I think one of the things that I've just really hit home over the past few weeks covering since the publication of the pro agreement and we'll have the conversations in the past few days in the House of Commons was just that you know after Brexit and when you know obviously within the UK they had a different relationship with Europe than maybe the rest of the other member states. It was always a sort of a you know confrontational relationship. And instead of you know MPs and the public in the UK becoming more aware about what the EU is about and maybe what they might lose when they decide to pull out. I felt that an actual fact they become even more strengthened in their opposition to the European Union membership. Specifically when you look at this discussion about the backstop and the language around it and you know when you look at the debate in the House of Commons it's constantly about the EU trying to trap the UK in this UK wide customs union instead of protecting the good Friday agreement which they're obliged to do that never comes into the conversation and never has acknowledged that it was the UK that demanded this customs union as UK wide as well at the last minute because all other member states had decided that this was going to be part of the future relationship and that Northern Ireland would specifically be involved in the backstop because you know you couldn't afford to have the UK in the customs union because then they get access to the single market to the backdoor. But so no recognition of any of the concessions made by the EU inspired the fact that the past two years you think that people would have been a little bit more informed about what EU membership is about. I mean there are so many things to talk about Brexit but that one I find astonishing that in actual fact a lot of the discussion has made me even more shocked at how little is known about European Union membership and what the EU is about. And then second of all I think his orbit is just, it's quite shocking you know to see what's happening and Ireland falls into place here because Finnegale is in the EPP. And I remember in 2013 I think it was when we had the presidency in the European Union and Kenny had this role and as a journalist I remember asking him because orbit had really started going hard on his anti-democracy policies he was making sure that principals at the time had to be members of the DEZ, principals in local schools. Sure you know what happened with the judiciary. And the T-shirts response at the time to me was just one of indignance like why are you even asking? Orban's our friend in the EPP. And then, and I'm not trying to pinpoint our finger and Kenny here by the way it's just because then he gave a wonderful speech in the shelter a few months ago and when he received the award for the European of the year and talked about the concerns he has with populism and these forces within the European Union they've had a chance all along to manage Orban and now we're at this point where you know the most important university a university has been kicked out of the country by a member state and you have now a slave laws you know which they're dubbed slave law I know that's an exaggeration of course but the idea that you force people to do 400 hours of extra overtime and only get paid three years later is incredible and at the same time we're trying to say to the UK don't stay in the EU because why? Because these wouldn't go working directives and we're telling them and then we slag Jeremy Corbyn because he's your skeptic because he sees the EU as a neoliberal conspiracy and then you're going no you're wrong Corbyn and actually you're right because in actual fact we're allowing this happening and in the EVP one of the most important obviously one of the most influential group has done nothing to censure Orban except for I suppose the Article 7 the sanctions but very little has come with that you don't hear much condemnation and in fact unfortunately and I know in fairness to the Irish government it hasn't gone down this route because we probably haven't had to because we don't have that discussion in this country because we're so far removed from the immigration discussion not because of any other reason not because we're so forgiving or anything like that let's face it but the fact that the EU people like Sebastian Kurtz is in the similar vein in Austria but all these leaders call themselves true Europeans and the sense that we're all true Europeans and support the European project but at the end of the day they're allowing it to be destroyed within and then the third other subject is the world's intelligence which we saw in the last few weeks in France which is a domestic matter of course but I don't think that Ireland can be immune to it and I'm not talking about that incident when it was common necessarily because that's quite complicated but there are so many instances in Ireland where for example banks are allowing with voucher funds and people being mistreated by banks and the inequality that's actually fermenting more and more in Ireland I just think that we need to be really concerned about that sort of backlash as well and then just finally to some international level we haven't dealt with a trend from Vladimir Putin who today by the way advised Theresa May that she should deliver on the referendum of Brexit which is just incredible because why? Because it's democratic with the people which is just astonishing but yet the European Union is struggling so much we haven't been able to deal with the Iran sanctions extra-territorial sanctions by the United States our supposed partner and we haven't been able to protect industry in the EU yet and the only solution here from EU leaders is we need to get Pesco up and running and we need to make sure the European Army and so I know that it's all very negative but I'm just going to say there are areas of concern for me and I don't think Ireland is a small player in this That's very interesting but I guess one issue I don't think people always say I agree with you about the migration idea why Ireland is not necessarily like inherently but it has different circumstances but when it comes to maybe populism and these reactionary forces a lot of people point out to the fact that we actually have arguably a more active democracy than a lot of other countries both through our voting system that has more a lot more proportionality but also the referendum they're the huge important referendum to reveal blasphemy and they may be the other one but Hannah maybe you could touch on that like domestically because blasphemy affected me yeah I don't know about that Hannah I wonder maybe if you could talk a little about that like domestically what do you think have been the significant issues that are in this yeah okay so unusually obviously I'm the step in piece of chamber so unusually I'm going to talk about domestic politics rather than more European focus but I will come back on a couple of things that's shown us that as well because I think they're very interesting and particularly the Victor Orban and the EPP thing and obviously you know today is actually a very momentous day in a momentous year around repeal the 8th of the amendment because Michael D Higgins signed the legislation today and that is a huge huge deal it's a really significant change and in a lighthearted way and so much of that campaign was not really lighthearted at all it was really difficult I was just thinking earlier on at our Christmas party last year a colleague said to me like well you know like rate how bad it is for women in Ireland compared like you know zero to the Taliban like okay well really you know very difficult what it's not an appropriate conversation but anyway and you know I was saying well it's really really bad because women in Ireland you know when they're pregnant when they're engaged with internal services really serious things can happen and you know they don't have equal rights and it's deeply problematic and I think the shift in public perception and the shift in nuance around the debate about the issues surrounding the referendum in the first half of this year when you take a step back from those issues is profound in what it says about Irish democracy and in a time where it's very current to talk about the systems that govern us being broken I think actually the citizens assembly and then the committee and showed how well representative democracy can work the path to the referendum and was a really interesting example in how democracy can be far more responsive than when we think of it just solely as elections every five years and now that being said I don't think we would have gotten to a referendum without a really active campaigning movement for decades but particularly in the past five years that a lot of work was put in particularly I think a lot of credit should be given for those who were in support of Repealing Amendment to Termination for Medical Reasons a group of you know families and you know and people who had suffered really really atrocious individual stories and experiences talking about those publicly and lifting a veil of silence that really shifted what you might think of as a policy issue to very very personal and if there was one slogan of the campaign that I think sums it all up was a very late slogan from Together Free S it's actually on the side really interesting how they shifted their messaging throughout the campaign I kept a leaflet from each week of the campaign for Together Free S and it's fascinating to see the ways in which they adapted and shifted to the changing parameters of the debate and actually the last leaflet is only featured doctors because they were getting internal polling showing that medical professionals were actually the only people who were being felt worthy of citizens' respect which is another interesting element but the last slogan that I'm referring to that they used was someone you love might need your yes and then they had t-shirts saying I might need your yes and I thought that that was ever a slogan that cut through policy to personal and I thought that was really really moving and powerful so that's been a moment that's changed in Ireland this year and I'm very very proud to have witnessed and I think everyone who's involved in that campaign can really say they changed this country for the better and there's myriad other domestic issues that haven't advanced at all this year I think housing is one that everybody feels remains the untractable problem along with health perhaps but even in health with slant to care we can see shifts happening in debate but housing is the issue that won't go away and I think the headlines today around the numbers dropping in terms of construction in Dublin and particularly apartment blocks that's particularly concerning I think for the demographic sitting in this room tonight if you're living in Dublin and you want to stay living in Dublin apartment building that's needed, high density building that's needed and my own view would be the state has a clear role here that it needs to step up and do more particularly the provision of affordable and social housing so I was going to pivot back to some kind of international elements and just shown as point on Victor Orban and the EPP it was a real disappointment for me that Finnegale didn't engage in any debate about who they would support in the Spitzing candidate process, the lead candidate for commission president process which was established for the first time in the last European elections where all the European parliaments nominated candidates who seemingly the idea being that you vote for Lynn Boylan for MEP in Dublin and the Sinn Fein supported European candidate if her European party NGL do civically well and win the European elections their supported candidate will be president of the commission and so on and so forth in the last round it was the EPP won the European elections, Junker was the Spitzing candidate he became commission president that whole process is in great flocks at the moment and it's not clear if it will be respected the same as the European council isn't so fond of the idea but the very Finnegale as a member of the European people's party are supporting the candidate and they didn't debate it they just decided to support Manfred Weber who I think is a very questionable character he has never faltered in his support for Victor Orban you know and I think that that is really a concern because you were talking about when you questioned Kenny on it and when I was working in Brussels I started working in Brussels a decade ago Hungarian MEPs were already deeply concerned about what was happening and that has been boiling and bubbling away for a long time and I think a real failing in contemporary politics is the idea that problems come out of nowhere they germinate and see them develop in elections this year Italy has had a really difficult time being at the front line of dealing with the migrant crisis and now Italy has elected a government that is extremely disruptive within the European council but Italy that has a full coalition partner who's I would say quite racist that would be my own view and that's the consequence of a lot of issues that have been bubbling away under the surface of Hungary and the fact that Manfred Weber is the DPP candidate now you know is questions how seriously the article 7 proceedings are actually being taken and with the Orban thing as well obviously the states are entitled to say well we don't require any interference from the European Union but natural fact when it comes to Orban when you're setting up these courts that deal with civil laws, the police are on the other side and they're all fideas appointed judges a lot of them are European taxpayers similarly when he decided to give the media a set of his own a lot of what he does is EU funded so the EU has a right to interfere in this I will let Ben talk but the one thing I would say on that is one thing around the article 7 that I found fascinating to join the European Union you have to meet basic standards in democracy as well as other but you don't have to maintain those during your membership that's a real open question for me now if the European Union isn't a union of democracies what is it? there has to be some guiding core values there they're stated in the treaty but yet respect for them now is totally up in the air just to throw on the topic of dysfunctional democracies America and Ben you know I think it was about a year and a half ago you joined us at the YPN and we had a discussion about Trump and it was relatively early days in the administration we were talking about the possible fractures between the Europe and America, the Korean-Korea policy especially in the NATO relationship where do you see that now is there a steady state where things aren't getting much better but they're not getting much worse or where do you think we are in that relationship? first of all thanks for the invitation many, many years ago I was a member of something called the Forward Perspectives Group which was this group but much smaller about 20, 25 years ago and I just think to have you guys in a room like this is spectacular and the only thing I'd say to you is take control of this building you need to take control of this building badly they need you so anyway, as I say thank you for... the time for the revolution is now in terms of kicking off with Trump for me, being on my Christmas there are four lumps of interrelated coal in my stocking the first is Trump the second is global governance which segues immediately into your question the third is authoritarianism in Europe which you guys were talking about and then the last one is migration starting with Trump and speaking to people both in the State Department and here in the US Embassy in Dublin the constant line you get is don't read the tweets, watch what we do there is a deliberate attempt to separate out what Trump does at 3 o'clock in the morning over his cold burgers in bed and what the State Department and the Department of Defense does what we're seeing is how destabilizing that disjunction can be for global governance whether it's NATO, whether it's climate change with respect to Syria yesterday you see this huge gulf opening up between what he's trying to do and what the rest of the administration is trying to do and a lot of the so-called adults who are in the room are leaving or have left and he is now bringing into himself the hardcore lunatics with respect to the US administration and that, as I say, segues into a real crisis of global governance because if the US is effectively out of commission and I think it is in terms of global governance, the US is out of commission who steps up who takes on that role and you see people talking about China on climate, you see people talking about Europe on trade, you know, Europe, Japan you know, but there is a real, real gap there and there is an entire post-war liberal order which is under threat at the global level and I don't know where the leadership is coming from and I don't have confidence that Europe has the capacity or the will to take on that leadership and I don't want the Chinese to take on that leadership so there is a real problem here and I don't know that it will be solved if Trump goes and somebody else comes in I think there are more profound issues there in terms of US global leadership and who will provide that leadership going into the future that segues into my concerns with respect to Europe, you know taking on that role of global leadership because I am being too provocative and over egging the pudding but you know there is a rot has set in in Europe a very serious rot you know, Oregon is just one you know, Italy, Poland, Austria you know, what is going on with Sweden and they are in capacity the collapse of the Belgian government there is a theme here people with respect to attack on basic liberal democratic values and you know, you read the work of Yasha Monk and he makes this really interesting distinction between democracy and liberal democracy and what liberal democracy means that is what we have got to hang on to because if we lose that then we are down the road of the authoritarian liberal democracies of the Orbans and the Salvinis and all the rest out there who are contesting this which for me makes the European elections really pivotal and really important and I know everyone is giving Macron a hard time, you know, we are all very cynical about what he hasn't yet done, he hasn't saved the world in 18 months you know, that is an awful thing he hasn't saved the world in 18 months and Gilles Jean, you know, we have seen that crisis there but you know these elections could be very, very important in terms of who gets into the European parliament and the real danger to my mind is in the parlance of political scientists these are second order elections people don't vote, notwithstanding this bits and can of that process it is giving a kick to the government is what you use European parliament for if lots of people are of that mindset and lots of people want to give kicks to government you could see a very nasty European parliament or substantial minority of the European parliament the crises and the kinds of orientations we are talking about so these elections to my mind are actually very important for the nature of the European Union itself for its capacity to lead internationally on all these global governance issues and a lot of the insecurity that will give rise to that nasty minority potential majority in the European parliament is deriving from the crisis around migration now migration was the dog that didn't bite in 2018 the numbers have gone down the European Union has done awful things to ensure that the migration crisis is not in the headlines we have offloaded this problem onto Turkey we have offloaded this problem onto Libya we are doing things with Libyan coast guards and subterraneanly with Turkey which on anyone's scale of ethical morality aren't abomination but they have managed it and yet nonetheless people in Europe and most particularly people in Europe who don't have an experience of migration or migrants who are ambitious and the most exercised for whom migration is the highest salience issue we haven't tackled that and my final point and this segues into the the Irish domestic let's not kid ourselves that constituency is here that constituency hasn't yet been mobilized largely because we have a party called Sinn Féin which would be in any other political system the natural repository and home as an anti-establishment party but it hasn't caught fire we saw in the presidential elections there is that constituency there we haven't yet seen the light hit that touch paper but don't kid yourself it is possible if not probable that it could happen here which again comes down back to my primary point is there is a battle to be fought and a battle to be won and we you have had ferocious successes in constitutional referenda there is a slight touch of smugness and self satisfaction surrounding that at the moment enjoy your victory you deserve it I promise you deserve it probably lived in the previous regime you deserve it but there is a big battle yet to be fought how do you think I thought of manifesting is it going to be elections it's parties, it's elections it's the European parliamentary elections coming up now not in an Irish context but at a pan-European level I think this is really important that's why they try to get the budget done before the European parliamentary elections happened they were trying to forestall the kind of problems they foresee with a very large if these people get their act together in the European Parliament they could be a very large blocking minority within the European Parliament paralyzing the European Parliament's capacity to have deals on all the big ticket items they tried to sort out the budget beforehand and they failed and now we face what the European Parliament is going to face but there is a big battle to be fought both in the European Parliamentary elections and going forward in terms of how we deal with Poland how we deal with Hungary, how we deal with Italy through the European Council and whether the Commission has the actual backbone to use the treaty provisions that we have that are supposed to hold Member States feet to the fire in terms of human rights and I don't have tremendous confidence around Brussels do you feel that sense of urgency at all among European politicians and maybe bureaucrats or is there a bit of complacency? I have to say I was really disappointed in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote and people like Ibra, Hofstadt, Elbar you know people who have been in and around the European Parliament for so long as well as the Junkers because they put it down to typical Eurosceptic Brits that this was an aberration not listening and this is only one of the 2016 so we still had orbit we still had problems in Poland the Polish problems were trying to evolve then and it was clear and then 2016 was after 2015 with the migrant crisis so it was very clear this wasn't just now I know that the British is very specific but it was also you know we knew that Marine Le Pen was doing well in France and I was at an event sort of an off the record thing with those MEPs and they were so dismissive and I would say yeah triumphalists the Brits are in trouble now they voted to leave but your luck is that's what you get when you constantly condemn the European Union throughout your whole membership of course people are going to vote to leave and that's all true but it wouldn't take the questions about well what are you going to need to make sure there is unity in the EU and actually surprisingly there is unity when it comes to Brexit nobody expected that but that doesn't mean the other issues aren't major fault lines once the Brexit issue goes away and so no I don't think I think there is a sort of willing blindness and now Junker and Tusk are moving out away so they don't probably have the will necessarily to do it and then as Pemba is saying there are so many countries that you have to deal with are you going to sanction all of them you can't even get a pact when it comes to how to deal with migration there's no agreement on the government regulation there's no agreement on anything and so is the EU going to sanction Poland, Austria well no Austria is not necessarily anti-democratic but in terms of their position on migration in fact they are fueling this idea that migration is a huge issue that's going to overburden the European Union like nobody is doing anything to say look this is manageable this is we are a huge block and these people aren't actually going to kill us so we can absorb it in the best way if we do it in a way that's united and sensible instead I feel like a lot of politicians and Mark Rootser did the same thing in the Dutch elections actually met the extremist parties rather than defy them we thought Gerd Wilder's party would really do well he kind of ramped up the anti-immigration rhetoric saying this is a hyperactive mentality and we shouldn't be racist like Nicola Sturgeon has been great I think she talked about how migration is so important in actual fact in Scotland and apparently a writer of that position too he does say it's important but I don't think the effort the willingness isn't there even though and I think they've come later to the game recognising mixed messaging that goes along with migration in general though in one sense in the Brexit negotiations the EU is saying when you can't have the benefits i.e. seeing a market without the cost i.e. free movement and that's automatically framing it that's the cost it's difficult then for them to turn around and say to their other partners but usually about being a migrant unconditionally there's a socioeconomic element to that as well though when we talk about freedom of movement we're often talking about freedom of movement as an asset for those who are educated and privileged enough to be able to move or if you need food pickers exactly, one way or the other not talking necessarily about the people in the middle who might feel squeezed out from employment opportunities at home because of freedom of movement and I do think that there's been more discussion of social policy and there was the social summit last year in Gothenburg and the way in which the EU can temper the excesses of globalization and meet people's concerns in some way and I think are some simple enough mechanisms as well we talk all the time about Erasmus being the great success story of the European Union for young people but that's if you go to university the extension of Erasmus plus for people in apprenticeships and vocational training I think would be a huge benefit because you should be able to have the opportunity to live and learn anywhere in the European Union and be supported in doing that no matter what your chosen educational route is so things like that I think would go quite a bit away of at least showing a willingness to engage with not just the same old group as were seen as essentially elitist because that is I think the EU's biggest communications challenge is being seen as distant and elitist and of benefit only to those within a certain social grouping Just one more question for the panel before we open over to the floor there's a lot of talk at the moment about yes being this kind of whether it's post-truth or fake news Europe however you want to frame it but I do wonder sometimes do you think we actually focus a little bit too much on economics and what I mean by that is you make the point it's not a cost and all economists tell us that free trade and immigration are good for economies and they have an economic benefit there are some losers because winners all those kind of arguments they don't care about that and they say I'll take the hit it's a cultural thing for me and that seems to be what happens in Brexit they'll say sure we'll be less well off but we'll be British and there's a lot that you can frame it as racism you can frame it as ethnocentrism however but do you think that that's maybe a new approach that we need to take in this thing that we're actually talking too much about economics and the same thing with the United Ireland discussions going on now this is about we don't care if the economy goes right it's more important that we have a united Ireland this is a huge debate in social sciences generally our traditional model for social sciences is the rational actor model everybody sits down and does this careful cost benefit analysis we make all these decisions there's experimentation, there's theory all of the backing this up, the rational actor model but people have hearts people have emotions we are rational, we know that we are rational we know that we do things that are not a cost benefit analysis I got totally stung in the shopping centre down the road here the other day I ended up buying these two nail repair kits from this woman who's just a really good salesman person I had total cost, no benefit to me at all I spent 60 euro, I'm disgusted with myself but what I'm saying is she did that one nail one nail she did we in the social sciences and more broadly we do have to take emotion and identity more seriously and for me the trick is and particularly facing the kind of issues we're facing in terms of migration it's not about telling people that migration improves the economy and adds more to taxation and increases our skill set it's saying we like the society that comes with migration we like the diversity we like the heterogeneity we like the people of different colours with different music and everything that is a strength and a benefit and you can be true to yourself and welcome me at the same time and there's no offsetting cost to that but you don't see political leaders making that argument because what you see is as you're saying Shona they tack to the extremes particularly the conservative parties will tack to the extreme right parties because people are worried about migration therefore we must meet their agenda you're playing on their football pitch when you do that you're seeding the game immediately if you play on that pitch and you're also accepting that they're right and then therefore you just confirm that there is something to be fearful of so therefore your reaction means that okay so those who are scared of now you're you only argue about means then the only argument then is about means harder means are softer means I think within the fake news the dominance of that narrative how we deal with how society at the moment one of the things that I was thinking about recently to do with this is a lot of the rise of fake news I think the solutions potentially lie within education and not education in the sense how does education respond to technological change and how do our education systems respond to technological change and not that we all need to learn coding in primary school but actually more understanding how to critically analyse news and sources and where information comes from and bias that needs to be mainstream the process of society throughout all our education system in a way that everybody has access to that kind of information that again might be the privilege of those who get to go on to higher education in a very detailed way because with the multiplicity of sources of news and their skate keepers people are bombarded by news from all sources and don't necessarily have the same time to reflect on who is this coming from and equally with the rise of the trust of a person like me rather than the trust in representatives of institutions be they religious, political or state if we trust our peers more then we have to understand where our peers are sourcing things they are sharing that we are taking as given and ripped and developing those skills within all citizens I think is a prerequisite now for shoring up democracy and liberal democracy because without it how do you be a responsible citizen and one concrete thing everybody in this room could do tomorrow is put your money in your pocket and pay for a news source tomorrow buy a newspaper subscribe to a newspaper, subscribe to something New York Times wanted to post whatever it is but subscribe to it and pay for journalism that is quality journalism because if you don't we will all end up reading Buzzfeed forever just on your point about education I guess teaching people from a young age how to deal with the internet somebody did point out to me recently a colleague what happens now when kids are googling it's not a real so you want to teach them but not everything has to be as serious as you it's going to decide