 So, good afternoon everybody, you're very welcome to the Institute of International European Affairs for this very important event. We're very honoured to be joined by the Foreign Minister of Portugal, Minister Augusto Santos, who is going to give a keynote address this afternoon. It's very timely, we are embarked in this country and in this institute on a debate on the future of Europe and of course there are natural affinities and alignments between Ireland and Portugal for very recent history as well as more distant history and current politics in terms of the shape of the government, in terms of our engagement on the debate on the future of Europe. So we're very much looking forward to hearing your comments. Minister, if I can just read out a very short biography of the Minister which I'll do before. I'll just remind all of you to switch your phones to silent and remind you that we are on the record and recording the Minister's speech for our website and the Q&A session afterwards will be off the record. So Augusto Santos Silva has had a distinguished political career spanning two decades. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since November 2015. He previously served as Minister of National Defence from 2009 to 2011 and as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs from 2005 to 2009. He also served as Minister of Culture from 2001 to 2002 and as Minister of Education from 2001. He received his PhD in Sociology in 1992 and his BA in History in 1978 where he later served in the University of Porto as Dean from 1998 to 1998. So a very distinguished career and please could you welcome the Minister, the Foreign Minister of Portugal. Everyone can see me. So thank you very much for this invitation and for your presence. I will focus my intervention in one dimension of the future of Europe and then I propose to consider all the dimensions that you wish in the following key in the period. And the dimension that I would like to focus is sometimes neglected. Too neglected in my view is the dimension of the role Europe has to play in the world. So I would like to focus on issues of European foreign policy and then we can speak about the economic and monetary union, the institutional arrangements that we need and so on. In fact, since at least 1993, it is clear for all of us Europeans that we need a common security and foreign policy and that the external action is one of the most important dimensions of the European Union and one in which we can have really European added value as we right now usually say. I would like to elaborate on this topic of the external action of the European Union. Consider what I see as five main dimensions of our external action. The first dimension relates to topics of security and defense. The second dimension relates to our neighborhood and our neighborhood policy, our policy towards our neighboring regions at south and at least at east. The third dimension concerns relates to cooperation and development policy. The fourth to our participation in multilateral fora and multilateral agenda. And I think that I can finish with a fifth dimension that in some sort somehow summarizes all the previous one. The geopolitical insertion, the geopolitical inscription of Europe nowadays. The awareness of the importance of the area of security and defense is a very important fact of recent years in Europe and it is a very positive fact, the increasing awareness of the importance of defense and security issues for the future of Europe. From the Portuguese perspective, the clear enunciation of a number of principles can help us developing the PESCO, the permanent structure of cooperation in defense and security matters that was launched with the participation both of Ireland and Portugal in the last month of December 2017. The first principle would be to consider PESCO in its terms. That is to say our aim is to increase our cooperation in equipment, in capabilities and in operations. We are independent states. Our national defense and security policy is an issue of our national sovereignty but still we have to cooperate furthermore in terms of equipment, capabilities, operations and missions. For 22 member states of the European Union, not for Ireland but for Portugal that are at the same time members of the European Union and members of NATO PESCO means also to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance. The two organizations, you and NATO, are of course of different nature but still they are complementary and our efforts must be articulated in both organizations not on the basis of divisions that have lost their meaning such as between soft power would be European power and hard power, the power of NATO or by areas of influence but rather for saving means and converging actions. Third principle that seems very important in my view is that the permanent structure cooperation PESCO must be launched on a solid basis particularly in the economic and financial field. One must understand security in the proper and broad sense. Today the safety of critical infrastructures, energy supply, communication networks and large shipping areas are absolutely crucial so we need this modern view of what means security. And finally the so-called Defence Union in Europe cannot exacerbate the existing asymmetries in the technological and industrial capabilities of member states and for that it is indispensable to take into account the projects and potentialities of small and medium enterprises. PESCO also means the reinforcement of the industrial and technological base of defence in Europe and in order that countries like Portugal and Ireland can take all the profits they deserve from PESCO we must allow room for small and medium enterprises to participate in this reinforcement of our industrial base in Europe. It is obvious, second dimension that I would like to refer to. It is obvious the correlation between security issues and neighbourhood issues. Our security border as Europeans lies in the great arch that runs from the African Sahel to Central Asia nowadays even from Central Africa to Central Asia. This is the border of Europe in terms of security nowadays. Any instability in this great arch going from African Sahel to Central Asia has a direct impact on the conditions of European security. Terrorist networks, human and drug trafficking, large organised crime or social upheaval that lead to the collapse of institutions and states but also the systematic denial by governments of the dignity, rights and minimum security requirements of their populations all these constitute direct threats to Europe. I always say that the Portuguese troops that are currently in Mali or Central Africa are also defending the Portuguese national interests in terms of security. It is clear, however, that the neighbourhood is not reduced to safety concerns. It relies more broadly on political and economic relations with regions geographically closest to the Union as well as on possibilities and paths for joint partnerships. There are some of the countries from our neighbourhood that are candidates to the accession to the European Union currently Albania, Fyram, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey and the European Union must treat all these candidates only according to the criteria defined at the Copenhagen Council. That means the democratic nature of the state, the compliance with the rule of law, the existence of a market economy and the ability to integrate the so-called Aki Communautaire. In my view, no other question can be explicitly or implicitly introduced let alone imaginary problems of religious or civilisations' disconfirmity. Europe is plural and not regulated by ethnic, religious or cultural requirements. The Copenhagen criteria criteria are enough to assess the possibility of the candidates to exceed to the European Union and of course we must be intransigent about the Copenhagen criteria. What we call the neighbourhood policy has to do with the relations with the countries of the two regional areas that border the EU. In the east with the countries that have left the former Soviet universe such as Ukraine and Belarus or several Caucasus states to the south with all the North African nations and several of the Middle East including Israel and Palestine. All those countries take part at the European neighbourhood. The role of the EU should not be underestimated. I'll give only three examples. A EU strategic dialogue with Maghreb will be a significant favourable element to the regional integration of the Maghreb countries themselves, which is practically nowadays non-existent. Second example, the combinations of incentives and disincentives is essential for the advancement of the rule of law and the fight against corruption in Eastern and Caucasian Europe. And thirdly, the EU continues to be the clearest voice in favour of the only peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two states coexisting side by side respecting each other's security and having both their capitals in Jerusalem. The Irish government is very engaged also on behalf of all the European Union in trying to get a solution to the PPMU. As we all know, Russia was invited but did not want to be associated with the European neighbourhood policy. This is not to say that Russia is not a neighbour and the closest one to the European Union. In 2014, Russian strategic revisionism violated one of the key principles of the international order which is sovereignty and territorial integrity. In this case, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. Hostile acts ensued and the recent Salisbury incident would have been the last goat that overflowed an already full glass of aggression and suspicion. The firmness of the European response to the Russian Act is justified, but it cannot be questioned. It cannot question the double-track policy that has guided the EU and NATO in its relation to Russia. Steadiness in responding to hostile threats on one side and political dialogue on the other side. Now I would like to move to a third dimension that I think is vital when we conceive the external action of EU besides defence and security and neighborhood issues. This third agenda is development. The European Union is the world's largest donor in development aid. It has an essential partnership with the 79 ACP countries, countries from Africa, the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean countries. And it conducts the most advanced and consistent cooperation programmes on all continents. It is European Union is the entity that most emphatically subscribes to the fundamental principle of the United Nations, the principle that states that development is the other face of security and peace. Does this mean that no change is necessary in development policy in Europe? I do not believe so. Just think about the discussions we are already having in Brussels in the context of preparing what we call the post-Cotonou agreement. That is the framework for cooperation with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries after 2020. The point is not to break with a line of action that has been fruitful, but rather to adapt it to a new need. It is not enough to cooperate in a logic of aid from developed countries to developing countries. This logic of aid of assistance is not enough for the scale of the challenges faced by countries with a strong population growth, with a large population of children and young people who these countries need to care, to feed, to educate and to employ, countries with insufficient control over their resources and an incipient capacity to transform and trade those resources and still with very fragile institutions. As it was once again repeated by our African friends at the Abidjan Summit between the EU and the African Union, cooperation must be redefined as a partnership between equivalent sovereign entities. Cooperation must strengthen civil societies and must be articulated with the economic relationship. In a nutshell, we need cooperation, trade and investment closes to each other. There is traditionally a divide, a split between trade and investment policy and cooperation as to development. In my view, this division is nowadays both obsolete and it does not help to improve our relationship with Africa and other developing countries. The fourth major area of implementation of the European foreign policy is shaped by multilateralism as the principle and method of addressing international relations, by multilateral organizations as the appropriate framework for building a rules-based order and by multilateral agendas that is the common work programs agreed by the parties. In this respect, the role of the European Union is indeed to lead, to lead multilateralism. We should not be afraid to say it. On the contrary, we must affirm it and undertake the corresponded responsibility to be leaders in multilateralism. The clearest option for multilateralism is today in Europe and in countries which are culturally and institutionally closed to Europe. Now that we have seen an obvious withdrawal of the Anglo-Saxon universe, the United States and although to a much lesser extent the United Kingdom, that clearest option for multilateralism is even more evident. This has an effect both on the participation and the support to the United Nations and on the activity of multilateral organizations linking Europe to North Africa, such as NATO or OSCE, linking Europe to other regional multilateral organizations such as the African Union, the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States, the League of Arab States or the Aegean. There are several multilateral agendas in which European leadership is capital. The Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals or the Climate Agenda are well known. So I would like to focus on three other relevant multilateral agendas, the promotion and regulation of international trade, the reception and protection of refugees and the regulation of migrations. Once again, the current American policy increases the overall responsibility of the EU concerning trade. Trade is a powerful growth factor in the world economy, rationalizing the use of resources and the satisfaction of the needs in a systemically positive cost-benefit relation. And we have to remember this, including to our American friends that overall trade is a powerful growth factor in the world's economy. From this growth can benefit all countries and regions in terms of wealth, employment and household income. We must remember to all those who want to engage in obsolete and radically wrong trade wars that trade is a win-win game, can be a win-win game. In addition, trade contributes to the mutual understanding and mutual respect of peoples and to the reciprocal opening of societies. It improves the communication and transfer of knowledge and technology. It facilitates the movement not only of goods and services, but also of people. It is an instrument of development, security and peace. The world has to listen to these kinds of words and these kinds of sentences, and I think it is the responsibility of the EU to tell them. All disadvantages of international trade, however, have one condition, the regulation of international trade. In the sense of making it free, fair and in accordance with the standards required in the field of social protection, labour relations, environment or public health and food safety. In my view, the European Union's trade policy proves that this approach is feasible. In my view, the agreement with Canada, the CETA, is a good example. But the European contribution to the world's trade organisation as the global framework for the regulation of international trade is no less essential. As well as our responsibility to align that contribution to the WTO with those we allocate to other equally relevant international bodies, and namely to the international labour organisation. We cannot have a discourse in the WTO and a completely different discourse in the international labour organisation. It functions the other way around. We cannot have a discourse in international labour organisation and a different discourse in the world trade organisation. This is an area where we may apply one of our favourite slogans in the EU that goes, our interests correspond to our values. We are the most open economy and the largest trading partner in the world. The agreement we have tried to negotiate to the United States, the TTIP, which process is suspended by a U.S. unilateral decision. The ongoing negotiation process with Japan, with Mercosur, with Mexico and so on are very important for the EU. But they are even more important to impede that the world would go back to a wrong and harmful protectionism. In September 2016, the United Nations decided to move forward with two global compacts, one on refugees and the other on migrants. And these represent other multilateral agenda that must be led by Europe. Many European countries are engaged in the ongoing negotiations in New York and Geneva, and in my opinion there can be no doubt or ambiguity about the following points. The first point is the distinction between refugees and migrants. Refugee protection is an obligation, a moral and a legal obligation in accordance with international humanitarian law. It should therefore be discussed on this basis, certainly in relation to the treatment of asylum seekers, and in order to ensure the clear identification of the refugees. And certainly with the purpose of dividing, sharing what we sometimes improperly call the burden of refugee protection and integration. As we know, but often we omit this burden, undoubtedly penalizes more countries neighboring the most critical situations such as Turkey or Lebanon or Jordan than Northern Europe. The second point is that migration is a constant in universal history, and its balance is generally positive for the countries of destination. In other words, population mobility is not only a real fact that cannot be overthrown by mere legal prohibition, it has been over the centuries also a factor of dynamism and progress. The problem is not the identity danger that migrants to the largely represent, nor the risk of miscegenation and cross-cultural intercourse that they allegedly carry. Such danger and such risk do not exist. The problem is disorderly, massive and illegal migration that undermines the very survival and minimal dignity of migrants, that deprives countries of origin of an important part of the most essential human resources to their development, and that severely affects countries of transit and destiny and feeds audible networks of traffic and exploitation. So trafficking has to be fought and illegally and disorderly migration has to be countered. But the alternative is to promote, as the United Nations say, safe, orderly and legal immigration. The alternative is to participate in the programs who want to wish to tackle the root causes of migration, programs of medium and large term effects. The alternative is to assure the protection of our borders, the deterrence of illegal immigration, and the police and judicial combat to the networks of trafficking and exploitation of migrants. And the alternative is to implement regulation migration policies so that people see their rights respected and security guaranteed while host societies can have the necessary conditions for the integration of newcomers in terms of job market, housing conditions, education and compliance with European values, norms and institutions. European leadership is necessary to develop this agenda. And I come to the conclusion of my intervention. I have argued that the areas requiring greater engagement from the European Union's foreign policy are those relating to security and defence, neighbourhood policy, development and the multilateral agendas for sustainable development, climate change, international trade, protection of refugees and regulation of migration. If this argument makes sense, then a conclusion must be drawn identifying a fifth area of our foreign policy, indeed geopolitical, that completes the previous ones. It's a question of answering to this simple but essential question. How does our European Union see itself in the world? What role should play it in it? I think that we have already passed the time when we were not paying attention to this question. The time when we saw ourselves only as a soft power, an island of well-being, a thriving economic space and a great international donor, whose political and strategic weakness was balanced by the protective umbrella of the so-called binning hegemony of the United States. The time of European Union being an economic giant and a political dwarf. It is clear today that the European contribution to the international order cannot be limited to develop made or trade, or being the example in the rule of law, or the apology for human rights, or can be contained in a minimum degree of compliance of our obligations within NATO. The establishment of the common foreign policy in 1993, and above all the changes made by the Treaty of Lisbon, express this new understanding that if this status is not reached, the EU has to move forward consistently with a new conception and practice of its international responsibility. The pendulum of European geopolitical insertion now swings between two extremes. On one side, you would define itself as an integral part of the West, so-called West, as it is expressed in the North Atlantic. After a period of relaxation of the West-East conflict, and of particular attention to emerging economies such as Brazil or India in the late 20th century, the 21st century would have restored the logic that what really matters happens in the North, and there the United States and the European Union are on one side, and the others, including Russia, on the other side. We can listen more and more to this point of view coming from our Eastern partners inside the European Union. This is one of the poles to which our pendulum swings. On the other pole, on the other extreme, no element of this tension between West and East would now have any meaning. The world would be clearly multipolar and the essential factor in international order that would be the fact that the collapse of several states and the spread of transnational terrorist networks would represent a global threat in which we are all potentially targets. It is in its nature that a pendulum oscillates and you external action must adapt to the often unexpected developments of circumstances. However, the greatest danger I see ahead of us is that of the geostrategic irrelevance of Europe as such. Of course, we belong to the Great North Atlantic Alliance. We must never forget it. After Brexit, this will mean that our priority partners outside our Union in political, diplomatic and security and collective defence terms will be the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. But that is not the point of arrival, but rather the starting point. Europe will be nothing if it does not know how to dialogue productively in a framework of reciprocal recognition and respect with China, with India, with Japan, with Russia, with Brazil and Latin America, with North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, with the Middle East, the Central Asia and the Southeast Asia. This is what our consciousness of multipolarity and our advocacy of multilateralism really mean, our capacity to dialogue with regions besides our own. The promotion of international order founded on rules, the fight against terrorism, radicalisation and violent extremism, the virtuous articulation between human rights agenda and sovereignty agenda, the development and practice of international law, all of this that characterises Europeans will only stand if Europe won't isolate itself from the rest of the world, even if this isolation is encapsulated inside a so-called West. If all this that characterises our stance will only stand if Europe won't isolate itself from the rest of the world, if Europe does not have a Euro-centric and Western-centric vision of the world, if Europe does not let geopolitics be reduced to the dangerous, triangular competition between the United States, China and Russia, in a word, if Europe stands as a real and consequent actor on the international stage. And this is where I come to the last stage of my reflection. Countries such as Ireland and Portugal have a contribution to make in all the dimensions that I have identified in European Union's external action, in defence and security, in neighbourhood policy, in development cooperation and in the leadership of several multilateral agendas. First, because all member states do contribute to European agenda, from the smallest to the largest. Secondly, because Ireland and Portugal mobilise specific and diverse skills and traditions which are all necessary. For instance, Ireland does not belong to NATO, being a neutral country, of which NATO, Portugal is a co-founder. Although both Ireland and Portugal do participate in the European Union's permanent structure cooperation. Third, because both our countries have been highlighted as important bridges to link the EU to its external partners. For instance, Portugal towers the south, after the Brexit, Ireland will play a key role in the European relationship with the UK. But it is in the critical area of geopolitics that resides the main added value of our two countries. I mean where we can most help Europe is to understand its place and role in a world that is much larger than Europe and much bigger than Europe. Portugal and Ireland are diaspora countries. Ireland in a much larger dimension than Portugal. I think Ireland estimates its diaspora 60 million people all around the world. Portugal estimates its diaspora 6 million, one tenth all around the world. But both diasporas with significant dimensions, we know then that the world is our home and we know that isolation or arrogance are the shortest route to disaster. Portugal and Ireland are European Atlantic countries. Therefore, we know the risks of pure continentalism and we praise the combination between Europe and America and in Europe. We praise the combination between the continental side and maritime side of Europe. Portugal and Ireland by European standards are medium sized countries. We are therefore well trained in webbing forms of connection between micro and macro which is a fundamental diplomatic art. Portugal and Ireland are open countries by immigration, by geography, but also by economy. We are open countries towards Europe and as a capital point outside Europe, especially to Americas and towards Americans, Americas and Africa. We know then that the future of Europe also relies in a successful interaction with these and other large regional spaces. Portugal and Ireland see themselves not as powers whose strength would rely on economic or military power, but as mediators whose influence is measured by the resources of stabilization and institutional capacity they can offer to situations of conflict and crisis. I do not, I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not proposing here any kind of exaltation of an imaginary Celtic alliance between at least Ireland and the north of Portugal. It would be such a ridiculous exercise as other self-complacency exercise. I just want to say that without Portugal and without Ireland, the European Union would experience itself and the world in a poorer way and we should be proud of that fact. Thank you.