 Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us here in the issue briefing room all the way from the Congress Centre to appreciate you making the time to travel. We keep this issue briefing format in this part of the world because we like to have as many media in the room as possible. We tend to try to keep things edgy as possible and as interactive as possible. So here you'll find some of the slightly more sensitive subjects and this session here is no different. I also want to welcome our audience watching us live online on our Facebook channel and also on weforum.org. Now the other thing to bear in mind about this session is it's edgy but it's also very short so we have 30 minutes. We encourage rapid fire questions and answers. We'll try to avoid, we will certainly avoid opening statements. We're going to start with a round of questions. We will also be having questions from our audience watching us all over the world. So if you see me picking up my phone, I'm not checking my mail. I'm just seeing if we have views and opinions from the public which we're going to try to work into the flow of the session. So without further ado, I'm going to briefly introduce my panel to my immediate left, Alexander the crew, from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Development Corporation, Belgium. His Excellency Dr Miroslav Lachach, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs for the Slovak Republic and Jan Vernemuller, Professor of Politics at Princeton University. Minister de Kru, I'm going to start right off with the question of the session. Are we looking at a post-EU era? No, not at all. I think yes, there is a Brexit discussion and the Brexit discussion is about one member state who decided not to be part of the EU. First of all, if you look at the opinion polls about the popularity of Europe, actually it went up a bit after the Brexit. The EU is popular in a number of countries, actually very popular. There's a difference also in the age group and this is actually kind of surprising if you see some of the election results. Which is very surprising is that actually the generation that created Europe is today the generation that is doubting on Europe. It's this baby boom generation which today has their doubts. If you look at the younger generation, for a younger generation the EU is very popular, it's even something they don't consider is worth the debate. This is part of their lives and maybe that's an issue. It seems that it's even something not worth fighting for because they see it as so evident. Maybe second dimension, if you look at what are the topics on top of mind of people today, it is obviously migration but that has been going down over the last quarters. But it's terror, it's creation of jobs, economic policy, forum policy. Now if you look at what is happening in the world today, the unrest in the backyard of Europe, terror events and so on, it's quite clear that the most efficient way of tackling that is grouping European countries together. The whole question is how do you make the EU a more efficient mechanism and how do you make the EU a mechanism that talks the language of the people which today is not enough of the case. Post-EU? No, I don't see it happen. We speak into generational divides and I'm very glad to see what looks like young people here in the audience as well as the usual average age of the forum participant which is 54 for a man, 51 for a woman. Let's try to work those views in later. Minister Lutscheg, this would be a very easy session. We could all leave now if we disagreed flat out that there's no chance of a post-EU era. But let's at least explore this. Things haven't been going so well. Popularity may be going up, but the general narrative and something possibly we wouldn't have been discussing 12 months ago is that people are thinking about an end to the EU or a radically different EU that has to change with the times. I don't think it's appropriate to discuss the post-EU era. I don't think it's coming. What we shall discuss is the better EU era or the post-UK era. Yes, we are going through difficult times, but 27 members of the European Union want to keep the EU together, want to stay together, want to make the EU better and that's exactly what we need to do. So to speculate about post-EU, if EU was going to disappear, we will have to create it again. It's economic logic, it's a political logic. But this is a wake-up call. Brexit is a consequence of mistakes that were made on a number of policies. People are no longer secure with regards to their jobs, with regards to their lifestyle. Migration has not been tackled appropriately by the European Union. That's how people perceive it. And now we have to prove that we can actually address the issues that our citizens consider important. And Brexit will be, of course, the first very strong test, because it must show our ability to act as one, to stay together and to know what we want. UK has made it clear yesterday what's their position with which they are entering into this negotiation. So now it's for us to do the same. And it's also an irony that the image of the European Union is much better outside of the EU than inside of the EU, because we are too much focused on criticising ourselves and focusing on the negative sides. And it has to be people like President Obama or the Japanese Prime Minister, who were coming to London to explain actually how good a project the European Union is. So it would also help to us if our media would be more balanced, because we are taking for granted all the positive things that EU has delivered, and we are focused only and obsessed only with the negative ones. So challenging, but I am still optimistic. It's almost as if Europe needs to be saved from itself, because I remember being a Brit, the number of world leaders who lined up to praise and encourage remain voters in the UK. We're not having an effect. And I suppose I'm also reminded of the session in this very room yesterday on forecasting failures. Another kind of quite hot topic at the moment. Why are we getting things wrong so much? And one of the academics in the room suggested that we were, you know, forecasts tend to prioritise economic self-interest over emotion. It's very hard to overcome that emotion. So while there is an economic logic, then also there are emotions. Professor Muller. Just quickly on the Brexit discussion. And I agree on the tension between facts and emotions. Let's be clear. I mean, big part of the Brexit argumentation was just blatant lies. I mean, this was not even about fake news. This is just fake arguments. This is about a campaign saying, you know, the EU money is going to be used for the NHS. And the day after saying, well, you know, it's actually not true. This is about blaming Europe for whatever things that actually have nothing to do with EU policy. And I agree the pro-EU side not being able to counter that because it countered it too much with facts, whereas I think we should be able to counter it better with emotions. But I agree with what's been said. This Brexit discussion trying to extrapolate that to the rest of Europe, I think that is going way too far because the Brexit discussion was, I think, a test case for how actually discussions might be taking place in the years to come. But on the facts itself, part of the campaign was just based on lies. It gives me no great pleasure to say that the next session in this very room will be about how to manage fake news. It's a huge problem. Well, we should call it how to manage fake arguments. It's not fake news. Let's turn to, we're calling it digital wildfires, but that's forum speak. Professor Muller, you're an academic. You're European, but you live outside. What's your take on the future of the European Union? So I have the privilege of not being a politician. So I'm less concerned about surveys and popularity. I don't think for the record, I don't think the EU will officially dissolve. But I don't find the question about a post-EU era meaningless nonetheless because there are two ways for the EU to end. One is official dissolution. The other way would be that, yes, we have treaties, but they're no longer really observed. Now Brexit, in a sense, doesn't call the treaties into question because the treaties allowed for a country leaving. So everything is regular in that sense. But the treaties also say that all countries observe common European values such as democracy and the rule of law. And for at least a couple of years, we've had at least one country where this is no longer the case, Victor Orban's Hungary. And since 2015, we have another country, Poland, where the rule of law has been under attack like never before. What has happened with the constitutional tribunal in Poland in December is unprecedented in post-war European history and its brutality as an attack on the rule of law. Now that doesn't mean that the EU officially dissolves, but this really goes to the core of the EU as a political project because the EU was not founded to increase efficiency. It was a political project. And this is not just airyferry values talk because also if we can no longer trust each other in the EU, among member states, if we basically say, look, in this country, the rule of law is no longer really operational, the whole thing really in a certain way will break down because without that mutual trust, it simply doesn't work. So the EU will probably keep standing as a facade of sorts, but if nobody does anything about these rogue member states inside, who've also, like Orban, found a way to be basically both inside and outside at the same time, it's even better than Brexit. You get all the money, but you don't observe the rules anymore. If we don't do anything about that, it doesn't seem meaningless to me to start talking about a post-EU era. So it's a matter of actually strengthening institutions. Let's see quickly how many questions we have. Please put your hand up if you want to ask one. We'll try to take a few at a time. So gentlemen here, do you remind us where you're from? Hi, my name is Alex Pigman. I'm from Agence France Presse. I have a question sort of bouncing off of your comment for Minister de Cruz. The biggest party in Belgium in Flanders is a party that the NVA, which was sort of considered anti-establishment, maybe populist has a strong man leader, and now you share a government with. So I thought that maybe if you could help us see how that transition took place in Belgian politics, and for you as a Belgian politician from an establishment party, doesn't that sort of give us hope that with the populist rise in Europe that we can somehow bring these parties into the fold like you have in Flanders and in Belgium? It's adapting to populism. Let's just take this question and we'll do two at a time. Gentleman here please. Can you take the microphone? I just like to know, looking 20, 30 years hence, what is the end game or ultimate vision of the EU? Is it the United States of Europe? In other words, a federal system similar to the US with a disappearance of nation states? Or is it not intended to go that far? It's a vision for the EU, a future vision. Let's just take my good friend, Michael Yalmer. Yes, thank you. I would like to take the question from Mr Miller to Mr Leitchach and Nicole. What is left of EU if you do nothing to Poland and Hungary? I had exactly the same sort. Okay, so let's take the first one first. Adapting and embracing populism or working with populism? Well, first of all, I think my basic rule is always when you have to respect democracy. And so if one party is the biggest one, well I think the logical option is that they are part of power. Now in Belgium we have this long habit of making coalitions and of having a coalition agreement, which means in our case four parties, what do we have in common? And there we are very clear. Belgium is a pro-European country. We believe in the European institutions and so on. I know that the NVA, who we are talking about, have in their own programme a more skeptical view on the European Union. That's their good rights, but they are part of a federal government and within a federal government we are following a certain line. I think that the last thing you should do is ignore certain parties and absolutely not ignore certain voters. I mean if voters voted for a certain point of view, well then the least you could do is say, okay well this is something we will work with and we will try to understand that we might have different answers to the issue being put forward by what you could call populists. But ignoring it is never a good solution. We've had in Belgium for a long time and we have tried to isolate them for a very, very long time. I do think that having extreme rights in a government is something I would never accept. But understanding their voters and trying to give an alternative answer to their voters is obviously something you should do. Vision of Europe. Mr Lechec possibly. I think there is no answer to this question that was very actively discussed just before the crisis. What Europe we want to have, a federal Europe or Europe of Nations, right now we have so many concrete issues and challenges on our plate that we have no time to engage in these academic discussions and there is no demand for that. Plus the answer will be produced by the way we deal with the problems right now. Certainly there is very little demand for more Europe among the member states. But there is a very strong demand for better Europe. So that's what needs better functioning Europe and Europe that is closer to people because we lost that feeling, that connection. Ordinary people don't feel that Brussels cares about them or the problems we deal with in Brussels are their problems. So the way how we manage the Brexit negotiations, the way how we are able to address the challenges such as migration or terrorism will help us to find answers to your question. That's absolutely clear. And also I think Europe will find itself in a new situation with regard to the new US administration. For years we have been quietly following the US lead, basically accepting the US set agenda and helping to promote that agenda. But this might change and this most likely is going to change. And now my second concern is whether the EU will be able to defend itself, set our own agenda even to confront the United States on the issues where we might no longer agree and you know that number of these issues were made clear during the campaign. And the second question about Poland and Hungary, when I discussed the European project with partners from outside of Europe, some of them say that it's an integration project that might have gone too far, that it's too much of integration, that it's too much of regulations given to the institutions. But at the same time in real life we see that we are over-regulated in certain areas but at the same time under-regulated in others. Euro crisis. So clearly that we did not have mechanisms to deal with the economic financial irresponsibility of certain Euro member states. And the same goes for the rule of law. We have a very strict and strong mechanisms of monitoring, assessing countries which are part of the process of the accession. But somehow we assumed, or as if we assumed that once the country joins the European Union there is no longer need for monitoring because everybody will be so responsible that simply there will be no demand. Now we see that we need that, that becoming member state does not make you perfect and we don't have these mechanisms. So commission is trying to do something but these processes have questionable legitimacy. So I would say, yes, go for less regulation in certain areas but create mechanisms where we need them and rule of law is one of them. And one of the problems that I, and I'll be speaking very openly here, is of course the European Parliament is not very helpful in dealing with these issues because party affiliation plays too strong role here. That means if it's one of us we will defend. If it's one of us then we will attack. And of course with this kind of approach it's very difficult to address the issues. Professor Venner, I recognise a raised eyebrow and a burrowed frow from 10 metres away. What are your thoughts on the question? Well I'd be curious to follow up why you think that the so-called rule of law mechanism which the commission has put into place lacks legitimacy. It might be ineffective at this point because as we see they basically have done everything to do and nothing has changed. I just don't see what's happened. Well I think at this point... Apart from a couple of visits of France, Timurmans to Poland to Warsaw, I don't see a click. I'm not aware of clear, credible and generally accepted mechanism. There is a discussion in General Affairs Council about establishing this kind of mechanism but it's in its early stages. So Poland itself is questioning the competence of the commission to act in this. Well of course they are... I don't have a problem. I'm just saying we don't have instruments to deal with this problem. But just in theory, if by now France Timurmans said okay they're not complying we have to trigger Article 7, at least that would put the pressure on the council to really come clean because the council basically hasn't said anything with one exception of a statement by Donald Tusk very late in the game and at least then even though it probably would not work in terms of applying Article 7 that be precedent and one would have a sense that okay at least they tried if the EU does too much we're going to increase Euroscepticism in these countries and they're going to turn away from the EU and so on. What we always forget is that there are also plenty of citizens in these countries who in 2004 when these countries joined the EU thought okay there's never going to be a way back to authoritarianism and dictatorship, we're safe and we're letting all these people down. I agree, but you know in order to activate Article 7 you need unanimity and there is one leader who said clearly I will never vote for them. You're right but the commission even on its own is for the record we've tried. Institutions, how to reform them or do we leave them as they are? Well I personally believe that one of the issues we have is that too many topics are being led today by the council and the council has some kind of what you could call a Confederate logic. It's heads of states coming together and too often they are coming together and bringing their domestic problems and this is becoming some kind of a serial crisis-solving mechanism which is not really that bad as a crisis-solving mechanism but it's not what Europe should be. I think Europe should be much more about what's the vision where we want to go, what's the common European project we have. Belgium as a small open economy has always been much more a fan of the commission and giving the commission more competencies because the commission in essence would fight for the interests of all Europeans whereas the council you have prime ministers fighting for the interests of their home their home constituency I think and there I agree with what's been said in a number of topics over the last years the commission has not shown enough leadership and just if I just stick in high domain digital single market which I think is a key element about bringing prosperity in Europe yes one thing has been solved the roaming charges and that's a great thing and it's a tangible thing that I think makes clear what Europe is doing for its citizens there's so much more to be done and nothing's moving because in the council it's dominating all the time but sorry yes national interests and sometimes unfortunately they prevail over the common European interests and that's part of the problems we have to deal with at the same time council represents the member states so the citizens of European Union and with all the complications all the problems but this is the legitimacy of the European Union and therefore instead of speaking who is in favour of council and who is in favour of commission it's really about finding the working pattern between the council and the commission to the best interests of the European Union and European citizens I think that we have found this good pattern now but we are at the beginning of the Brexit process when council clearly recognizes that it has no potential it has no capacity to manage this complex problem it can only be the commission but the council should maintain the political leadership and the political oversight and the chief negotiator Michel Barnier who represents the commission but he will be reporting to the member states to the council and if this works this could be a very good precedent for our common work in the future as well but I think another way of looking at this is making the commission more political you can give the commission more political legitimacy for example by saying that commissioners should be members of the European Parliament have been elected one solution is probably other solutions but if you give the commission more political legitimacy and that is something where we will have to take a few steps before doing so that could be an alternative I'm not convinced that the current setup is actually something that offers enough perspective on the long run OK thanks very much I want to bring in the voice of our and look just on time the lady in front has put her hand up please I was going to say I want to introduce the voice of our younger generation and there you go putting your hand up being very assertive please remind us where you're from and your name please so I'm Cristina Fonseca and I'm a global shaper from the Lisbon Hub and I think we are talking too much politics here and without fully understanding the problem and the reactions we are seeing today from the populations are just like frustration because they lost faith and we are not I'm very positive in my mental framework I never ever thought about the post-EU I've travelled a lot like Europe is kind of heaven if we compare it to other regions and I'm very positive because we've met with leaders like political and economical leaders here and they are really asking us what can we do, we want to understand so I guess my two questions are one do we fully understand the problem and two, how can we better communicate with populations and make our message very clear so everyone understands what's going on and people are not afraid Can we bring in Professor Muller first here because it's the hearts and minds thing let's have a non-politician tell us how we can win but still not quite an ordinary citizen I'll try my best so two points in response so quite frankly, forgive me, I don't think that this is a PR problem I think this was the mindset especially of the commission for the longest time that the problem is really how do we communicate better let's do another glossy flyer let's have a constitutional convention let people participate and so on and that's going to make people like the EU more of course you want to communicate as well as possible but I would go back to something you said which I think is a big issue, it's going to be a big issue in the next couple of years you remember that in the run up to the EP elections 2014 there was a sense of trying to politicize the commission and the wager was to say if people have a choice and then they see that choice reflected in how the commission is at least led it's going to increase legitimacy and I think that the thought is basically right but of course what has happened since is that many people in the council didn't like this to begin with probably like it even less now and in terms of how this comes across the very fact that the two main contenders Martin Schulz and Junker basically the day after get together and they now form a coalition against all the anti-Europeans as they put it that doesn't really look like serious political competition so I think that's one thing to watch in terms of where we're going to go second point very briefly in terms of frustration I think it's very important that we get the diagnosis of this right especially at this forum because we've heard over and over again that everywhere the people are rising up against the elites or the establishment but not everybody who criticizes the powerful is a dangerous populist in a certain way it's good to have new protest parties it's good if people basically say yes I want to criticize existing rulers but I play by the rules so I'm thinking of new parties like Seriza and Podemos who you might not like because their policies are naive and so on but it seems to me crazy to say that these are anti-EU forces in the way that Barroso and Van Rompuy initially said oh populism everywhere because that blurs the distinction between these forces and real anti-Europeans like Marine Le Pen and Gerhard Wilders who really are dangerous so where possible we should say look yes we might not necessarily like their policies makes our life more difficult if we have more fragmented party systems okay but ultimately that's democracy whereas the real populist basically those who say we and only we represent the real people in the way that Marine Le Pen, Gerhard Wilders, Frau Ke Petri and others do it they are the ones who really could be a danger and I think that's sort of what we should concentrate should concentrate on and if I may slip in one last point the other thing that of course everybody is saying these days is that oh there's a populist wave or as Nigel Farage puts it a tsunami now rolling across the west Brexit Trump and then okay Hofer wasn't really next but you know as Farage put it somewhat mixing metaphors the Italian people fired a bazooka against the elites internally when they kicked out things and now it's gonna be France the Netherlands, Germany and so on but this I think completely gets wrong is that Nigel Farage didn't bring about Brexit all by himself he needed his Boris Johnson his Michael Gove basically his conservative collaborators from the establishment same as true of Trump independent populist candidate he needed his Gingrich as Christie and so on so we shouldn't just sort of remain fixated on extremist populist parties we should always ask what is the conservative establishment doing in response are they making a decision that actually they can work with these people and if they make that decision then I get really worried very little time but I wanted to see any more questions that we should try to cover up gentlemen in the front row okay sir please global shaper from the Geneva hub and I just have something very simple to say is I feel like as a millennial what we care about are results and outcomes it's not that much about who does what it's not about the institutions it's about being agnostic when it comes to the institution in charge of doing reforms creating impacts and it's about looking at concrete results my question is how do you innovate how do you bring creativity into the EU process and how do you ensure that at the end of the day you end up creating the right condition to empower people to have job and to dream again about their future but also about what it is to be European that's a very good point Larry Summers are very well in the Bloomberg debate yesterday he said let's help the key to solving the middle class crisis is helping people from getting good education helping them transition to work and helping them buy a home the real core things in life Alexander I think that is indeed the main question today you are living in very turbulent times with an outlook of the future which we might think things look good but for most people it says well if progress means there is more terrorism in Europe that migration flows are not under control and that everyone tells me my job is going to disappear if that is progress actually you can keep it and we'd rather go back and in addition there is a general feeling that in this world the political class governments, public service and so on is not adapted with decision processes for that speed and I think that's true at every level I see this at the national level our way of working is not at all adapted to a world where you have to act faster be able to take more risk do certain things where you say let's try it and we'll see if it works we'll do it if it doesn't work we'll scrap it and do something else this is the transition we've seen in the corporate world the way for politics to work needs to innovate in a drastic way being much more experimental much more agile but also being more democratic having that as a balance that's a big challenge but there's intelligent people in the room so we might think about how to do this very quickly right now we have to focus on the priorities and it's not the distribution of competencies between the institutions but it's about addressing the real problems of real people and I agree with you that what matters are the results but in order to achieve results we need to define where the problems lie and here I would like to turn your attention to something that we started during our presidency namely the Bratislava process and the Bratislava roadmap where the leaders for the first time in 10 years met outside of Brussels to discuss exactly the EU of 27, the post-UK EU and they agree that the key issues are security, migration, jobs and also communication and the process will continue 3rd of February in Valetta this is very important for me this is even more important than the Brexit negotiations themselves because the UK will live anyway but what the EU of 27 will look like and how close it will get to our people that's really important and I really hope that we have started a good process and we will get where we want to end up right now in the final two minutes I want to summon the spirit of Kenneth Rogoff he said a few weeks ago jokingly things that everybody at Davos gets things wrong so with that in mind I would like you to tell me and tell us where you think the EU will be this time next year starting with yourself Minister de Crou I have no crystal ball things changed fast one year ago when we were here people were optimistic about the future one year later things have shifted so I can only hope to come back to what I said is that we find a way of acting in a more decisive way in a more flexible way on indeed the topics that matter and the topics that matter in the world today security jobs foreign policy in our backyard are by essence topics where none of the member states can do it on their own so it's a clear case that working together is more efficient offers a better outlook and we'll just have to find a way to convince everyone to do this and of course there are a number of elections this year in 2017 which we need to factor into our forecasting model Minister Lachag yes but don't be obsessed with elections elections are a normal fact of a democratic life what's really important is how we deal with Brexit and with the new US administration and a year from now I want to see the European Union which is self confident, united and on top of its agenda so as everybody knows the EU faces multiple crises I doubt that any of them will have been conclusively resolved by this time next year but if the question for me would be whether people are willing to basically use the crises as the cliche goes as an opportunity in terms of starting to make trade-offs and say we can actually partly give concessions here if you help us with that that hasn't really happened so far if that were to happen maybe things could look more coherent next year thank you very much well we are at a time where we do have to stick to the schedule so I'd like to thank you all for joining us here this morning, thank you for joining us here in the issue briefing room thanks for watching us online, the session is now over