 Let me start with the usual caveat. Our institute is very closely associated with the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our ambassador is present here, but it's not a part of the ministry. So I'm not obliged to give you any official Belgian point of view, vice versa. The ministry is not obliged to accept any of my brilliant recommendations, but that's an arrangement that the two parties seem to be able to live with. The debate about strategy has just become un-topical again, because there is an initiative by four member states, Sweden in the lead, it is set with Poland, Italy and Spain, they have tossed their national institutes like the institute here, to start a reflection about what they call a European global strategy, just to end with a report sometime in the spring of next year, in which no doubt the four member states will try to use to further the idea of adopting a formal new strategic document at the EU level. They tried to last year, they proposed the more or less the same countries to revise the existing European security strategy, which now goes back to 2003, but they didn't really manage to convince enough other capitals, about three or four member states were explicitly in favour, about three or four member states were explicitly against and the rest didn't really seem to care that much, a result of which the debate ended in a stalemate, and I think this is sort of a new attempt to have the same debate under a different name, should we not need more European strategy. The usual three points in my speech, all the great speeches have three parts. First of all, why do I think that indeed we need some more strategy? My own very self-interested reason is of course that means I can write yet another book about this fascinating topic, but there are more objective reasons too. In the European security strategy, I think we have a document that operates at the, what I would call the grand strategic level, thereby I mean that contrary to what its name suggests, it's not just about security policies, actually about foreign policy or EU external action. But it's not a complete document, I think it's a document that mostly sort of codifies how the EU likes to do things, a sort of preferred methodology. We like to be preventive about things, we like to do things in a multilateral setting, and we like to be holistic or comprehensive. That tells us how to do things doesn't really tell us what to do, what are actually EU objectives, what are the priorities of EU foreign policy. And especially after the Lisbon Treaty came into force and we created this whole new machinery, our own external action service, a much strengthened position of the high representative, the question then soon became well what are they here for, what are they supposed to do, and to that existing strategies don't really provide an answer. As a result of which the EU I think will too often tend to be quite reactive, and of course foreign policy is often about reacting to what goes on, but that doesn't exclude at the same time one should try to proactively shape certain events and developments in areas in which one is very interested. That of course means that one has to define some priorities beforehand. At the same time, as you all know, we're living in an increasingly multipolar world, meaning there are more and more actors that have global reach, which tend to be much more proactive. I think the Chinese, to name just the obvious example, have a much better idea for themselves of what their interests are and what their objectives are. It doesn't mean they're always successful in pursuing them, but it does mean that they pursue them much more determinedly than the EU, which often is a bit wishy-washy. What do we want? Do we want something? And as a result, we easily get played off the field. I always quote my colleague, Jacques Coulmond, who said, at the global stage, many of the other actors, they seem to be playing chess, and the EU is stuck playing ping-pong, rather less sophisticated. I dare to argue. Finally, I think in the recent years, we have been confronted with some events, some developments, that have an impact at the whole of EU foreign policy, and therefore demand a debate at this grand strategic level. There's the Arab Spring, which brings enormous geopolitical change in our immediate periphery. There's the so-called American pivot to the Asia-Pacific, but also to the greater Middle East, which just means that the US expects every European to do its duty to take care of our own security problems. And there's, of course, the financial crisis, which means that we have less means available for foreign policy. It also means we have lost a lot of soft power, I would argue, and a lot of prestige and leverage in the rest of the world. Those three factors have an impact on everything that the EU does in terms of foreign policy, and therefore you cannot just discuss them, I think, within the box of one specific foreign policy field. You cannot just talk about the Arab Spring within the box of the European neighborhood policy because, well, for one, there are linkages with regions that are outside the European neighborhood policy. Think about the Sahel, think about the girl fair and actors like Saudi Arabia. For another thing, we might want to decide that because our periphery is so important to us that we want to shift means from one policy area to the neighborhood policy area. Or we want other strands of foreign policy, think about development, to refocus on the neighborhood. I put this just as an example. So in my view, we need a debate about at this grand strategic level of the whole of EU foreign policy sets some priorities. And this has been difficult. There is not great willingness to undertake this. And it seems to me that very often we confuse a bit the question of substance with the question of formalities. The official debate, yet again at the Gimlich in March, always tends to focus on form and process. People seem to be stuck up about, yes, but who will write it? And will we be able to have a small drafting team? And what's the role of a document like this? And in which way should we write it down? And nobody really seems to talk about the question, what should our strategy actually be? And whether we write it down or in what form is then, in my view, the second question. But the first question, what should our strategy be, tends to be a bit overlooked. So I'm hopeful that this new initiative of the four countries, at least it's another attempt to get the strategic debate into gear. So we need, in my view, a new really substantial debate on strategy. What should our strategy be in the second part of my talk, which is briefly touched upon a couple of dimensions that I think require much more attention. One is obviously the neighborhood policy. I've been saying this as before the Arab Spring, but it's all the more valid, all the more valid now. We haven't really reassessed our policy towards our southern neighbors since the Arab Spring. We have shifted a few means, 5% of the budget around, from the left to the right or from the right to the left. I'm not quite sure. But we're basically doing more of the same. And indeed, the program is called more for more. I would say it's more of more rather than more for more. I'm not saying that this is not useful, but I'm not sure it is quite sufficient. You're seeing enormous changes there. You see within all of our neighbors, we see new actors coming to the fore. We see new alignments arising among our neighboring countries, and we see a new role for certain outside actors. The risk, I think, is that many of these actors now look away from Europe. Now, we don't want these actors to look up to us. That's not what we are there for. We're not about to craft a sphere of influence, I would say. But we would hope that they want to look towards Europe and regard us as partners. Of course, our legitimacy is quite low now because many of the regimes where there have been revolutions that have been brought down were until that very day are supposedly our friends and allies. It's a bit difficult to go to Tunisia and say, okay, we support the local dictator for 50 years, but now we'll explain to you how to do democracy. If I were at Tunisia, I would say, merci beaucoup, but perhaps I can sort it out myself. But we do need partnership with these countries because of vital interests that are at stake in the region. Think about energy, think about migration, think also about economic interest in the region per se. There are also opportunities. We are perhaps a little too worried about the fact that political Islam comes to power that doesn't need to be negative. The President of the European Council is a member of a religious party, the Flemish-Christian Democrat Party. If that is not a problem in Europe, we should not automatically assume that the religious party outside Europe is a bad thing. And if we look at the recent utterings of the President of Egypt, it is clear that there is not 100% in, for example, the Iranian camp. If you look at the speeches he gave there. So I would expect some much more proactive initiative by the EU in seeking out new partners and seeking out new alliances. And of course, there's the ongoing conflict in Syria, and there is that is there that we have some sort of new region-wide Tunisia confrontation. I don't think, for example, that it's up to the EU to pick sides in this confrontation. I don't think it's a goal to arrive at a situation in which all regional actors can find themselves. So obviously, lots of questions there. Second issue, our position in the multi-polar world. Strategic partnerships are supposedly one of our priorities, always repeated. We have about 10 of them now with most of the key global players, the United States obviously, the BRICS countries. Some countries from nowhere can see why they are a strategic partner like Mexico. With many of these, we have a strategic dialogue, I think we can talk about everything, but we don't really do a lot together necessarily. And for me, partnership is more than dialogue. It means joint action. So how to give substance to those partnerships? It seems to me that all too often we regard those as instruments to further the bilateral relations. And they are, of course, that, but not just that. We should also look at them horizontally and use them in function of our predefined horizontal foreign policy interests. Try to make coalitions and issue areas, perhaps on issue one, we can agree with the Chinese and the Indians to act together. Another issue will be with the Brazilians and the Indians, but try to find more joint action. That is, of course, difficult because many of our strategic partners start from a very different value system, we think about China, but it's not impossible. We can combat piracy together with the Chinese. Is that a one-off thing, or is there a scope for more? Big debate there. Finally, being very brief here, but I'll try to keep to my time, peace and security. What is actually EU's ambition as a global security provider? For me, the operation in Libya demonstrated once again that collectively we have no idea whatsoever of which regions or which types of contingencies we as Europeans feel responsible for. And as a result, our responses are always ad hoc and improvised. Clearly, Libya demonstrates what we already knew that there is not enough Europe in security and defence. But Libya also again made clear that there is likely to be less America in European security and defence in the future. The Americans keep on signalling that we would like you to take care of problems like these on your own. You are the first line responder and you should acquire the capabilities to do that. This requires a collective European response because the capabilities that we need to borrow from the Americans are the most capital-intensive ones, which no single EU member state can acquire on its own. It's not France by itself or it's not even the Franco-British alliance, the defence agreement, that will acquire an NATO air refueling capacity or the satellite capacity that you need to do modern military operations. The only possible reply is a collective reply. Europeans need to decide what capability means they want to have. But of course, normally you can only decide if you know what you actually want to be able to do. So in a way, the American pivot is dependent upon a European strategy. Europeans deciding, what is our level of ambition then in dealing with some of these security issues for which the Americans now sort of impose autonomy upon us. It's a Belgian, by the way. I find it greatly irritating that we can always only be autonomous. Apparently if the Americans order us to be autonomous, but okay, if that's the way it works, that's the way I'm happy with the result. What does this mean also for the way we organise security and transatlantic relationship? What we saw is that in Libya couldn't be a CSDP operation because Europeans, EU member states among themselves disagreed and the EU, of course, disappears. Then the debate shifts to NATO. But in NATO, the Americans say we're not going to lead, we're not going to take initiative, it's up to you to decide what you want. Well, NATO minus the Americans is more or less the same bunch of Europeans again. So they replay the same debate and lo and behold, they still disagreed. So what you get is a NATO that I think more and more is an instrument. It's a tool. It's a service provider. It's a good one. It delivers very effective command and control of military operations that is less and less an actor in its own right. You basically have two real actors. You have the European system and you have the Europeans. If and when the Europeans concert, which I don't do often enough, but they are more likely to do it in the EU because there they can look at the whole of foreign policy and if and when they decide that foreign policy in a specific case needs a military reply, well, then we can make use of the tools that we have and we choose which one we need on an ad hoc basis. That will sometimes be NATO. If you want to do something rather large, military terms, that will sometimes be our own CSDP. More and more NATO becomes an instrument, a toolbox, and for once there I say it, Donald Rumsfeld seems to be right. The mission defines the coalition. Damn, this was on the record, was it? Well, there you go. These are just, there are of course other debates that these are for me the key questions on which we need some more strategic thinking to lead into priorities. What I would start from is to say, well, we don't need to throw away the strategy that we have because I think the method, holistic preventive multilateral is still very much valid and I think in this world of today it can still work basically because we have multi-polarity but also interdependence. The great powers are much more interdependent than they were before. Just think about in economic terms, how we're all very much interlinked. I think also about some of the global challenges which we can only solve if we cooperate. We will cooperate but we know that no great power can solve something like global warming on its own. So our method I think is still valid but we need to outer with interest and interest is often in EU circles a bit of a dirty word. I've sat in quite a few debates about the intervention in Libya for example and people say to me, well, Europeans intervene in Libya but they have interest there. Therefore it is bad. What would you prefer then? The interventions when it's against our interest when we have no interest at all? Not quite clear. By the way the same people who tell you that you intervene in Libya and criticize you for not intervening in Syria. That's another debate. So I really would bring in interest and I think what is distinctive about EU strategy is that we at least try to safeguard our interest while respecting the legitimate interest of others. But that's what makes our strategy distinctive. It's not about being disinterested. It simply does not exist. In our research at the Institute we made as a list of vital interests of course we need to protect our territory. We need to safeguard the supply of all the natural resources that we need for our economy. We need to safeguard, we need to keep open all our lines of interaction with the world in physical as in cyberspace, global trade power. We need to manage migration. We need to manage climate change. I would argue that upholding the basic tenets of international law is a vital interest. And we need to preserve our autonomy. By that I mean that EU member states should be able to make up their own minds and decisions should not be made for us in Beijing, Moscow or Washington for that matter. I think starting from those interests and applying the method, continuing to apply the method that we have applied it should be possible to define some priorities. I don't think the aim of such an exercise strategic reflection should be to find consensus on each and every imaginable item in foreign policy but rather to establish some priorities in which we agree one they're important for all 27 and two there is added value in collective action. But then also to mandate the institutions that we have created high representative in the external action service to mandate them to initiate policy on our behalf while now member states seem to use the external action service as a secretariat of their national ministries rather than regard as a policy actor in its own right which has of course something to do with perhaps a lack of willingness within the service and at the top of it itself. Final point and much more quick point this was the substantial debate then I do think the question comes do we need to write this down or not and I think once you have a strategy you also need to sell it and first of all then EU needs to sell it to its own constituency to the public in its member states to national parliaments it also needs to sell it to the outside world and therefore I think producing some sort of strategic document would be an important instrument to provide ourselves with a new strategic narrative you know actors need this from time to time the 2003 document if you read it everybody says it but it's still valid well it's true but nobody cares about it anymore you know you need to refresh it from time to time just like NATO in 2010 reviewed its strategic concept doesn't say anything new or unexpected one but NATO you know its main advantage is much shorter than the previous one and therefore readable but NATO needed to rebrand to rebrand itself and EU needs to do the same thing and I would say we need to write a positive document a positively toned document don't start from threats and say everything is you know everything is going down the drain start from a very positive agenda and I would say look we Europeans have a model that is distinctive in the world we do democracy plus capitalism plus strong government or big government as the Americans would call it as a result of which Europe is the most equal continent in the world you manage to provide to the greatest share of our citizens the greatest prosperity greatest freedom and the greatest security that's all distinctive thing and we happen to believe that if other states would apply not the same model in all its details but start from the same value set that would actually be better for everybody better for their own population but it would bring stability and therefore would be better for us so I would start from this very very positive agenda and then bring in interest because interest are the vital conditions that have to be fulfilled in order to preserve our own model they are not something that is per se bad and then set out some priorities and of course not all of it needs to be written down in one document I think the end result of this can also be a tasking to develop more specific action plans or to implement some of the policies that some of the policies that we have what is important and I'll end with that is that we create some sort of follow up mechanism if we are not debating continue to debate whether or not we should revise the 2003 strategy is because at the time we didn't provide for this in 2007-8 there was an attempt to revise it which failed so by coincidence it is later and now next year will be 10 years sort of by coincidence we are debating it again but the fact is that people as I know all people are very busy so if the strategy that we have is not somehow integrated and incorporated into some bureaucratic system that for example says that with every new mandate of a high representative he or she has to provide for an update of the strategic thinking then after a while people stop thinking about it because they have too much to do and I know that I may wake up every morning and read the European Security Strategy and do so again before I go to bed but normal people probably don't well my students might but only until they pass the exam so we need to create a follow up mechanism and make sure that there is ownership which also means I think that we need to involve all the relevant actors in the strategic thinking so the exercise that started now led by four member states would mostly be a think tanking exercise as far as I understand our institute will probably be an associate partner of it they have just in fullness but at some point it needs to involve the political actors in the member states meaning member states governments but for me also member states parliaments, the defence and foreign affairs committees and of course the NGOs and the academics and the think tankers that does sound a bit like a mini convention and why not because it is sort of by having this debate outside the normal bodies in Brussels that you can arrive at something more creative and that is much more daring but I know that in politics courage is a difficult world, thank you very much