 Okay. Well, good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Carnegie Endowment. Is the mic on? Excellent. So my name is Eric Batberg. I'm the director of the Europe program here at Carnegie Endowment. I'm delighted to welcome all of you to this timely conversation on the challenges and priorities for the new EU's leadership. For those of you following online via the live stream, you can also tweet during the event using the hashtag future of Europe. So the backdrop to today's conversation is of course the new incoming EU leadership. As you may have noticed, there are new incoming leaders in Europe for four key positions that are president of the European Commission, president of the European Council, a new high representative for foreign policy, and a new head of the European Central Bank. Their arrival in Brussels corresponds, and in Frankfurt with ECB, corresponds with a number of challenges both within Europe, such as the still-undersolved Brexit, a European economy that is slowing down, the continued challenge of populism and naturalism across Europe, but also external challenges, such as revisionist Russia, the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East and North Africa, a rising China increasingly present both in and around Europe, and of course a rocky transatlantic relationship under President Trump. A key message coming out of Brussels these days is that the next commission will be a geopolitical commission. But how realistic is this prospect? What should we expect from the new EU leadership in terms of meeting these challenges? What will be the top priorities? And where can the EU realistically be expected to deliver? And what will be the impact for the United States and for the transatlantic relationship? In a moment you will hear from a terrific group of Carnegie experts who will give you insights and analysis from Europe on these issues. But before we turn to our panel, I am really delighted that we have with us today the Ambassador of the European Union to the United States, Mr. Stavros Lambranidis, who will provide some keynote remarks to help frame today's conversation. And I couldn't think of anyone more suitable to do so. Ambassador Lambranidis, before assuming his current role here in Washington, previously served as Special Representative for Human Rights of the European Union, as Foreign Minister of Greece, and as a long-term member of the European Parliament. So I couldn't think of anyone more suited to help explain and give us a sense of what the mood is in Europe and in Brussels for us here today. So with that, please join me in thanking and welcoming Ambassador Stavros Lambranidis for some keynote remarks. Hello. Great to be here. Great to see you. Thank you so much to Carnegie for its successful programs under the EU's Jean-Marinet initiative. It's good to see some very familiar faces. Some very, very familiar faces, Pierre Vimont. Was fundamentally the man behind setting up the external action service. And then he left at some point and then he started looking younger and younger and happier and happier. And so many others. So great to be here. I think you can fairly say that what you're going to see a lot in the next period is continuity. Europe is not some kind of flimsy entity that changes leadership and suddenly decides to do things in a crazy different way. You will also see a tremendous amount of forward planning. And you will see, I believe, quite a bit of strength and leadership in the international scene. And you will see at the same time in virtually everything that we do and diminished desire to work closely with the United States to achieve our common goals. There is a tendency to look at new leaderships and try very quickly to forget about the current or the old ones. But before I talk about what we're going to be doing in the future, potentially in your commission, I suppose, I'd like to pay tribute to Jean-Claude Euchar and the commission that is leaving. That does not forget the crises that had to be navigated by this commission, whether it was dealing with the Brexit that initially when it happened spurred all these speculations about the European Union collapsing, whether it is about the financial crisis and its consequences that again spurred all these speculations about the Euro collapsing and the European Union collapsing or the immigration issues that hit and in some cases quite strongly, both politically, the European Union and its member states. And think about how strong and united the European Union has come. As opposed to, in fact, suffering anything even closer collapse, you talk to our citizens in our 28, soon to be 27 member states, and they will tell you in vastly increasing numbers that they feel that the EU has been great for their lives and that they want the European Union to be there and to be strong. And when it came to them actually voting on that topic, they showed up, as you probably know, with a much longer percentage than any other time in recent history, 10% increase in the voting numbers, to bring into the European Parliament last May parties that were by and large extremely dedicated to a stronger European integration. And finally, if I may just focus on the EU-US relationship, President Duker and President Trump, when they met last July, set the foundations for a much more positive approach to it, whether it is in that trade but in many other talks as well, but the focus on trade was there and the EU has delivered on virtually everything that we discussed in that conversation, whether it is the explosion of imports of liquefied natural gas or soybeans or getting negotiating mandates for some of the most tricky and interesting and strong issues that we have discussed such as industrial goods and industrial tariffs and the commitment that we have in Europe to reduce them all dramatically together with the US friends. So, Ursula van der Leyen, the new Commission President, is coming in with a new Commission that is going through a process right now of the hearings at the European Parliament. In fact, Josep Borrell, the next person who will be heading the external action service, just finished, I believe, his hearing and with flying colors, as I think the vast majority of commissioners designate, the Parliament will go through his process of approving or in some instances maybe not approving a couple of candidates. And finally, the hope is that the expectation is that by November 1st, the new Commission will be in place. And the new Commission has another priorities already set by its president. And I think that these are the priorities that you will see more work in the future. So let me just, without repeating word for word what the president has said, take these priorities and try to put them in, especially in the context of the EU-US relationship and maybe spur some of the discussion coming up. So, Europe strong in the world is something that has been discussed a lot and that involves, of course, security and defense. As you know, under the Commission now, there has been a remarkable increase in European Union member state cooperation on security defense matters. Since Russia invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea, about 100 billion euros of additional military spending and NATO spending has been committed and given by European Union member states and NATO countries. But fundamentally, we're working closer together now to research more together, to invest more together and to deploy more together through the so-called PESCO, the Permanent Instruction Cooperation and the European Defense Fund. And that is a huge, a very important thing for the transatlantic relationship. Because indeed, right now, Europe, maybe you didn't know this, European Union member states, are the second biggest spenders of defense in the world after the US. And yet a lot of that spending is inefficient, as we have determined. And a lot of responsibilities in our neighborhood where we're becoming increasingly security exporters require a much more strong coordinated European presence. And all this is happening as we speak through PESCO IDF. In our neighborhood, Russia, in the case of Ukraine, is a classic example of how a revisionist country can threaten European security and American security directly. And I think that there you see a great cooperation between the EU and the US when it comes to sanctions. And it's going to be one of the new commission's priorities to ensure that cooperation remains in place, that there is very strong coordination on how to address Russia, not just now, but also in the future, and how to also support Ukraine and support others in the region facing the kind of aggression, but also the need that they have and the desire that they have to come closer to Europe and to reform themselves. The European Union, in the case of Ukraine, has been the largest by far contributor of both loans and direct free aid, 15 billion approximately of European funds have gone in the past few years in the Ukraine, conditioned on changes that need to happen on the ground. This is by far the biggest contribution of anyone else in the world to Ukraine. And that doesn't even include the member states, EU member states contributions to that country. That is humongously important in our view because we need to be able to create stability in the region and security in the region and fortifying the economies and the institutions of all our partners around is a fundamental way to bring that security and that stability. As in another part of our neighborhood is the case when it comes to Syria. So let me say on defense, just to emphasize something that I think you will see also being discussed in the next few years, sustainable security and not just the word security is going to be what the European Union will continue focusing, which means absolutely fortifying our military spending and our military defenses. You've seen this now, you'll see more of it, but also looking at the world the way that ought to be looked, not as a place that can be pacified through weapons alone, although sometimes you need to use them, but fundamentally through other things as well that are not soft security, they're not afterthoughts of security, but they're hardcore security. Syria, let me ask you this, how are we going to bring security to Syria and to the region unless we manage to get millions of people who have left the country and many more millions have been internally displaced capable of returning peacefully back to their homes without being prosecuted or threatened anymore, the rights protected by the regime, it's not going to happen. We have to achieve those things. There's got to be an agreement with the Syrian government to allow these people to come back and with commitment, verifiable commitment that those people will not be persecuted and they will be safe. That is diplomacy. That doesn't take too many guns, that's diplomacy. And let's say they succeed, where are these people going to come back to? The rubbles, because that's basically what every Syrian city looks like today. There are no schools, there are no homes, there are no hospitals, there is no clean water. Can there be real security in Syria and in the region unless those cities are rebuilt? Can people really come back, not be marginalized, poor, radicalized? Can the region be stabilized without all these things in addition to the military might that is necessary? The answer is no, not to Europeans. And so when we're talking about security and investment in security, we in Europe also count the investment, the huge investment that we do in diplomacy, in peaceful resolutions, in sustainable development, in ensuring that war zones can be turned into peace zones. Not just into rooting out the bad guys, but ensuring that the good guys can actually flourish. Second priority, environment and environmental growth. The European Commission President has committed to a at least one trillion investment plan in the next 10 years, also through the use of the European Investment Bank, to support research development and employment of energy transition technologies, climate fighting technologies, sustainable technologies. This is a huge priority. We're doing it because climate change is not a hoax, it's not something that someone dreamt up, it's a real and present danger and we as Europeans will not allow it to destroy a planet, not just for our children, for ourselves. But we're also doing it because indeed there are remarkable economic opportunities that are being created as we speak and unless we manage to ride that wave, others will. We have to be at the forefront. Oh, but you know, you're going to kill growth if you go and try to invest in all these things that don't yet have economies of scale that can't really work, it's going to be terrible. Really? The European Union since 1994 has reduced carbon emissions by 20%. It will be reducing them by around 35% by 40% by 2030-2035 and our goal is carbon neutrality by 2050. 20% reduction from 94 to today of carbon emissions. What happened to our economic growth during that time? Increased by 60%. 20% reduction in emissions, 60% growth. Exactly where in those figures is there any proof that if you invest in alternative technologies and clean technologies, you kill your growth? The exact opposite we believe happens, which is why we're also engaged now with a number of finance ministers from around the world and in the fall meetings of the IMF and the World Bank can see this, to be launching a sustainable finance initiative around the world. This is serious business, but dear friends, it displaces people as well. And so the new commission president has announced a mitigating fund to ensure that communities that are displaced will be able to handle this transition. I mention this because we have perhaps, it could be accused of not having paid enough attention to the inequalities that globalization brings or to the changes that we are also trying to bring along. And this is something that Ursula von der Leyen has actually emphasized in her programmatic speeches as well. Look at issues of fairness. Look at issues of minimum wage. We don't have in Europe right now, European level. That's a commission, a new commission plan. Look at the way that we share the pie when it's bigger. If you look at the genie coefficients, you will see that the European Union member states are doing perhaps a better job than in the U.S. when it comes to inequalities. You will see between the riches, let's say, and the poorest, but it's still an issue. And it's an issue that many argue has also been a reason for a lot of public discontentment and a lot of populism in our countries and around the world. And so it cannot be ignored and it will not be ignored by us. Trade and investment will not be ignored. Third priority and the single market. We are, and we have, more in common with each other, Europeans and Americans than we have with anyone else anywhere else in the world. About a trillion in trade and goods and services, that doesn't include the profits from investment. When you include all three things that constitute trade, goods, services, profits from investment. An absolutely balanced relationship. In fact, the U.S. has a slight surplus when it comes to that. The biggest investors in the European Union and its member states are American companies by far. The biggest by far investors, foreign investors in the American economy are Europeans. 70% of all foreign investment in the U.S. comes from European companies. That's huge. It couldn't have happened without the unique common market that we have in Europe. Oh, but you're a bunch of regulators. That's all you do, really? The European Union is the biggest deregulation experiment in the world by far. We've taken the regulations and the laws of 28 countries and we trashed them. And virtually everything has to do with the single market and economics. And in their place, we created one single set of regulations which allows any U.S. company and any EU company, for that matter, to set up shop anywhere in the European Union and to be able to trade freely and sell freely to 500 million of the most wealthy consumers in the world. That's what has made our companies in Europe huge and capable of then being the leading investors in the U.S. creating millions and millions of jobs here. And that's what has made our market the biggest, most open market in the world by far, the most attractive place for U.S. investment and U.S. companies to invest, creating jobs in the EU as well, where each other's absolutely best and indispensable economic trade allies. And in some instances, we have some disagreements, it goes without saying, but the absolutely worst thing that we can do for the families in our countries and for the food on their table and for the strength that we need to have, not just in our economies, but in the way that we project and try to affect the world economy with actors out there who are not just simply any longer trying to export cheap and subsidize goods and block the markets to better goods, but they also are trying to export cheap and subsidize values and ideas on human rights and democracy and governance and other things. The best thing we can do is to remain united, and the worst thing we can do is to have fights and spats on issues that make absolutely no sense when we have to keep our eye on something bigger. I spoke about values. One more priority of ours in this discussion. I would submit to you, is this a closed or an open thing? It's an open-stream online. It's an open-stream online. Okay, so I would suggest to you nothing, but I will probably suggest things to you. All right, let's try to wrap this up. Let me just say one thing on trade maybe really quickly there. We have a challenge around the world and we're not working enough closely in my view to address and that is where the future technologies are going. Who's going to be setting the standards? And that's something that we're beginning to discuss in the executive working group that the two presidents had formed last July, but there's much more work that needs to be done. We know what we're facing now as challenges, but we also know what we'll be facing in the future, whether it is artificial intelligence and how it goes and how it's used or whether it is robotics or whether it is anything you can imagine. New cars, new aircraft being created. Who's going to be setting those standards and why is that important? It's important because we've seen this with technologies we already know, the internet, the basic internet, all these things. Technology can be remarkably democratizing and liberating and it can also in the wrong hands become a great danger to democracy. And if we are anything, anything, the Americans and the Europeans together are the holders of the same freedom democracy values. That is what has guided us for decades, for centuries, I would argue. Today I am very concerned when as the artificial intelligence used in a particular way setting standards on its use in a particular way in China against the Uyghurs. I see cameras being deployed, new facial recognition and movement recognition and emotional recognition technologies being deployed around in order to be able to control people, not to free them. And that's artificial intelligence as it is being, as we are speaking created. Is that going to be the standard? A government may be able to use that technology in order to do all these things or are we going to be setting the limits on what governments, private companies, others can or cannot do with that technology by discussing, by getting some of the brightest minds that we have in business, in academia, in think tanks, in governments, regulators, others. Because if we don't do it together, the black hole we leave behind is going to be filled by someone else. And the European Union and its new leadership does not want that to happen. And we will be working as hard as we can, we here in the U.S. in Brussels and elsewhere to ensure that the future is as free and open and as economically prosperous for as many people as possible with as great equality as possible than it has ever been. That is the challenge, that's the difficulty, that is the hope. And you will have a new European commission that may surprise you with the power and the conviction in which it comes to fulfill that role. So thank you very much. Thank you all for this opportunity. And I look forward to the discussion. Thank you everybody. Thank you Eric for inviting me here and the panel here. It's always fun to get together and talk about topics that we're all obsessed about, perhaps more than people out there in the rest of the world. I'll just do a quick rundown of introductions here so we can get on with our conversation. I'm Marisa Bellach, I'm Europe Editor at the Washington Post, overseeing our European bureaus. We have Frederica Bindi here, a non-resident scholar at the Europe Program at Carnegie working on European politics, EU foreign policy and transatlantic relations. We have Stefan Leina visiting scholar at Carnegie in Brussels, a former senior Austrian and EU official and an expert on EU foreign policy, the Western Balkans and Central Europe. Pierre Vimont, senior Carnegie fellow in Brussels, and before being at Carnegie he was the first Executive Secretary General of the European External Action Service and French ambassador to the United States and to the European Union. And we have David Wiener, a non-resident fellow in the Europe Program at Carnegie. He's a former senior British diplomat with postings in Washington, New York, London and Brussels. So let's get going. I wondered maybe if we would start with Brexit, because it's an urgent issue but also because it might be nice to get it out of the way to kind of get Brexit done as they say. So I'll put it to the panelists. Where do you see things ending up on October 31st? Conventional wisdom at this point seems to be that despite Boris Johnson's bluster, there's still fairly low chance of a no deal at the end of the month that we're probably heading towards another delay in an election. Do you think there's much chance this month or after an additional delay of a deal that could win approval of EU leaders and of the British Parliament? David, maybe you would be so kind to start us off and everybody doesn't need to weigh in on every question but maybe for this one everybody can have something to say. Well thank you very much and thank you for giving me the Brexit question. Start with, that's great. I knew this was a good invitation to accept. I would say on Brexit, I'd say there's five possible scenarios for this month and others can chip in and agree or disagree. And I say these are possible, some more likely, some less likely. But just factually without saying which I'm not going to get into which should happen or just factually what could happen. So I think the first scenario is that there is a deal that is agreed and that deal is agreed on the basis of the new British proposals, the British government proposals that have been put forward. There are arguments against that scenario happening including implications for the peace process, domestic politics within Ireland, et cetera. But that's the first possible scenario. The second scenario is that a deal is agreed but it's more in line with the current withdrawal agreement that has been negotiated between the UK and the 27. So that scenario argues that come the 11th hour that the UK looks at the potential implications of no deal and decides it won't do that and that it will agree or go with the deal that has already been agreed if it is unable to secure a deal around the new basis that it has proposed. The argument against that is, as you say, the UK government has been very clear on the unacceptability of key elements of the current deal specifically around the backstop. So the third scenario then is that the UK leaves with no deal because of those first two scenarios not being achieved. The argument against that is the act that has been passed by the UK Parliament, what's called the BAN Act, which prevents the UK government from doing that. My understanding says that it is legal for the UK to do that and that if no deal has been agreed instead, Article 50 must be extended and negotiations should continue. There is an argument that I've read against that. There could be legal loopholes found in that act. I'm not a legal expert, but those are the arguments for against that scenario. So if that's not possible, you get to a fourth and fifth scenario which is a request to extend Article 50. So the fourth scenario is you request the extension but the EU does not agree that. There's speculation that one member state because it may decide that it's time to bring this to a close and to not drag out the Brexit discussions further as a new commission team comes in place and as the budget negotiations start, or there may be a member state that for as a political supportiveness of the UK government's position to leave come what may at the end of October blocks that. The conventional wisdom is that that is unlikely that the EU 27 would not want to be seen as responsible for moving to no deal if we were to end up in a no deal scenario. So that's the argument against the fourth scenario which if you're still with me leaves to a fifth scenario which is that the extension request is put in and that that is agreed by the EU 27. And the 27 have indicated from what I've seen an openness to that providing it is accompanied by some form of substantive change in Brexit policy or politics and that's where you get into the speculation that if that extension request is made that you could then see a UK general election which the government has been keen to have the opposition parties have been blocking not supporting on the basis that they are concerned there could be a no deal but if article 50 is extended then that concern of a no deal Brexit by definition has gone away so it is then possible that you would get the majority in parliament required to have a general election. And I'll leave it there on the scenarios but then where Brexit goes after that would then depend upon what happens in that general election. So say the Tories win the election where are we in January, the end of January? So I don't know because I'm not in the Conservative Party but I assume that you would have the Conservative Party campaigning on the basis of leaving the EU either with a deal or a no deal and that if it was elected by the election it would then have an electoral mandate to deliver that outcome and then you would have a Labour Party who has said that its policy is to hold a second referendum I think following a renegotiated deal so if you were to have a Labour government or a Labour-led government supported by Greens or the Liberal Democrats or the SNP then there is a commitment for those parties to have a second referendum. There would be different outcomes depending on which party or combination of parties would have formed the government and of course there is a third scenario that you could have a hung parliament which would mean that the dynamics in parliament were similar to how they are at the moment. Indeed. Listening to it and I totally agree with all the options that David has put forward but if you're not British if you're one of the 27 Member States you understand immediately how we react to all of this is how can we get out as quickly as possible out of this turmoil and that's one of the problems we're facing at the moment. I would say two or three things and I wouldn't dare give my own forecast about what will come out of this even if my impression is that after the European Council that will take place in mid-October we could very well have another one one day before the 31st of October or on the 31st of October with an all night session and with something coming out of this which will maybe fudge the whole issue but try to get some sort of a deal but I would like to insist maybe on two observations. One is what I find most worrisome at what is going on is the sense of a united kingdom more and more polarized around Brexit and the impression we get on the other side of this debate is that as things are going on and whatever comes out of this Brexit negotiation Europe, the 27 other Member States will be facing a very unstable partner for the years ahead and even if we manage to get an agreement on Brexit how we're going to be able to set up or define a new type of partnership with a united kingdom that is going in my opinion to be rather unsettled profoundly divided still very much fragmented it's going to be a little bit of a problem for all the Europeans. The second point which is a more simple one is that we're going around this whole issue of the Northern Irish border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and in fact it's one of those questions to which there is not a good and easy answer because there is a complete contradiction in having Brexit on one side whereby you definitely need to have strong solid borders between the single European market and the rest of the world and you have a good Friday agreement where you should avoid at all costs to have a border and whatever decision, whatever compromise we will reach cannot be a satisfactory one because you have this impossible issue that you cannot solve easily and this is a headache definitely. Just quickly Brexit looking from the other side of the island of the channel as well Brexit in a way has been a major boost of European integration because the other is enforced and they weigh from a strategic and rather cynical point of view if you want if there is a Brexit with no deal it needs to be as painful as possible for the UK and because if there is any perception that an exit with no deal it's easy on the country then there will be temptation of others to use it as a negotiating bargain so I would assume and maybe you can tell us that in the back mind of the European leaders that is also a consideration of when deciding what to do if the scenarios are coming and then should Brexit happen the next big problem for the EU will be Scotland not only Ireland but Scotland because signs are that Scotland at that point might have a new referendum and secede and the fact that Scotland it would be or not would be quickly incorporated into the EU it also would also mean a lot for the future that you would set. Let's talk a little bit more about that because so there's no longer any talk of a Brexit or a checkout Italy was at one point discussed right so Brexit seems for the moment to have scared everybody off but at the same time we have kind of about 30% of the European Parliament is Eurosceptic so maybe we all could talk a little bit about kind of how the new commission in the EU as a whole deals with your skepticism going forward and what they might be in a position to do about it. Frédéric, do you want to take that or do you want to take that? Briefly on Brexit I have another seven scenarios but I won't tell them but I think what is clear from the in terms of the EU's interest the UK has to leave now it's no question the situation so polarized in the United Kingdom if there's another referendum so some kind of miracle and that goes the other way around people will say best of threes and we'll ask for the next referendum on Brexit so with the kind of divisions that you have in society the UK would be a tight partner for the EU as a member state so I believe they have to go out in order to come in 10-15 years again. I disagree a little bit with you, I think you're right that momentarily this was a boost to European integration and this was so badly handled that there was some sort of a shock in the EU so that they actually support for membership in most member states really went up but in the long term it's still a very destabilizing thing because there is no question about that there will be other asymmetric crises there will be crises where some member states are very badly affected and the president has been set so I believe that in the long term it definitely weakens the European Union and this is going to be a huge blow and I also believe sorting out the relationship with the UK whether there is a no deal or whether there is a deal in the end will take up the next 5, 6, 7 years it will suck a lot of oxygen out of the European Union it will tremendous waste of energy and brain power and all together this is one of the biggest tragedies that really happened to the European Union so far. If I may on the fact that it's going to destabilize I mean there will be destabilization and selective damage on the European countries I agree with you and that is why I cynically said that I mean it must be really hard for the UK much harder for the UK than any European you know country for it to work that on the long term mid-term to long term this is going to be weakening the EU on that I don't agree because if you look historically a lot could not be done in European integration because of the UK and in fact one of the outcome of Brexit is actually Pesco I mean the UK was nowhere to stop strengthening cooperation in that particular moment. I'd rather have the UK than Pesco frankly. No I'd rather have Pesco than UK frankly and have more integrated Europe and so on the midterm I don't think this is going to weaken the EU rather on the country. Back on your question about Euroscepticism I think we're taking a very short view usually on this about two years ago there was this idea that we were facing a huge populist wave that was increasing time and again and then we discovered through many national elections and also at the European election that maybe this populist wave was not as strong as one thought. So there has been I wouldn't say some new optimism but at least the populist issue has receded to some extent. We have also managed to find a way of dealing with what we the so-called liberal democracies. Poland Hungary, the corruption in Romania or in Bulgaria the EU commission and I think we have to pay tribute to Jean-Claude and his team also for that have understood that sitting and standing on the moral ground was not the right way to proceed but going for very concrete legal procedures and processes was maybe a better way of moving forward and we have seen that with Poland with decision by the European Court of Justice that have been accepted by the Polish government where at the same time they were refusing to get that kind of decision being brought forward by the European Commission. They accepted from the European Court of Justice what they did not accept from the European Commission. So we have found a certain way of going through that and therefore we now feel that also with the Brexit turmoil going on public opinion all over Europe is not you're skeptical anymore and then we are free from that kind of I'm not so sure. I think it is somewhat short-sighted to think about that. The jury is still out for a lot of our populations around Europe and they're watching very carefully what this new commission will do with regard to all the different challenges we're facing, the geopolitical challenges, all those different challenges our EU ambassador here has just mentioned a few minutes ago and I still think people are watching, are looking at what is being said are looking more than anything else at the actions that are going to be taken will be be able in the years ahead to compete with regard to the new digital economy. Will we be able to manage to come back in the forefront of the competition with regard to artificial intelligence? Will we be able to find the right position between the United States Russia, China in all those crises we're facing today? Where is our trade policy going as we face competition from the other global players? And one reason why I'm still very cautious about our ability to push back Euroscepticism is not just give one illustration, I could give many more. Look at the way public opinion has reacted to the outcome of the very recent negotiation between the EU and Mercosur. The commission came out after more than 30 years of negotiation at least we had managed to get an agreement and the immediate result all over Europe was from national parliament from public opinion. Opinion polls show it very clearly. It was a very strong outcry against this which shows that we're still in a very troubled situation with regard to Euroscepticism and we have to be very much aware of that. One thing that people are watching is the question of migration. Even though the salience of the issue has declined even though the numbers of migrants have declined if you look at the euro barometer it's still the top problem that people cite. I wondered if we could talk as a group for a moment thinking about the new commission coming in and other variables whether the EU might be able to finally coordinate its migration policy. We have four countries who have come together who have made some sort of agreement we don't know quite what they've agreed to or what they're proposing or whether they have much chance of getting other countries to sign on but I'm going to put this to the panel. Can we move beyond a situation where the EU is dealing with every migrant rescue ship as a political standoff? Well I think we are sort of in a situation of relative calm for the moment but that might change tomorrow. I think President Trump's decision regarding Syria could lead also to a new wave of Kurds from Syria moving towards Europe. Already now the numbers have come to the Greek islands have exploded over the last few months so actually this crisis might come back rather quickly and unfortunately the period of relative calm was not used to put the more solid political framework together because the divisions between the countries on the frontier so to say Italy, Greece, etc. and the countries on the receiving and Germany, Austria, etc. were too deep basically. I think that's been sort of a good moment for a voluntary repetition of refugees that come from the boats on a voluntary basis but it's not a sustainable solution and the doubling system is still broken and we're still pretty far from resolving it even so the new Italian government of course might take a much more constructive line on this. I believe that migration is going to be the top challenge for the next 30-40 years a long climate change and they are very strongly connected. More and more people will come to Europe, will try to come to Europe and will pose enormous challenge of adaptation and I think unfortunately different from the economic and euro crisis which brought your countries together to act in solidarity to reinforce the instruments the impact of the migration crisis was the reverse. It drove the member states apart because you also could resort to building your own fences and to impose your own ceilings and your own controls and therefore we did not do what was actually necessary to have a collective asylum policy and the migration policy four years after the crisis remains very fragile and in part not implemented because the border control is continue. So I think this is also obviously the topic that is galvanizing the populist parties they are at the moment a little bit weaker but I think the next wave almost certainly will come and Europe unfortunately is not better prepared to face the next challenge than we were in the year 2015. If you'd like Well let's talk you mentioned climate so that's another one that it's in the euro barometer it's in Ursula von der Leyen's platform as well as the EU 27 strategic agenda so maybe let's talk a little bit about the Green Deal for Europe and what that would involve how ambitious what's being discussed is and how much that would require in terms of both structural change and how individuals live their lives Well I think it's actually at the very top of von der Leyen's agenda and it also moved I think according to Europe beyond migration as the top concern and I think 92% of the Europeans believe that strong action needs to be taken on climate change and it's an area where the EU has a good record I think the ambassador has already pointed out that actually we have reduced the carbon emissions by 20% already since 2019 and we're well on the way to meeting the kind of commitment to a 40% reduction by the year 2030 but of course everybody is aware that this will be not sufficient this is far from being sufficient and there's a very active debate in Europe on what the next targets should be and I think von der Leyen has proposed a reduction until 2030 of 50 maybe even 55% which would be hugely painful and very difficult to do but the main focus of her program is really to achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2050 which again is a very ambitious commitment there was a negotiation in the EU with a vote in June and four countries from Central and Eastern European countries blocked this commitment for the time being but there is a hope that in the context of the financial deals this kind of resistance can be moved. Now what is she trying to do? She put Mr. Timmermann who is one of the heavyweights of the new commission in charge of this file and she told him that within the first 100 days he has to submit a European Green Deal which is actually a concept that was stolen from the Democratic Party in the United States and this Green Deal should include quite a number of very strong commitments basically and new climate law also to be submitted within the first 100 days that could focus on the carbon neutrality some kind of climate pact which would involve regional entities civil society to build political support across the European Union for it she proposes a carbon border tax so that the heavy dirty industry cannot simply be moved beyond the European borders she proposes turning the EIB into a climate bank 50% of the EIB landing should be devoted to climate issues and you've mentioned 1 trillion investment in relevant technology and research etc within the next decade so all together this is a really sort of impressive program now is it going to work out I think that this is a challenge of a different nature than any challenge the EU has faced so far because if you consider the internal market to build the internal market took about 30 years to build Chang'an took about 15 years I think this issue is of an urgency that is in a different kind of category and the methodology of the EU the kind of Monet method of doing business will not be the right one to tackle these issues because the Monet issue basically methodology basically means that you depoliticize political issues subject them to very long technocratic discussions and then the end you come up with compromises where it's very unclear who has won and who has lost this is clearly not the market when it comes to climate change because it's so highly highly political and the key to approach it is to have a very clear sequencing structure and to build the maximum of political will behind a strong agenda that makes clear to the citizens and to everyone who actually will have to bear the burden whether it's fair or whether it's not fair I think the risk is that you have so many veto points in the European political processes and if the member states get bogged down in the normal type of decision making there will be a huge blame game basically and the EU risks being sort of in a in a loose loose proposition because if the member states will tend to source out unpopular measures to the European Union and the same time the more ambitious people will blame the EU for insufficient action so it could be quite dangerous in terms of acceptance of the European Union but of course the key challenge maybe the most important one is solidarity because you have to reconcile the interests of Spanish fishermen of farmers in southern Italy who run out of water of Polish coal miners and these are extremely conflicting new points of interest and bring this together in a coherent fashion it's going to be incredibly tough and then there's of course also the international agenda somebody pointed out to me that the real global action on climate change will happen when the US slaps sanctions on all the members that suit to not do sufficient work on this issue obviously it's not going to be this administration but maybe the next one but what is very clear that the whole EU is only responsible for 10% of the carbon emissions worldwide and the key would be basically to use the good example that we set but all the leverage that we have in order to convince as many countries to make a much much more important effort than in the past I think last sentence I believe this is going to be if it's handled right way climate change could be the biggest sort of integrating force in the European Union for the next decades if it's handled badly it could be hugely disintegrating because member states will take different clashing positions the kind of coherence of the EU would suffer terribly it would open up new divisions within societies but also between member states so much depends basically on whether sufficient political will can be mobilized to have effective action whether the EU can make sure that the burden is shared in a fair way there is a nice quote that I find by representative of the Yellow West who said well they the elites are thinking of the end of the world and we are thinking of the end of the month and this is the fundamental dilemma that if the assumption is that basically the social implications the costs of adjustment you've pointed out also to the gains to be had but there are going to be costs if they are not shared fairly then this will be the next big topic for the populist governments and the third element is clearly whether the EU can become sufficiently strong to lead international efforts in this area I agree on most of what you said but I like to see the glass half pool more than half empty and many of the criticism that you have on the process it reminds me of the same criticism we heard about the single market at the time and the euro afterwards and both processes work really well so I think in other countries actually that process is a strength and if you look at polls if you also look at elections it is really something climate change is something which is shared across the European Union especially in the younger generations so I am an optimist so I have faith it will be managed well but I really see it as a major issue the question will Europe be able to use the leverage to change in the rest of the world because we are clearly not the worst polluters in the world and the other thing the next administration will be more climate change friendly and the US administration or not because a lot will be decided here next November on climate change two really quick points one I think climate change is central to the future EU US relationship in terms of if you look at the democratic primaries and the debates at the moment climate change is one of if not the defining issues on the democratic side with a very different position mildly to the position of the current administration so I think climate change is also quite central to the future development whether it is an issue of grit of cooperation between Europe and the US and then second quick point we have the summit that will take place next December which is being co-hosted by Italy and the UK which will be right after the US presidential election the current Paris commitments are great but the commitments that were made to meet the two degrees ambition need to be like three times higher much more ambition is needed that last agreement was basically a deal between the Chinese and the Americans so to your point how does Europe sit at the big table how does Europe use its leverage and how does Europe get the deal that it wants rather than it being decided by the G2 so of course climate is just one of the areas where the US and Europe has clashed it was doing a little bit of a tally of what the US has told Europe in recent months and no you can't build that pipeline no you can't trade with Iran no you can't use this Chinese technology no you can't tax our companies kind of goes on and on in some cases Europe has continued to go about doing what it was planning to do anyway and in some cases the pressure has been hard to resist so I wondered if we could maybe take the temperature of US-EU relations in this moment and talk a little bit about what the EU strategy is possibly for the remainder of the Trump administration and kind of whether looking beyond as well how much do they see this as an anomaly in the relationship or does it speak to longer term trends I have a go at this one first of all if you look at the history of the US-EU relationship it is fraught with many controversy and many conflicts time on and on and we must never forget that you know the Iraq war in the 80s we already had the pipeline story which was by then the US trying to prevent the Europeans from building a gas pipeline sanctions were there etc. we had the extraterritoriality of sanctions during the Clinton administration and each time we managed to find a way out which I think is maybe the real difference with what's happening today today we're facing a US administration which seems really committed to pushing its own agenda and really refusing any possible compromise or conciliation among us and this is going on on many different issues from climate change to the Iran nuclear deal to the whole issue of the multilateral order and so on and so forth and this is dragging on which makes it something very different from previous incidents or conflicts that we could have with the United States and I would add to that Sherry on top of the cake we have the impression that in fact this administration at the moment is not a friend of the European Union doesn't see the European Union as a positive asset in the transatlantic relationship which is for us something totally and unbelievable you know here again if you go back to history the European Union at least in its first try was a sort of joint venture between the Europeans and the Americans the famous speech by Robert Schuman that launched the coal and steel community was highly inspired by the American side and by Robert Schuman in close cooperation and collaboration with the American side so suddenly to see our staunchest ally suddenly having second thoughts about the whole European integration process boggles the mind of course for the Europeans what do we do from there on we try as much as we can by step on each of the issues that we are confronting at the moment and so you have the French President playing a sort of go between between the Americans and the Iranians to see if we can find a way out we buy time with the climate change if we have the impression that we can't get much from Washington we try to see if there is possible cooperation with some of the states all around America California and a few others and so on and so forth but to answer your question what can we do immediately I think at the moment and I think the Europeans are rather realistic when they think this is that as we see clearly it's obvious for us to see that we are entering an electoral campaign in this country we don't expect much breakthrough at the moment in our many conflicts so it's more a problem of wait and see which brings immediately another question is that are the Europeans able while they wait to see what will be the outcome of this presidential election to start thinking about the agenda post 2020 whoever will be in the White House are we able to start planning the kind of agenda we would like to have with our American partners in order to avoid some of the controversy we have seen so far and I think this will be a major challenge for the EU commission and for the EU member states but if I can cheapy and I just publish a book which as the title is the end of a transatlantic relation and the conclusion of a book it's a collective book is that we are that close to the end of a transatlantic relations and looking in perspective like Pierre said we have had plenty of crisis between the EU and the US but looking them from a comparative point of view what solved was the personal relationship between the leaders which you clearly don't have today and that is both a problem and an opportunity for the EU if you want in the current situation it's an opportunity because the EU because of this dis-attention from the US the EU had the possibility to step up when the first Obama administration came in at the very beginning because the Lisbon Treaty was been enacted more or less at the same time there was an openness at considering the EU as such a policy which was very quickly dismissed by the EU member states who came in and said no no no we are the one you're going to talk to so there was a misopportunity from the EU at the time which little bit has been patched up and that again because of the personal relationship you're saying that Cathy Asson and Hillary came to the first and then with Kerry went Fede again and you really don't have that again now with the current Secretary of State on this side there is a risk because as the ambassador said before we are the two blocks that share most values and have more similar ideas even if the European Union step up and I really hope it does I mean it sees the opportunity without a strong collaboration with the US our values are really at stake and really threatening I mean there's for as much as you can step up there's nothing you can do alone by the US so again all comes to next November and I was close by saying that I went with my students a year and a half ago to Brussels and people were still in denial it was interesting for me because people were still competing in denial of the effect of the Trump administration they were like oh you will eventually wake up and then I went back last summer for the GMF in June a few months ago for the GMF conference and by that time it was clear that Europeans have clear who France is having transatlantic policies I mean I think that they there's as I agree with what's been said there have been issues in the transatlantic relationship before there were tensions under Reagan there were tensions under Bush 43 with Iraq everyone was very worried when Obama announced the pivot to Asia that this was moving away from Europe a lot of effort was required to get the Clinton administration finally engaged in the Balkans crisis in the 1990s so point one there have been difficulties before point two there's still a lot of areas people tend to focus at the moment on the areas of issues in that relationship there are also still a lot of areas where the two sides of the Atlantic are working very closely together tackling chemical weapons is a good example of that and the work that's been done on the OPCW but point three that said I do agree that there is a qualitatively different approach under the current administration to Europe than there has been under previous administrations in this administration which reflects its broader foreign policy this administration's foreign policy is more transactional is more mercantile and consequently sees Europe more competitively than an ally on certain issues I don't think that over the longer term the relationship will just change if there is a change in administration I think there are longer term drivers here that both sides of the Atlantic will have to address to continue to keep that relationship together the issue of defense spending which this administration has focused on was an issue under the Obama administration the diplomacy in this administration and addressing that is different but the issue is still there and that will be an issue in the future I think the issue of China will continue to be a difficult issue across the Atlantic because American policy towards China by partisan policy is hardening within the Beltway and Europeans will be continued to be reluctant to have to choose in their foreign policy between the US and China to try and kind of walk balance on the beam between their security values relations with the US and their economic interests with China as we've seen a bit with 5G and I think the US is regardless of who is in the White House the appetite, the domestic appetite within the US to lean into Europe and to lean into the world has changed to what it was before and Europeans will need to respond to that a lot of the US lean into Europe dates back to 1945 in the Cold War period and reflects the dominance of the Cold War in US foreign policy and that's not there at the moment, there isn't I don't detect an inherent Europeanism within the Beltway that is just there it's a product of broader US foreign policy so I think it will require to continue to nurture it Europe is going to have to step up Europeans are going to have to show the capacity to do more the US is going to have to lean in to Europe even if that means on certain issues it's not the optimal outcome because of the geostrategic benefit and there's going to have to be continued new ways politically and economically to bring the two sides of the Atlantic together maybe we'll open it up for questions a bit we can take them and maybe two at a time good afternoon Sanjin Choi Lengang partners my question you mentioned about China I'm interested in panelist views in EU's response to Belt Road initiative Ambassador Lembrey just mentioned EIB will spend 1 trillion dollars next 10 years and the vice president the team of men like to spend 50% of the EIB budget on green deer my question is A, what incoming EU presidency is the president's priority focusing intentional development for EU organizations vis-a-vis green deer and number two of course Italy is member of EU but Italy also will join the BLI would it make it difficult for policy coordination thank you you want to take another one? let's take one more thank you we didn't hear much about the ageing population in Europe if you connect that to the climate change and all the other technological issues it may be a good or bad thing depending how you see it but do you see the solution to re-migration or do you see another type of solution to this ageing population problem? shall I start with the Belt and Road and pass it to someone else for ageing population which I must admit I don't know much I'm afraid so Italy is the only country which formally signed a memorandum of understanding with the Belt and Road and that is the result of a number of variables so first of all they were in the previous government two people who were key actors in this process one was the minister of finance Tia and the other one was Gerdascia, the under secretary for deputy minister for international trades who are China lovers and very much embedded into that which facilitated the process the other part is which by the way not only led to the World Embed initiative but also led to the Chinese by a share in the EU public desifit which has passed much less and I'll pursue a much less scene but it's also clearly connected Eric actually asked me to write something on the Italy Embedded Road initiative and not being my major area of expertise I had to do some research and my conclusions were regardless of who would have been in the government they would have every single one would have signed the same memorandum agreement and for pure economic reasons which in many, from many points of view is linked to the ports in the southern of Italy and the position of Piraeus by the Chinese but Piraeus has become a major hub and this is in direct competition with both Taranto and the Venice Trieste area so there is a need for competition and from my research with the possible exclusion of Berlusconi but even Berlusconi he barked a lot against it but had he been in power so it was economics and the last thing I would like to say is that their countries like Germany for instance that even if they don't formally signed the memorandum of understanding they had very strong cooperation and interchange with China so where is really the difference maybe one word about the Belt and Road initiative and then I'll come to the aging population on the Belt and Road initiative as Federica was just saying you have those countries that have signed a memorandum of understanding you have Italy, you have many Eastern and Central European countries you have Portugal, you have Greece you have those that haven't signed Britain hasn't signed, France hasn't signed Germany hasn't signed but all these three countries are some of the most important countries for Chinese investments so everybody is playing that game and to understand what's going on at the moment is you have to understand that this trend has happened mostly through the financial crisis when you know you had to combine strong austerity budgetary policies on one side and therefore lack of public money and the need at the time to show up the growth of the European economy and therefore you had to find money somewhere, you know the case of Greece and Portugal is a very obvious one is China who has helped these two countries to recover from the financial crisis through the huge investment China has accepted to do there and it was done that way because the EU commission, the EU budget was not able to do that the EIB was not able to do that and most of the financial institutions were not ready to go along so one has to accept that we were in a bit of a contradiction and that China came to the rescue of many of these European countries with more or less the acceptance of the other European countries now having said that what the Europeans are trying to do today is to set up a new new rules in order that in our effort to cooperate with China we get a better understanding of where we are all heading to in other words, if we want to go along with more Chinese investments with this Belt and Road initiative moving forward then we need to have transparency we need to have a level playing field clear understanding about where these Chinese investments are allowed and where they are not allowed for strategic reasons we have to have a clear understanding about what kind of subsidies are accepted towards state Chinese state enterprises which subsidies are not acceptable so on and so forth we have, there is a clear need for a new set of rules that we all accept and this is where at the moment the debate is going on and what is interesting it seems to me is that in the last few months we have seen a new attitude for most of the European member states we're coming out of that period during which everybody was desperately looking for some financial funds and China was there to provide these we're coming into a new place where now we're looking once again for a real level playing field with China and not anymore this kind of unfair or unequal competition as we have seen in the past and on this I think you're starting to get a real consensus among the European member states the communication that was the strategy that was defined by the Commission and the ES in March of last year of this year sorry was a very interesting one where new ideas were brought in and where suddenly there was a sort of recognition by all member states that they need to stand up to some extent to what was going on in their relationship with China we're not yet in the full fledged unity among all the European member states but something has changed on the aging population it's a very interesting question I didn't want to come into what Stefan had said about the external pressure in terms of migration but what I want to say and now you provide me with this possibility is that there is an internal dimension to the whole migration issue which in my opinion is becoming more and more important a few examples more than one million citizens from Poland have gone to Britain to find a job with a shortage of working force in Poland where does Poland go to Ukraine to find something like one million Ukrainians now living and working in Poland you have Romanian citizens Bulgarian citizens moving out of their country to find places where they can work like Italy for instance which has a huge aging population problem and therefore you have Romania Bulgarian coming in you have Albanian citizens also moving into Italy so on and so forth you have young Portuguese doctors moving to Germany to find job now now everybody will tell you well that's part of the single market the free movement of citizens yes but at some point when you have such a discrepancy of working population moving in into the whole system you start having a huge problem and of course one of the answers to that could be legal migration from outside of Europe from the West Balkans from some of the more far Eastern European countries maybe from Africa or other places but at the moment you can't connect the two issues because on one side you have an internal problem where member states want to keep their sovereignty and have no intention of allowing the commission to get involved into this and on the other side you have a huge external problem that you only wanted to treat as refugees or illegal workers that you want to push back as much as possible if you start having a more open mind about what's going on a clear vision of the kind of tremendous population forces fighting one against the other and if you're able to have a clear comprehensive view about this then things could change and there I only see the European Union as the player capable of coming out with first of all the right assessment about what's going on inside and outside and then coming up also with proposal propositions in order that member states would look at them and be ready to start discussing this but you have to understand that the implication of this goes as far as allocation of financial resources it has to do with maybe a better use of structural funds as they have done up to now when you're facing the kind of huge shift of population in a country like Romania the current policy of structural funds with regard to Romania the use of the structural funds in Romania is not at all up to the challenge that they're facing at the moment so it means that for the next financial framework that they have to adopt they need to be much bolder much more ambitious with the kind of policy they want to go along with And you want to take a very quick stab and maybe you can take one final question I feel very competent talking about aging I think it's frequently said democracy is destiny basically but it's not true because very much government policies are a big factor of course in steering demographic developments it's not easy to do but it can be done for instance in France and in Sweden they have very good facilities for taking care of young children and allowing women to work at the same time the problem is much less than in some other country migration is a mitigating factor internal migration in the EU but also external migration in Vienna for instance the city where I live more than 50% of the people attending primary school have a non Austrian background and these are going to be the workers in the future and they had very much economic growth in Austria too but the paradox is in a way in an aging society people are becoming more conservative and less open to change and to some extent the aging population is the most resistant to the migration that would be needed to actually address the issue Thank you my name is An Shu I'm a reporter with Inside US Trade I get the panel's thoughts on sort of the state of the transatlantic trade relationship under the new commission the ambassador mentioned the negotiations that were begun with President Trump and President Junker but as I understand it there is still profound disagreement over the inclusion of agriculture in those negotiations and there is of course the looming threat of President Trump's to put tariffs on European automobiles on national security grounds so how do you see these trade conditions unfolding with the new commission taking over? Thanks One more My name is Roger Cochetti I work with Private Equity in the technology sector and I wanted to ask about one of the forces centrifugal forces affecting Europe and Brexit has reminded us that there are centrifugal forces mythology and nationalism and stuff like that but it strikes me that the great powers the United States Russia and China all share common interest in a centrifugal French centrifugal approach to Europe that the Chinese deal that they could cut with Poland on Belt and Road is going to be stronger if they negotiate with Poland alone the Russian deal that they would negotiate with the Czech Republic is going to be stronger if they're negotiating with the Czech Republic alone and the president has indicated our president indicated that he thinks we would do much better deals if we negotiate with individual European countries as opposed to a block of European countries So let's wrap those questions together The question is how much do you see the impact of great powers affecting European unity in this interest of pulling it to individual country negotiations Thank you Trade wars and bilateral versus multilateral trade negotiations I can pick up on the last one I'm not so confident on the trade Just a very quick point that I think when the European Union was created it was fundamentally about peace within Europe and now the arguments that you hear for the European Union is about power it's about the Europe standing and being able to sit on that and have those kind of great power dynamics and there is a question in terms of the broader future direction of the world and the future of the rules based international system and are we moving back towards an era of more great power in a particular box and you see it on trade is a very good example where the EU sits there collectively and has a lot of combined strength because countries have agreed to pull sovereignty on trade issues on other areas countries are holding that sovereignty more closely and therefore the EU does not speak as one voice Just a quick reminder I know Trump says that but you know sorry rules are not allowed I mean he is completely not going to do anything including the trade rules within the European Union you can't do it even with the UK you know when it comes in and say oh we are to Johnson oh we are going to negotiate a great deal we can start no sorry you can't start until the UK is out and the fact that he says it doesn't mean that this is a reality I frankly don't think there have been that much of it and especially with the UK out I mean the country that has passed more influence on the EU is the US which has often acted through the UK and this is very clear since day one you know it's and it was the US administration that pressed on the UK to become a member of the European communities at the time so without the UK the US will have less of an influence within the European Union many countries would like to step up and say oh yeah we are the next best partner but they simply lack the historical relation that the UK and the US had and for the Europeans again commercial on my book for the Europeans history matters a lot in foreign policy so it's and in China I don't see how China could disintegrate the Europeans frankly speaking in political terms at least not even Russia if you think about it many of the Europeans have strong relationship for Russia again for historical reasons take my country you go to St. Petersburg St. Petersburg has been designed and created by Russian by Italian architects but even if Russia tried hard they would never there is simply no basis I mean the Europeans are way more interconnected than them because they are both developments I think it's clear that the overall global power relationship is changing and Europe is not on the ascended clearly there are other big regional powers that are going up and their influence on Europe is becoming greater and obviously they are trying to play off various European partners against each other and it's become very hard for the EU for instance to adopt positions human rights violations in China because somebody is going to block it and it's not just China who is doing it but even Egypt is trying to do this business certainly Russia too and other players as well but at the same time I would think precisely in this context of a changing power relationship many European countries are aware that on their own they are lost basically and this is driving them together again and based on the common market, based on the common currency there is a solidarity that is fairly solid and to some extent that makes the EU resilient to this type of attempts maybe to answer your question on trade trade is a very interesting field about the relationship between the US and the EU we're both our main partner in trade far above China and any other and at the same time time in terms of goods and services in terms of direct investment it's huge and at the same time we have never managed in spite of all our efforts to set up any kind of free trade agreement we have one today with Japan, Canada, Mexico South Korea so on and so forth we are trading and negotiating and having agreements with the most of our main partners we've never managed to have one with America every time we have tried we came around a huge hurdle we talked about agriculture but we could name many others and now the issue that we're facing is one that relates back to 30 years ago which is the confrontation between Airbus and Boeing both companies by the way having their main suppliers inside the other camp 40% of an Airbus aircraft has a US component in vice versa and anyway we can't manage to find a solution to that and we go on so I think we're stuck with this reality that we're going to have a sort of piecemeal network of arrangements that we get time after time where we manage to decrease tariffs on here on such and such items but when we get to the heart of it every time we're talking about having a transatlantic trade free trade zone or whatever we never succeeded and I think we have maybe to be less ambitious to a certain extent now of course while I'm saying that at least what we could avoid it's open confrontation as we're witnessing to some extent nowadays and that of course doesn't help but forget about the idea that we can move from that current situation to suddenly a very open negotiation where we're able to find an agreement on everything being GMOs Hormone Beef Claude Chicken whatever we have gone through those kinds of issues time and again without ever managing to find a solution maybe because precisely we are each to each other our main trade partner with too much vested interest maybe because also to some extent our system, our trade system are somewhat very different in terms of consumers protection legal action public procurement so on and so forth and I think that explains also why we have never been able to overcome these difficulties and I personally don't see any breakthrough even more so with the current political situation as it stands I think we'll have to finish on chlorinated chicken. Thank you everybody for a really interesting discussion thank you all for coming