 Well aren't we glad it's not tomorrow it's gonna we're gonna get eight inches of snow tomorrow and and I have a suspicion many of you wouldn't be able to come tomorrow but we're very lucky that you can all come today and I want to say thank you welcome to all of you I'm especially pleased to be able to welcome President Gonzalez this is a great opportunity for us this is the second in a series that we're now hosting at the Brzezinski Institute on Geostrategy the second of our statesman laureate programs and we're just delighted to have someone of his stature and significance who's joining us today to share his views I had the privilege of talking with President Gonzalez in my office just a few minutes ago and I came to learn that he is he's a man who loves to work with his hands he does carpentry he does ironwork he does work with stone it's really remarkable and it reminded me of a something that Sam Rayburn who was the Speaker of the House of Representatives famously one time said that and he was talking about politicians he said you know any jackass can kick down a barn door but it takes a carpenter to build one and President say Gonzalez we responded by saying we have a slightly different saying it takes 300 years to build a cathedral and only three hours to destroy it and it's exactly that same sentiment that we're in the middle of a time a tumultuous time especially in Europe confusing time so many tensions and we're desperately in need of carpenters we need people that are building and President Gonzalez is a builder he has been chairing for the European Union a commission that's looking to the future of the European Union and I'm hoping that he will spend some time sharing with us his insights I'm quite honestly worried because America needs a coherent and unified and strong Europe and things are tense things are divided it's a very tough time and so we need now to use this opportunity to reflect on the challenges of the day and we look forward to hearing the voice of a carpenter who is building for the future so with your applause would you please welcome Prime Minister Gonzalez we're delighted to have him thank you very much it seems like a paradox to contribute to building the future when one's own future is coming to an end but I was struck in Japan at a visit that I made when I was still young 1985 1986 that there was a retiree from a large Japanese corporation it was 93 94 years old I went to a workshop in which he was working with many young people I'm talking about 1985 and he worked designing what the city was going to be which is a great concern of everyone today and then looking to the year 2020 obviously it went beyond his own lifetime but he was working on that I've been introduced as an artisan it is true only in my free time do I engage in politics and I'm delighted I love working with my hands I think it clears my mind and it puts me at ease with respect to worries concerns now I proposed to the center that I and I thank the center and mr. Prisinski I proposed to share a few thoughts now when I was proposed that I talk about some of the threats to security seen from a European perspective and I would say from the European perspective but also from the perspective of the United States I proposed three issues what was happening even though there are many more what was happening with the crisis of the Ukraine and the relationship with Russia next what did this what does the Islamic state represent as a semi-air in conflict with Al Qaeda and well within Islam one speaks of an integralist outcome which is therefore exclusivist which leads to a violent interpretation of Islam and therefore what was happening in the Arab and Islamic world and by extension in the Islamic world with the eruption of this new wave of integralism that constitutes a threat and a third thought which is how will relations be rebuilt between the United States and China if China as I believe considers that the stage based on the Nixon-Deng Xiaopi pact is surpassed some 40 years later China feels that a new stage should be ushered in and in my impression and I'm not conveying anything that might be considered information but my impression is that they wanted to see Asia in a manner not unlike them in row doctrine that is to say Asians should resolve the problems of Asia they'll say this with the strong will of China and the reworking of the relationship with the United States would have to be done can bear in mind this consideration now let me begin with the first and I'd like to be brief so as to be able to field questions I think that it was February 12th when the Minsk to a treaty Germany France Merkel and Oland attempted with mr. Putin to seek a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian conflict and a peaceful solution which does not appear to be yielding results Minsk one already failed and I will tell you straight out what I think I believe and I did communicate with some of the people who I maintain relations with in the European institutions after the two-year effort on the future of Europe that report that references made to and I thought that the agreement or the the Minsk to agreements had some defects which might lead quickly to their failure the first notable defect is that one did not recall a principle which I think is basic for maintaining international stability which is unrestricted respect for the territorial integrity of states and in that agreement Europe's position on Crimea was not recalled an annexation which violates the basic principles of international law even though Russia says that the European Union and the United States did not respect that principle of territorial integrity either when recognizing the independence of Kosovo but what I found of most concern was not just that but that the agreement did not have a time frame that would impose the withdrawal of mercenaries and Russian soldiers in the conflict area and even more serious there was no agreement for the control of the border between the east of Ukraine and Russia which should not be in the hands of the rebels and the Russians they therefore they should be in the hands of the Ukrainian government if possible and if not they should be in the hands of some force of the of interposition for if there were not an agreement with those demands it seemed obvious that what happened was going to happen and what happened is very similar to what we experienced in the Balkans with some variants the empty spaces were taken advantage of a from from one agreement to the next some of them were taken advantage of so as to continue moving towards what well actually the first thing that happened with Barcevo is what happened with Bukovar in that crisis in the Balkans and I think that in addition the purpose obviously Serbia did not have Russia's intent and that might be the difference but the purpose of Russia is being fulfilled now I made those comments four days after the Minsk to agreements and then well I say all all of this I our statements I made internally they're not public statements on the 18th when I saw that the rebels of Donetsk and Lugansk had succeeded in cutting off access to coal and long after the agreements they're unifying the border of the rebels in the east of Ukraine with Crimea leaving Odessa and Maria Pole isolated so I think there's a purpose there a determination and the final result of that is that Kiev is not going to have any access to the sea the paradox that the Soviet Union experienced in its last period and Russia afterwards with the difficult access to the Black Sea without agreement such as there were then the Ukrainian state would become inviolable and that eastern part of the Ukraine would have contiguity that would isolate among others Odessa and Odessa isolated from Kiev Kiev has very little viability therefore I think that the agreements not only are not being carried out but the Russia's determination is to take advantage of the contradictions or the weakness of the positions of the European Union and I should add the United States as well in all likelihood so is to go forward in that purpose which may not be a clear or definitive purpose of annexing the entire territory although in Crimea they take that for granted and don't want any turning back but it's it would involve at least a change in the balance of forces so that the Ukrainian government would once again be a pro-Russian government without any special ties either to European Union or the countries of the Atlantic Alliance including of course the United States and the purpose is being carried out there is a certain counter indication for Russia or for Putin yes yes Putin in part maintaining the theory that the pro-Russians those who feel a Russian identity have the right to be with Russia indeed they have the right to self-determination that non-existent right is becoming a principle of ethnicity indeed of cultural ethnicity which is going to pose very serious problems at the eastern border with the Caucasian republics as a whole but this is seen more in the medium and long term than in the media term and in the communications nobody recalls that the Russian Federation itself if the territorial disintegration of countries such as the Ukraine goes forward or the latent threat to countries of the former Soviet Union or that we're in this orbit of the former Soviet Union such as the Baltic countries could have serious repercussions for the Russian Federation itself and for its own territorial integrity for the same reasons that it branches to defend the right self-determination of the pro-Russians in the eastern part of Ukraine or Crimea because they don't feel Russian they are republics that are part of the Russian Federation but they have an Islamic identity but they also know that Europe and the Western world are going to prioritize the second of the packages of what I wanted to talk about which is what to do with what is called today the Islamic State which is a spin-off of al-Qaeda with conflicts with al-Qaeda what is going to be done with that implosion of Islamic integralism which is exclusionary which is all-encompassing which takes advantage of ignorance which moves on to indignation and the indignation is then translated to violence what is to be done with that well that is a priority question for us all and Putin may know that he may know that he is objectively more an ally than an enemy vis-à-vis the Islamic threat and therefore that Europe is not going to distance from Russia distance itself from Russia in the case of complications which I find or think are inevitable in the Caucasus part of the Russian Federation so therefore we have the first threat are you not in favor of peace negotiations I would say yes plus I would say I think that France and Germany's effort is a healthy one I would add that that effort is passively endorsed by the European Union but there is not a European Union negotiating no one should deceive themselves about that that is it is an interesting initiative on the part of the French president and the German Chancellor for France it's also an interesting path because it recovers a political position in the context of a not very balanced relationship with Germany indeed the struggle against the economic crisis in the European Union or how the economic crisis is to be addressed so therefore I think it's a healthy effort the rest of the countries have not been involved in the effort although they endorse it and explain it and explain it positively but they see that the role of Great Britain has disappeared and the tie with the United States is not seen clearly it's one of the problems that is of concern to me and it's been of concern dating back 25 years that is to say the distancing of the Northern Atlantic a relationship which had a certain logic in light of the changes unfolding in the world it's difficult to repair it urgently when all of a sudden a personality such as that of Putin emerges who wants to reconstitute a certain power whether or not that's a fantasy of the Russian Federation in relation to the old power that is now disappeared that is say the Soviet Union but what is difficult to reconstitute is a more solid alliance formally it exists with more serious coordination of the United States and the Soviet Union that is to say to have the Atlantic axis become into style once again with so much displacement there's been toward the Pacific even mindful of the possible triangulation of that axis with Latin America it's difficult to do this strategically speaking nonetheless it seems to me that it's essential we need to make sure that what is happening in the Ukraine not happen and I believe it's inexibly going to happen we can be discussing about gradual adjustment of sanctions and so forth but once territorial contiguity in the eastern Ukraine is consolidated that would continue to Crimea and that would isolate Odessa and Mariupol well then eastern Ukraine will not depend on the Kiev government and once it doesn't depend on the Kiev government it's very difficult for the Kiev government to maintain a minimum of stability so as to continue to be a government with the characteristics that it has what can be done at one can await a response by the European Union or can one await a response by the European Union to negotiate integration of with perhaps a prior phase of integration of your crane into the European Union I don't think so I don't think that can be anticipated I don't think it should be discarded but there's nothing that would in the way of a strong sign to president Putin that Europe and the United States are decided to maintain the territorial integrity of the Ukraine and its independence vis-a-vis external pressures I'm not saying that there's no expressions of will that appear to be firm in the literature what I am saying is that Putin doesn't believe them and he doesn't believe them and I'm sorry for telling you this but right and he's right not to believe it therefore he's comfortable he has a purpose Europe does not the United States is dubious as between the European position the petition made from here to put you to arm Ukraine well I don't know if arming the Kiev would be sufficient I've drawn a parallel with what was happening in the Balkans there are many differences there's no real threat for those who feel pro-russian in Kiev in the heart of the country as there were for those who felt Serbian in the Croatian part of the Balkans so there are differences major differences but even so in Kiev there continues to be as there has been for many years a weak government a fragmented country and at this time in the part occupied by the rebels there are many signs that we don't want to see ethnic cleansing or expulsion of those who are not followers of the strategy of separation of fracture so the first issue of concern to me which I put before you and there's difficulties figuring out how to respond to it now the second topic I would like to address is the Islamic State which has come to symbolize the whole phenomenon of integralism it has many explanation many implications great and major implications for example even though it's very much a side issue has nothing to do with it but it will enter into the complexity of the matter if there is or is not normalization of relations with Tehran that has implications so as to figure out how their will or will not be stability in the zone it has implications for Saudi Arabia which is probably certainly going through an institutional crisis that is relatively unforeseen and is quite serious and has implications for everyone imagine for Egypt it's been a back and forth Mubarak fell a government came in that wasn't capable of governing the country but did win the vote then followed by a military government and a military government whose the front of that is of greatest concern to it is the Sinai nonetheless it has to move a lot of its force to the Libyan front the disaster that has occurred in Libya so there's been centripetal force and centrifugal force the first there was a centripetal force of terrorist movements and then centrifugal force through Mali distributing to all everywhere this is required Egypt to move forces to the Libyan border and at the same time to neglect well to be much more concerned but less the capacity to pay attention to the Sinai border therefore there are many implications in addition to those that are well known those that are well known decomposition internal war in Syria the decomposition of Iraq in principle with the non acceptance of a Shiite majority by the Sunni minority which was displaced or after the fall of Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War so it's a difficult situation I wanted to hear some I wanted to share some of what is of concern to me addressing it as I did the first point defending the principle of territorial integrity and non violation of that territorial integrity which has been taken up by the United Nations is the only relative advantage under that viewpoint of the Islamic State unlike pure and simple terrorism but the Islamic State is calling into question the territorial integrity of the countries that it has attacked it's a completely different strategy it's divided them in my opinion the time has come for what we call the international community where the media always to find it in those terms but what they're actually referring to is what is the United States going to do with more or less strong support or more or less declining support from Europe well that's the international community the international community has to react well whatever you're referring to well the references to that they're not referring to the Arab League nor to the Islamic conference they're not referring to Japan or China they're not referring to Russia the international community is what I've just said in the slang what is the United States going to do what is Europe going to do the United States has very little room for maneuver to do much more after what has happened in Iraq in Afghanistan and so on and the threat I believe the time has come and this threat with territorial content whether it's counterattacked or defended with a clear it's going to require clear put leadership from the Arab world than the Arab League now I can tell you the feeling that I verify or there's a feeling well some of the Arab countries that are threatened by the violent Islamic integralism have called for action if it's a member of the international community as I've just identified it the United States or Europe that provokes or causes the death of a terrorist well actually in the Muslim world no one moreover the effect on the integralist movement is to spur it onward when the confrontation is one Arab versus another Arab then the popular sentiment is different I can cite I give you a snapshot of what I want to say when that horrible video appeared of the Jordanian pilot burned in the cage the Jordanian people for the first time took to the streets massively calling for revenge calling on its government to act this it did not come out in respect of any of the previous videos I'm just describing I'm not reproaching even when there have been massacres of Muslim Arabs or Christian Copts who are also by these integralist groups radical integralist groups it didn't happen either it happened when they touched their very essence so I think we need to reflect and decide that protagonism in the fight against the Islamic State should be the protagonism the leadership of the Arab countries that can when they decide to do the only thing they can do which is to share the effort to get rid to remove them that is not going to happen through aerial bombing and I don't think that the international community or the West should make the mistake once again of being the protagonist on the land in fighting the Islamic Islamists even if it has the quote-unquote formal support of some Arab governments that feel threatened because the effect will not be that of bringing an end to the threat rather it'll the effect will be to make the threat proliferate now that is my only thought before saying something well we are discussing this before came in I was in Marrakesh a few days ago and I was given the honor of being given the Abert Royce award of the University of Cordoba and of a university that is based in Marrakesh and the Abert Royce award is to reward the getting along of both sides the Mediterranean but its subtitle is for a humanist Islam so I devoted some time to describing Abert Royce who is very relevant today he lived only 900 years ago and the experience that he had at that time is what we are experiencing right now and I told about that his scientific thinking was very interesting he was the first one who described the function of the nervous system as a scientist but that's been taken over taken by scientific evolution his philosophical thinking and his religious thinking but his philosophical thinking has not been overtaken he created what was called the Western School of Islam what I'm telling you is not gratuitous because I believe that in this conflict that we have with integralism with Islamic terrorism and so on or Islamist to terrorism more than Islamic we have to understand what's happening within and I would always already suffered it he just he he described it and he suffered it he described it philosophically when he took Aristotle we know Aristotle because the Arab intellectuals drew on him especially the Western School and in particular Abert Royce and after that it was a Christian St. Thomas of Aquinas contradicting Aristotle or rather Abert Royce made some comments on what Abert Royce had said but it drew on Aristotle's philosophy and to reach the conclusion that philosophy with its values is not useful for theological interpretations that philosophy is one thing and religion is another in the Eastern School of Islam well since 60 years later Aristotle's philosophy was taken up and based on the philosophy theological interpretations of the existence of God and Islam was considered to be shown the same happening Christianity so Abert Royce ahead of his time said philosophy touches on imminent matters and religion transcendental issues one may be in agreement philosophically with Aristotle and have whatever religious beliefs one wishes but Aristotle's philosophy is not useful for justifying religious interpretations or theology now the result of that marvelous adventure of Abert Royce was naturally that he was condemned to exile as a heretic and his books were burned in the public square of Cordoba and he died in Marrakesh he was expelled by Almuade a caliph who in the back and forth of the border in Spain at the time got to the caliphate of Cordoba very much influenced by a hardcore Islamic integralism which has been around for only 1,000 years and which is what led his writings to be burned in the public square and it provoked well not only it were the books burned but the writers as well they tried to rehabilitate him three months before his death and then the caliphate of Cordoba disappeared the Western School of Islam they have the humanist interpretation of Islam disappeared and the Eastern School of Islam it gained hegemony but the debate continues alive so what am I driving at well it's an appeal and it's only fitting in a center such as this to consider that this is not just a question of power relations it is also a question of understanding the other and not even of a Western interpretation of the other but rather of getting into the roots of the interpretation of Islam which is not single-minded as to in terms of what's being done within Islam in other words we need to win the battle which Abed Royce was waging at that time he said that nothing in the Quran justifies any discrimination against women he said this 900 years ago no interpretation of the Quran allows for the discrimination exclusion of women and this is an appeal for us to think about how in this complex and ever more difficult world in which we live after getting past that balance of terror which had its difficulties but in a supposedly rational manner after that which we've left behind we have we face new challenges and among the new challenges the battle is not just a battle of weapons it is a cultural battle as well but in order to wage a serious cultural battle one must situate oneself in the place of the other in order to figure out how it is possible that for a debate to come about in Islam or to reemerge in Islam so that an Abed Royce type humanist interpretation of Islam can once again gain currency a thousand years later is this possible yes it is one of the problems that we have is that that has not been done indeed the knowledge we have of Islam we have it with a very acute view sometimes but a very Western view which it does not really understand the world it from which Islam where Islam exists from the Maghreb to the Arabian Peninsula in the entire Muslim world including the non-Arabic Muslim world we can discuss that later the country with the greatest relative stability with a law on women's rights and considerable degrees of freedom even though and not having it gone through the Arab Spring continues to be Morocco few people understand it but it's worth paying attention to that anchor of security this openness to good relations and to a cultural interpretation closer to what I'm talking about it should be capable of surviving so many temptations such as those that are occurring as one goes along through northern Africa a Algeria which is hanged by a thread the disaster in Libya the complicated situation in Egypt the jumping to Saudi Arabia what Jordan is doing despite its resistance the disaster of Syria and Iraq I don't need to explain the whole thing and in the middle of this a whole a small problem which is at the epicenter of all the problems and it seems that it's never going to be possible to resolve it the Israeli Palestine conflict well that is the context in which we're moving I have drawn attention to the Maghreb because I think it's worth reflecting on a country that we should respect coordinate from Spain this would be a priority but also that fourth United States and I'm talking about Morocco Morocco which has a very fluid border in the south a lengthy border with Algeria that has never been peaceful well it is the only one that is formally closed after after the agreement to open north and south Korea border but it's technically closed but formally that that's just a formality and then finally I think that China considers the US China agreement is made it does that affect Europe Europe has very little to say I recall President Shirok at some point in time with a conflict with North Korea one of the times it flared up and he said France it wasn't consulted well it's a different problem a problem of different dimensions so I don't mean to be sarcastic but in the next ten years we are going to experience the most important tectonic movement in the reconstitution of global relations and I would say relations of power power relationships because China and this has a historic logic is going past the status quo that resulted from the agreement between Deng Xiaoping and Nixon 40 years later they wanted to review that agreement they want Asia to be for the Asians in terms of conflict resolution and they'd like the role of the United States in the Far East to change to change with respect to what what well nothing more or less than the status that it has acquired since World War two among other things with the defensive limitations of Japan among others not only therefore Japan has to make an effort and one already knows this anticipating that something like this might happen to bolster its arms spending and its defense spending one already knows this it's already happening but that tectonic tectonic movement is the most important little medium and long term so most difficult how to deal with the Middle East and the threat of integralism because we have yet found the way to approach it especially so is to take a step which it's which seems to us impossible I believe that the role of the international community as I have described it is to support the Arab States that decide to take the step to put an end to a threat that affects their own territorial integrity and their own survival not don't ask for the support or rather not seeking their support but rather supporting them it's a Copernican it's a Copernican change and now there the Islamic State has very different nuances from Al Qaeda the battle will only be one on the ground and I think that on the ground it would be very negative for because of its multiplier effect for there to be a battle with the so-called international community or the West at the head thank you very much well good morning everyone and thank you Mr. Prime Minister yes please go right ahead thank you all my name is Heather Conley I'm senior vice president here at CSIS that looks after Europe and Eurasia and I think Mr. Minister you've given us an incredible amount of rich discussion to provide some great questions and comments what I thought we would do for the next few minutes with your permission is to focus a little bit more on Europe and if I may maybe a question or two about Spain and some of the domestic developments within Spain today and then I will hold myself back because I have so many questions for the for Minister Gonzalez and then we'll open the floor for some question period so let me begin by asking if I may one statement that you stated that I it struck me Vladimir Putin has a purpose Europe does not the founding vision of Europe was to make war materially impossible but it seems to me Europe does not have a new and positive vision a purpose it's right now the narrative is being filled by Vladimir Putin of a week in a decadent Europe what is Europe's new positive vision for Europe and do you think it can achieve this considering it's really gone through a extraordinarily difficult time economically the last several years Europe has to give meaning to what was practically foundational in the construction of the European Union which is what is a social market economy mean today what does it mean to have an economy that has one component of identity social cohesion but which also has the capacity to compete in the global economy that is not been resolved by Europe and how one can have a social pact for the 21st century with such characteristics and there's not been resolution or there's not been digestion of the agreement to go forward with the euro and monetary union I think it was done when the final decision was made in 1998 1999 it was done believing that it was very much like a central bank whose exclusive task was to ensure price stability accompanied by what was called a stability pact that the member countries should commit themselves to not going beyond 3% deficit or not going beyond 60 debt should not exceed 60% of GDP those were the basic elements I don't think that was a bad pack it was a necessary condition but clearly insufficient to set in motion a monetary union why because the pact did not include an obligation to ensure the convergence of the various countries of the union around economic and fiscal policy so even countries such as Spain I don't know if you know that Spain was the country that best fulfilled the pact that set the conditions of the monetary union Spain had a 2% surplus over a gross product Germany had 3.33 3.4% deficit Spain had a debt on its of 37% of GDP a little under 37% and Germany 84% so just to make a comparison in the same Ireland was in the same position I'm talking about Spain as a basis for comparison it had much better public accounts than France Italy Germany and in late 2007 and even 2008 this was still the case now what happened 18 months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers not only did Spain lose that surplus but its public debt jumped exponentially now it's at about 100% of GDP and the deficit reached 10% and so on therefore it was not anticipated and I speak from where I'm from what was not anticipated was the asymmetrical impact that a crisis would have on the various countries of the union because of the lack of convergence in its in the economies and in fiscal policy that wasn't anticipated and that is what has happened now what has happened with respect to the crisis I don't want to compare it with anything because some of the comparisons might be bothersome now in a short-term perspective Europe has made a mistake in its approach to the crisis and it's likely that it's made a mistake because of the much greater relative weight of Germany than other countries Francis wanted to attempt this that every time there's been an agreement Francis wanted to add to the agreement agreement on such-and-such and France always added and growth the stability pact is called packed for stability and growth but what we've seen is stability but never growth and it's always as a sort of adornment so the greater weight of Germany and its obsession with austerity has turned European policies into a crisis on as great as that of 2008 and all in pro-sexual policies adjustment policies to the contrary of what the United States has done from minute one with the Federal Reserve and with active policies to bolster demand and fight unemployment Europe has not done this we are paying the price now some are saying that they're reviewing it because of the emergence in Greece of a political force that is say a bit uncomfortable for the system it's not anti-system because they play within the system but that that is changing no the review of those policies in Europe began earlier not long ago but it has the huge problem that they come with very little and late to have batteries that are not well charged and late a South African finance minister told me for five years ago I presented that report that was referred to and I had a meeting among others with the South African finance minister and he said to me what's happening with the European Union you we don't see them coming around the curve yet it's a very nice image can't see them coming around the curve yet so it's clear I see the criticisms that are made here in terms of economic policy as well but it's very evident that if one compares similar magnitudes the short-term policies the United States for fighting the crisis have been much more efficient and I also think that in terms of structural reform as well but in Europe that's not even been suggested and I've avoided speaking about Spain as you can see thank you so much I want to move a little bit into something that you said several years ago you were one of the first I think European political figures that spoke out very strongly about the growth of European populism and that it was a great challenge to European solidarity and unity I was struck Dr. Brzezinski for several years has been talking about a global political awakening that we're seeing unfolding in the Middle East some could argue we've seen it unfold in Hong Kong and elsewhere is Europe experiencing its own generational political awakening and this awakening is nationalistic xenophobic some could argue it's anti-semitic and how can Europe address these growing sentiments this is you know you mentioned Greek Prime Minister Zipras he has just made some very strong statements about the lack of solidarity of Spain and Portugal you have Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arguing for illiberal democracy is this a political awakening that may be anti-European anti-global anti-immigrant in orientation or do you think this is an anomaly brought on by a very prolonged economic crisis I'd like to think that it is an anomaly that only depends on the seriousness of the crisis I'm not sure I think that there's a more important backdrop I think that there is a nationalist awakening which obviously accelerates when each country can argue that it's the others fault that things aren't going well and if the other is the immediate neighbor then it's all the more comfortable position to adopt therefore what you call populism has a nationalist dimension for me it's the same if it's put forward from the far right or the far left there's really not much difference in terms of Europe construction of Europe now it is true if there's acceleration and we've had seven years of crisis and since you've cited Greece well Greece in 2010 it was a day in March one of these day like today the council of Europe was in its spring meeting and I was invited as the chair of the group on reflection they called that the committee of wise men on the future of Europe and it was the first act of the Greek tragedy because it was the day that Papandreou in extemporaneous attack of honor with all of the looking at the situation over the accounts in Greece and the response of the Greek governments in the face of such bad news was to kill the messenger they didn't kill him right away but they did right thereafter now I would say and it it was improper even for his last name this never would have happened to the old Papandreou but the new Papandreou it told the truth about Greece's accounts well I was at the Council of Europe that day and I witnessed this directly now five years onward and I'll just use one parameter so to not bore you Greece at that time had a debt that was 120 of its GDP five years later with Cyprus coming into power I am from Andalusia and I think that the problem that this man has is that the Cyprus don't come out it's going to have to be they'll have to be reconstituted but but he's right in part as does any movement of resistance to that and another part in respect of which is not right but five years later Greece has seen a decline of GDP of 25 percent now it since the way in which that burden is born is extremely unequal listen to this half of the Greek population half the Greek population in terms of wealth per inhabit has lost 50 percent of the wealth per inhabit in five years half the population has and believe me those things well it's miraculous that they survive with votes because historically it was with boots not with votes so this has to be understood so we find ourselves in a situation of unbearable tension they've lost half their wealth well 25 percent of a half have lost half 25 percent have lost practically everything some have lost very little so here we have find that Greece five years later owes 175 percent of its GDP instead of 125 or 120 percent and the recipe that they continue to call for is continued cutbacks and spending Greece's problem is not so much a problem of expenditure when I say not so much I'm introducing a nuance it's less of an issue of spending than income in Greece taxes aren't paid and it's very difficult to sustain universal access to health care or access to education and so forth without taxes Greece well I could cite any number of figures I was responsible for this in part when Spain entered the European Union and renegotiated the structural cohesion funds Greece for 20 years has received a net transfer from the European Union of more than 4.5 percent of GDP more than 4.5 percent this as a result any number of works have been carried out in Greece not always as well-dimensioned as in Spain and 80 percent financed by German banks French banks and Austrian banks now 175 percent of the Greek debt whatever you can draw your own conclusion is is not with the German bank three eighths as five years ago to one fourth for France 15 percent Austria now that debt is with the contributors to the countries of the union including Spain which put in 26 billion euros and had no exposure whatsoever to Greece now it's true that they've lashed out again Spain and Portugal because after having interacted with Angela Merkel and accounts not turning out best or turning out better it's best to lash out at someone who doesn't actually have a real capacity to reply and I want to get our audience into the discussion I would be remiss if I did not ask you about Spanish political developments we have a very important election Spanish election coming at the end of the year some regional elections happening very soon this month and of course the question of Catalonia we have the rise of a very new political party Podemos we can which in some ways is probably challenging a bit the Spanish Socialist Party and in votes give me your thoughts and your reflections on on these developments what for an American audience what should we understand about all of this perhaps the most important thing that you should understand is that the configuration of political governance in Spain around two parties we're going back and forth between center left and center right with some complementary forces well it seems that that has run its course now where are we headed well to make your understanding here in the United States I could say we are moving towards an Italian model but without any Italians it's not the same thing in Spain the dominant factor was defined by Unamuno it is the tragic sense of existence and the dominant factor in Italy fortunately for Italy is let's live as well as we can because life is short therefore if we have an Italian political configuration within a year but nobody would understand that a prime minister like Renzi with the great will to reform well that the first step to be taken was to make a pact with Berlusconi in order to go forward with reform that won't be understood in Spain we have a we'd have a governance crisis around the corner that we'd have to reflect upon not of three political forces but of four because well I don't know if there will be time but a fourth political force is going forward which is citizens which is creating well there's a style of coming up with names for parties that are different from what was the vocation of parties the vocation of parties was to point to a certain segment of society based on its ideological inclination but now with the rise of new parties well normally it's not with the vocation of party but rather a movement but the most is we can we all can especially those below can against those who are at the top we are at the bottom those who are at the bottom being more and those at the top being fewer that's a sort of ideological definition citizens is we looked upon positively we want to be citizens bears of rights and obligations but it's not a way we want to be citizens who are democrats or republicans or left or right or pensioners so there will be four political actors I believe well will that be will it match what the polls are saying today I don't think so I think that the governing party and I hope to say this in a way that is not offensive I don't want to be taken to task for saying this abroad but I think the foreign minister is very understanding the government party has moved in its positions very far to the right and is leaving open the central space on the political spectrum why because it is thought and it's they're not necessarily wrong that the socialist party which should occupy the central part of the spectrum is more concerned about looking at Podemos rather than about the abandoned space of the center so now the governing party is seeing that Ciudadano doesn't have that problem and might grow in the cities their new formulas and such now Podemos it bothers them well I think citizens have the right to vote for whoever they want to first of all second they're the only ones who have the right to get it right or get it wrong and so Podemos has the typography or a font that it uses and the word itself is exactly the word that president Maduro used in his last electoral campaign not just the name Podemos but the typography of the letters if you look at the compare these visuals it's very funny to see it because now they're trying to dissimulate it no it's not a question of that I was never ashamed of joining forces in my psychopolitical fate with Willy Brunt or with Olaf Palme I thought it was fine therefore these young persons who are doing a very good job at psychopolitics knowing what sentiments are and not making commitments in terms of responses because that's the end of psychopolitics and that's where the preacher is going to have to begin to distribute wheat which is not the same thing so that's the situation in the for say a year down the road it is of concern now that Italians are falling in love with the Spanish model we're moving towards the Italian running towards an Italian political model I have to think on that a little bit more well thank you those are really interesting comments as a European analyst I could go on forever I'm going to hold myself back there's so many global questions we could ask let's raise some questions we'll take a few and then you can decide which ones we can turn we have a colleague in the back in and one here in the front if you could please identify yourself and your affiliation and we're a little short on time so if you keep that question very short we would be very grateful thank you please sure thank you for this great conversation and the opportunity to ask to the President Gonzalez I'm going to ask him in Spanish President Gonzalez President Gonzalez you're well known for your relationship with Latin America and I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned it and I cannot help but ask you about two things that are happening right now in this geopolitics that you've described the first is how do you see the delicate situation in Venezuela and the second is to be brief how do you see the new stage in the relationship between Cuba and the United States and your sentiment sensations about where we are headed in a view of the fragility these conversations in terms of the relationship Venezuela, Cuba and the United States well the other alternative today for today would have been to have analyzed that but actually when the center was so kind as to invite me it asked me to speak from a European view not Spanish regarding the threats to security that weigh on Europe so that is why I've not wanted to go through all problems in the world and I'm reminded when you ask about Venezuela of an anecdote one day Carlos Andrés Pérez was speaking at a panel or an audience and sitting next to me to my right was an older time politician Gonzalo Barrio from Acción Democrática and when Carlos Andrés had been speaking for an hour at the podium he had resolved any number of problems he had talked about the two Koreas he had described the whole world situation at a given point in time with that emphasis that he would put on things like a good like a man from the Caribbean he would say Gonzalo Barrio would sell me he started a little bit he said this guy is very good very good what is missing is a little bit of ignorance and that was a great definition that you have to be very concerned about hold back a little bit before getting into all gardens so to speak now Venezuela is in a very poor situation in a very delicate position economically socially and a very delicate situation institutionally very recently president Maduro criticized the unemployment child mortality and so forth in Spain and then he said and I hope I'm not misunderstood he then invited everyone to make a comparison between what was happening in Spain and what was happening in Venezuela and I don't reproach him for criticizing what he criticized with respect to Spain because in part though with some exaggeration he was telling a truth that I agree with intolerable unemployment and so forth and but he would have to tell us that in good faith in Venezuela ideally they should abide by their own rules of the game that is to say they should recover their own institutional solidity so the central bank could give the figure about what's happening with the economy as is its obligation or the ministry of economy and finance I hope that the situation is overcome through dialogue through a politically and economically it cannot be sustained but it can no longer be sustained we've gone past the limit of what is unsustainable and that has to be corrected one can say that there's a problem and it is legitimate to say so a problem of model and therefore a problem of regime yes but even before being able to say that I would say there is a problem of the government not respecting its the constitutional institutional framework that it has given itself that does not allow imprisoning a representative of the citizens bringing into crisis representative democracy now it is true since they always come up with a clever response as they said that in Venezuela there are no political prisoners but rather there are politicians who are in prison and it's I think it's fine for them to say so there are politicians who are in prison because they are politicians politicians who are democratic representative of hundreds of thousands of millions of citizens and therefore they lose their physical freedom and citizens lose their freedom to elect the person of their choosing therefore there is a political crisis and an economic crisis that is unsustainable with 70 some inflation with an exchange rate that is six and a half bolivars per dollar when in the street it's at 180 bolivars per dollar well that cannot be maintained that leads to the consequences that we're seeing which are striking under supply crisis it's truly exasperating but to put it in soft terms if someone obtains a dollar at the official exchange rate to buy inputs that are needed in Venezuela it's very difficult to resist the temptation of changing something at six that is cost you six and a half when you can sell it for 180 and have a 1200 rate of return with just that transaction so I don't want to be negative I want to be propositional and speaking propositionally I think that the government and the opposition have to sit down and talk immediately then they have to talk with the productive sectors and they need to come up with an adjustment plan I hope that Angela Merkel doesn't hear me because it needs to be serious because when you have a 15 deficit in the central government there's another part of the deficit that has been distributed it's difficult for the country to go forward especially with oil at half the price of what it was four months ago so this is a very tough situation very tough for freedoms for democratic development and for the Venezuelan economy and society I'd like it resolved elsewhere but you asked me a second question about Latin America ah cuba united states well so there can be no doubt about it for me it is very good news that that door is being opened why do I see it as very good news well when president bush the first president bush was vice president I put to him for the first time I'm talking about 1983 a possible change in the strategy on the relationship with cuba and later when he was president I put this put forward this forward in a meeting on cuba european union and it was frustrated say in 1996 now it shouldn't be understood that it was frustrated because there was a change in government in spain rather it was frustrated because two airplanes were shot down with no justification whatsoever over Havana in February 1996 when there was already a verbal agreement that had been closed on european union cuba and you know what that agreement was about and if you wanted some idea about what Raul Castro might be speak about the template was the relationship between europe and vietnam the idea was to do something similar with cuba protection of individual freedoms elimination of crime against the revolution there was no issue of pluralism but respect for human rights and economic opening but I think that fiddle knew that for a cuban that meant something different than for a vietnamese well and I'm pleased to say so a cuban will not shut up either if they take away crime against revolution they won't take that away and fiddle knew that and so there was a difference now i'm happy about this it is somewhat saddling to know that we who have worked so much uh to as a country to get past this uh stage have been for us to say that we've been neglected if not absent at the time that this actually happens but i look positively on it there will be problems cuba for a long time became accustomed to responding to be waiting for the to be hit and then to say hit back uh do this do that uh don't do this don't do that but you have to get used to that indeed i think that whatever the correlation of forces in the united states talking about politics and or policy well the veto cross veto vetoocracy has also become installed that's a problem we have in democracies but i don't think that there's any turning back in the u.s. cuba relationship but since you've tied this to the question with venezuela imagine uh yesterday in the morning or the day before yesterday i was with president santos of of columbia in madrid discussing how peace talks were going forward in havana with a special envoy from the united states to those negotiations well of the many conflicts that we can analyze it's uh the only one that has a bright prospects and we were examining more in private the implications of this circumstance situation in venezuela us cuba relations peace negotiations and the likelihood of an end coming to that conflict it's interesting in a relation to regions such as latin america which i find most passionate which is going through a tough time particularly the atlantic side with crises that are different in each case but from venezuela to patagonia there are problems but it is the region with the best and brightest opportunities in the world at this time and with the least conflict we're gonna have to end the questions there i think there's not a continent we haven't touched and it's with great privilege that i invite uh doctor prasinski to take the podium for some closing marks to provide a some context to all of this rich discussion dr prasinski is the csis counselor and trustee and co-chairs our csis advisory board as a former u.s national security advisor we at csis are extremely privileged to hear his insights on a daily basis so with that thank you and welcome dr prasinski thank you very much uh i'm gonna be extremely brief because i know we're running behind time and i want to concentrate on one issue and you've given us a wonderful presentation in which you started by a comment to the effect that you like to work with your hands and that causes me to reflect on the meaning of that because there is a great deal of meaning to it when you work with your hands you work with some inanimate inanimate object and you infuse into it creativity and purpose and a message in effect you transit from the practical to the poetic but poetic can be very insightful and i think that relates very nicely to the three points you made about europe about the middle east and china our only mention for the sake of brevity the middle east you spoke correctly about the dilemmas that we face and you also warned us against getting involved with our boots and i very much agree with that but you also infused a poetic message here which struck me as i listened to you as very strategically relevant and i say this in part because i admired what you said and i regret it that i haven't thought of it myself namely they were dealing with a hostile force which is deeply embedded in the past the whole sort of basic movement of the fanaticism of atrocities is not a religious expression it's a perversion of religion in a context of a refusal to move forward which is taking place however in the world of islam you mentioned morocco and the brilliant insight here was that the force we are being opposed by is a force which practices and insists on total subordination of women to men and i should think that for the moderate arab regimes particularly for us from the outside we should speak for the poetic solution to the problem of arab islamic retardation namely to be modern to be co-equal to be religiously correct with the spirit of mohammed you have to undergo a fundamental revision in the relationship between the male and the female parts of arab populations something which is happening voluntarily in some parts something which is happening against resistance and something is which is totally repressed and denied and such a cause can give our role much more meaning so i thank you for that insight and more broadly for a very stimulating and poetic and political presentation thank you thank you all so much mr gonzalez colleagues this was a wonderful conversation we look forward to future programming with the brzezinski institute and we wish you a great day thank you again for joining us