 Good afternoon everybody, I'm very pleased to welcome you to this IEA webinar and we're particularly pleased to be joined today by Dr Hans Kreber, founding partner of Surewater Global Strategic Consultancy, who has been generous enough to take time out of this schedule to speak to us. Dr Kreber will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so and then we will go to Q&A with our audience. You'll be able to join the discussion on Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screen. And please be free to send in your questions throughout the session as they occur to you and we will come to them when Dr Kreber has finished his presentation. A reminder that today's presentation and the Q&A session are both on the record. And please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IEA. Let me now introduce Dr Kreber. He's a very experienced political communications advisor and author of a recently published book, The Strong Men European Encounters with Sovereign Power, which is about international politics. He has a PhD from LSE, but he has a very extensive curriculum, which I think is worth going into because of the topic that he's going to address us. He was a political advisor at the European Commission between 2000 and 2005 and working as an H2 Commissioner, Competition Commissioner, Neely Croles, and Internal Market and Taxation Commissioner of Witts-Balkenstein. And during this time at the Commission, Dr Kreber worked on a wide range of regulatory and industrial policies, including intellectual property rights, service markets, digital economy, and fiscal policy. And following his time at the Commission, Dr Kreber went on to become a partner in the leading Brussels-based political consultancy and strategic communications firm GP plus Europe. And in that position, he advised numerous senior executives and politicians on their relations with EU institutions in European media. He has advised national governments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East on foreign direct investment strategies and trade, trade council businesses on regulatory clearance of acquisitions, and also worked with leading American tech firms in the area of antitrust privacy and data. In this position, he was advised Vladimir Putin's press and communications team in the Kremlin until 2015. And then in 2020, Dr Kreber founded his own strategic consultancy firm in Brussels, Shearwater Global Strategic Consulting with his partners, and it has offices in London and Washington. So I think we could have no better speaker to address the topic today on what is the art of the deal and how can Europe master it. So we wait with interest, Dr Kreber, your presentation on the floor is yours. Thank you, Mary, for all this very kind introduction. And thanks of course for inviting me and it's really a great pleasure to be to be here and to have the chance to discuss some of the ideas. I'm developing about the EU, and in particular how the EU is is trying to find its voice in the world, the world that increasingly is about the very one thing that the EU was designed to make redundant, which is power politics and great power competition. Now, the world has massively changed over the last 10 years and if you are a European, a real supporter of the EU, you would say mostly for the worst. First, we've got a number of autocratic and belligerent states on our doorstep, who aggressively assert their interests and reject our norms. I think mostly of Turkey, Russia, but you can also think of Belarus. Second, we have the emergence of course of a new and a liberal superpower China. Third, we've got the United States, telling us, we like you guys, but we can deal with one big international security issue at the time and that issue is China. And where the US is still interested in Europe, it clearly has different interests. Washington wants to tie Europe into its conflict with China, but Europe doesn't want to be dragged into a new cold war. So if you had these changes up, I think the conclusion is your conclusion that we, most of us withdraw is this is not the future. We imagined it would be 10 years ago, and we thought the world would be increasingly multilateral rules based, but instead the world has become a rougher and less predictable and more dangerous place. The world, not based on the power of rules, but on the rules of power and fundamental questions are now being asked of the Union about how to protect its possibility and our freedom. If you look at Europe now, you might say, well, it isn't dealing with these questions very well. And I guess that's a fair criticism. The record I think is a bit more balanced. If you look at economic industrial trade policy, where the European Union is in fact doing quite a lot of degrees dependency on countries such as China, and to beef up its strategic economic resilience. Nevertheless, I'd say in terms of foreign policy as a whole, the Union doesn't seem ready at this time. After all, for all the talk about strategic autonomy, what does the Union actually do and what can it do. Having said that, there is of course, a growing political debate about foreign policy. And the realization that something will change. Just look at this week's events on the Polish-Belarussian border, or look what happened over the summer in Afghanistan, or look at even the Orcus Alliance. The EU, for example, is now currently preparing what it calls a strategic compass, which should be a document that promises to offer greater direction in these discussions. And under the French presidency, I'm sure we will all hear plenty of strategic autonomy. So there is lots of talk and discussion about these issues. And if you look at these debates, I think you can stake out three very general and broad positions, which I will go into now. The first is what might be called what I call at least the convergence pieces. And this is the idea once dominant in Western politics that countries such as Russia, China, Turkey, and so on would over time converge with the liberal mainstream Western tradition. The only thing we need to do basically was to trade with the states and be generally friendly with them. In other words, the basic approach was the basic strategy was cooperate. Now in practice, I'm not sure a lot of people still really advocate this position in European politics. Of course, the view is attributed to America and to Germany by her critics. But I believe that's, you know, that is wrong. I believe that doesn't fully describe the German position. And I think, you know, this convergence pieces is now often used as a strawman discussions in particular by those who take a hardline position on autocrats and strawmen. That brings me to the second sort of broad pieces that you come across in these discussions about strategic autonomy and foreign policy, etc. And that's what I call the sort of ideological thesis. And it's a more popular position. And it argues that you obviously this convergence ideas are naive because history is essentially black and white, and also also violent forget about cooperation is argued forget about trade deals and so on. Because if it comes to autocrats and strawmen, a liberal leaders, basically we have to go all in. We must defeat the bad guys, much like in the past we defeated Hitler, because otherwise they will defeat us it's either us or them. And this language is you can, you can, you can see it, for example in the Biden administration by the basic strategy is, you know, compete. There was and or still is the Biden idea of creating this alliance of democratic states which will be led of course by the United States and be mainly aimed against communist China. So diplomacy is considered to be largely futile on this view if not undesirable. And for example, before the summer, Merkel and Macron proposed to hold an EU summit with Putin and this was just after Biden had done the same thing. You met Putin in Geneva. But their proposal was quickly shot down by other EU member states who found that Europe shouldn't be talking to Putin. And another example, which I'm sure most of you will be familiar with is the comprehensive agreement on investment, CHI, as it's sometimes called with China last year. And it was clear that when this was proposed or agreed even by the Commission Chinese that a large number of people, for example in the European Parliament, felt that basically no trade deals should ever be done with China. Because, you know, essentially, the Communist Party is, you know, is illiberal is evil, more of it. And second, you could also see the argument that China also be confronted by one unified block of the West, with just one spokesman that this was obviously the United States. And so this is kind of the second sort of hardline position on strongman that is, I think quite present still in Europe, those not shared by everybody. And then there is I think a third position or theory that is put forward. This is what might be called, is what might be called, or I call, cooperative rivalry. And this position essentially says, well, yes, these autocrats and strongman people like Putin answer on they are dangerous people. We're definitely not naive about this, but, but cutting ourselves off from the possibility of doing deals here as Europe with strongman just isn't in our strategic interest. Why not? Well, the economy, international value chains and so on are more integrated now than during the Cold War. Back then, of course, the Soviet Union and China were basically economic islands. So if you look at it today, that's very different. Any radical unwinding of globalization would clearly have a massive impact on our wealth. And then there are kinds of global issues such as climate change, there are pandemics, and there's lots of regional problems, migration, refugee security, Libya, Syria, and so on, which can only be addressed by working together with autocrats such as Erdogan, for example. So in short, on the one hand, there is, you know, a full understanding that we have to deal with illiberal states, which won't become liberal anytime soon. But on the other hand, it's equally understood that the states are kind of too big, too important, not to talk to. So the basic strategy in this third kind of theory is, in other words, have to compete, but you have to also cooperate. Yeah, so there are occasions and issues which you must work together with strongmen, but there are also moments when you basically have to compete with them when they are rivals, not partners. And the challenge, of course, is to accurately distinguish between these issues and these moments. So this third position, cooperative rivalries, where I think a whole bunch of EU member states are netting out, certainly Germany and France, but there's obviously no consensus on this. And since consensus is required in the EU or policy, this is tremendously significant. Nevertheless, I believe that this idea of competitive cooperation is in the ascendancy. For example, it's made its way into this hopefully debated EU strategy paper on China in 2019, which called Beijing a systemic rival. So we recognize that we do a new term that the EU introduced in this paper, but notably it also went on to say that China was still a partner. Yeah, so we recognize we live in a dangerous world in which there are different ideological models, liberal models who are challenging us, but we see also the EU blaming the right to do deals with those rivals and strongmen on trade, climate change and so on. But the question of course remains, how does this all work, you know, having to deal with somebody who's a rival, but also a partner, is it even possible for such a seemingly contradictory strategy to work. And there are those, I mean, take for example, the Green MP, butykova, who really denied this and they say, well, you know, a rivalry with autocrats is existential and it cannot be compartmentalized. But while I, you know, while it must be recognized, I believe that there is clearly a moral tension in doing deals with strongmen who are in some regards are enemies, I believe this is also a tension that can in principle be managed politically. And I also think that there are models for doing this. And ultimately, it is a matter of political will and being clear about what Europe's strategic interests are. And we know that this can work, I believe, because well, first of all, the United States itself makes cooperative rivalry work when it wants to, and not just on the Trump, but also under Biden. And take, for example, America's face one deal with China, which is kind of a bilateral trade deal negotiated by Trump, but then kept in place by Biden. And effectively, this is America's equivalent to Europe's comprehensive agreement on investment, the Kai deal, and also quite beneficial to the Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street backs. Yeah, so here, so here we see, well, we have US China rivalry, which which runs frighteningly deep, but so far clearly not so deep to rule out cooperation if this benefits Goldman Sachs from America. And second, we also know because we also know it works or can work because if you look at how various strongmen in the world use diplomatic tactics. We see that they do the same, and quite successfully, for example, look at Putin and Erdogan, they're clearly rivals, Turkey and Russia in a very, very deep way. Just as Russia and the Ottoman Empire were rivals in a very deep way, contesting access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. And more recently, Putin, Russia and Erdogan, Turkey were all opposite ends in no fewer than three wars in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh. And in 2015, Turkey's jets even downed a Russian MiG over Syria. Yet it hasn't stopped Putin and Erdogan from doing all kinds of deals, including the sale of state of the art defense systems. So somehow, remarkably, we have big enemies, but they're still able to strike deals. And third, we know that this type of diplomacy works because digging a bit deeper into our own past, there is, of course, plenty of historical precedent that it works. Think, for example, of Nixon's legendary visit to China, and Mao Zedong in the early 1970s, which engineered by Henry Kissinger, brought communist China into the liberal fold, ultimately at America's behest. So we know that kind of corporate rivalry is possible, but that's not to say, of course, that it's easy for the EU. And why is it hard, perhaps particularly for the EU? I'd say that first it is incredibly hard because there's an entirely new departure for Europe. Because for 75 years, European states kind of mostly left it to the United States to make deals with dictators, which credit where credit is due, the United States was particularly expert at, in particular, in Latin America and the Middle East. And the tradition of real politics in Europe mostly disappeared after the war. What was left of it was kind of divorced from the European Union and its workings. So the EU, as we know it, isn't tooled up for this kind of viewmaking institutionally and culturally, I'd say. And the same is true for most EU countries. Yeah, we're very good at trade policy. We're good at development policy or development aid, but strategy or foreign policy, we kind of lost the skill. And second, the second reason why it's hard for us for Europe to do this is the kind of inherent fuzziness of the approach. So if the strategy is compete and cooperate, when do we compete and when do we cooperate? Should we do this guide deal with China or not? Should we do a deal with Erdogan or migrants? The problem is there is never a categorical yes or no answer. And yet there is only sort of the endless weighing of different interests, values, and the endless assessing of the historical context, and also the skill of identifying the right moment. And third, and perhaps this is the most important thing, this kind of strategy of cooperative rivalry is morally, and I would say even aesthetically, hard. It allows us to publicly pay respect to strongly and unroll the red carpets for dictators, have banquets, the people who we would normally as private citizens call a thug or a killer. And if you actually believe in the convergence thesis, as most leaders in the West used to in the past hosting banquets with Chinese or Russian leaders is of course easy. Because George W. Bush and leaders like Tony Blair did not find it challenging to let China into the WTO, for example, morally. And this is okay because China was becoming a democracy anyway, letting them into WTO is actually going to make sure that that will happen. But what we are saying now is something different, you're saying, well, but she is, you know, he's not making China more liberal, he's making it less liberal and steering it away from democracy. But regardless, it's okay, we're going to have to do a deal anyway. It was much harder to explain, certainly if you profess like the EU still does, to care about values in the foreign books. So similarly, if you believe history is ultimately an ideological contest of black and white struggle between good and evil things are are also quite easy. But in that sense, you simply don't host banquets at all. Instead, like Biden, you call G Thug, which is what he did, and Putin a killer. And, you know, this puts you well in the clear, of course, and you will put it in the press. But of course, if you have, you know, if you practice. But if rivalry, if you kind of say, well, we have to make deals with these people, you pay a big moral price and both politicians, and also ultimately the public have to be ready to actually pay that price. And that is that is, of course, something that in practice politicians sort of shy away from and get scared. So finally, what is it then that the EU needs to do in my view? Well, one thing that I think needs to happen is that Europe needs to define far more clearly and also be more explicit and upfront about what its strategic interests really are. We kind of know, of course, what the EU's values are because basically they are they are they are listed in the treaty in article two. But the same can't be said of the EU's strategic interests. Europe doesn't have a strategic doctrine and a national security strategy strategy like the United States has. I believe I believe it needs one. Perhaps it's being drafted. But it's not quite there yet. And if we can agree, secondly, that the EU has strategic interests. Yeah. And if we kind of know what they are, we might also recognize that we need a better institutional framework to integrate those interests in the Union's decision making, because there's no body in Brussels, like for example, the National Security Council in the United States that systematically scrutinizes decisions on their strategic repercussions. The Commission of course does great economic impact assessments, which over time also assessed impacts on climate and environment or on equality and all kinds of other things. Yeah. But there's no geopolitical impact assessments and when the EU makes proposals, you don't exist. And finally, and arguably, arguably most importantly, I think we need to still fully come to grips with what the new historical situation is that we find ourselves in as Europeans, the new era we are in. And this situation is I think personally that the United States also under Biden is basically looking after itself after number one. And secondly, that illiberal states like Russia, no longer feel obliged by Western notions of international law, and what it calls Western norms, and certainly that we still have to secure cooperation from those autocrats and illiberal states to secure certain certainty interests that we have as Europe as a whole. And it's only I think that once we appreciate this sort of situation that we kind of on our own, that it becomes evident that sometimes it's kind of strategically the difficult choices or these difficult trade-offs and tragic choices that sometimes need to be made. So, and I think we can, I mean, this may sound abstract, but it's very real if you look at what's happening this week. Yesterday, Merkel called Putin, and at least according to the readout that we got, basically asked him to put Lukashenko on a leash to restrain him. I don't know whether it will work. And is it nice having to ask Putin who Merkel probably thinks privately is a group. Is it nice to have him to have to ask him to do this, to help us. Is it a good place for the Union to be? And now of course it isn't. And Putin will of course ask for things in return. But unless we have other solutions, maybe we still need to have these difficult types of conversations. Because not doing so, basically burning the bridges might even be worse and lead to humanitarian disaster in the forests of, in the cold forests of Belarus. So for 75 years, the EU and European member states mostly used to be shielded from making these hard choices. They used to be shielded from those dilemmas. And we convinced ourselves perhaps in the post Cold War era that these choices have become unnecessary because we're all going to be liberals. But I believe that these choices are only going to be more frequent. And I believe that, you know, therefore the task at hand is to toughen up and get ready to make them. Now we may come back on the issue of Belarus in questions, but for now I wanted to thank you for your attention. I look forward to any questions you might have.