 Questions from the audience. So I see one, two, three hands. We're going to collect three questions and then move from there. We'll begin here in the front. Well, my name is Friedberg Flüger. I'm German. I've been a colleague of Norbert Röttgen in the German Bundestag for 20 years. And I would first of all say to Bogdan he was very modest because not only Poland is back, but he is back. He was re-elected by 71%, which is a wonderful victory, and we should mention that. Bogdan, I want to address that, what you just said. You said NATO has been strengthened by this war. There is new unity. US is back stronger in Europe than ever. And Europe has lived up to that challenge. But if I hear the undertones in this discussion, I think we have to put some question marks. And I would like to be Advocatos Diaboli and point a picture, and I'm hopefully that you can bring forward the counterarguments. Well, the West is pretty weak. You are right. NATO, pretty good. But look to the United States and we see this enormous polarization and we don't know whether Mr. Trump will win next time. I'm coming very short to the question. EU, the same thing. Look to Israel and the war in Israel and the EU position to that. So the question is whether we are not well advised to follow Mr. Zaki Laidi's position, not to say it is just the West. If we want regulations in foreign affairs, we should not say it is only the West who is asking for that. If we do that, I think we found ourselves pretty much isolated in this world. Look at this BRICS meeting that we had. People are fed up with this polarization. They want regulations. They do not want that war wins as Norbert has put it. But if we put it as this is a Western value or a Western point, I think we are not doing the right thing. Thank you very much. This obviously is feeding into the whole discussion about the global South and the West in these terms, whether they are useful and what the perceptions are around the world and whether we need to maybe come up with new terms. So we are going to take two more questions. We will allow you of course to answer to that in a moment. But first the gentleman in the 1, 2, 3, 4th rope. And then we will take one more question from that side. I think I see you ahead. I think you are a hero from Tokyo. So definitely defeat of Ukraine is a bad scenario. But maybe the worst scenario is a simultaneous war in Europe and Asia. Obviously, there are many, many focal points like a time and state or Korean Peninsula. So my question is how should we avoid the same scenario of World War I or World War II in which war in Europe spilled over to Asia, especially World War II, spilled over within two years after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Then two years after that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. So timeline was very, very fast. So my question is how should we both win both in Ukraine but also deter China simultaneously. Okay. So we've got the whole question about the West again emphasizing that. But we've also got now the question of spillover. How do we avoid that? And there's a gentleman there in the hall. We'll take that question and then... Thank you very much. And then we'll move over to the front here. Sorry, just a moment. Volker Perth is from Berlin. If Norbert Rutkin is right, and I think he is, that Europe has to prepare itself from now to provide security for fellow Europeans, threatened by a power that doesn't respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its neighbors. If that is the case, what does it mean, and I would like you Norbert and probably your fellow Europeans to further elaborate, what does that mean for the institutional development of Europe? What does it mean for budgets? And what does it mean for the narrative which your party and others will have to pursue in the coming European elections? Thank you. Boy, that's a complex question. We could put together a whole panel on that. Thank you Volker Perth. And we will take one additional question. Tilly Montréal had drawn my attention to a lady in the front. Well, thank you, Elisabeth Gigu from France. I'm very happy that at the beginning of the discussions, Bogdan and Zaki and Norbert have given us some signs of optimism in this very gloomy and worrying context. So I want to come back to the European Union as they did at the beginning. After the war, and of course it depends on how long this war will last and on which conditions it will end. But after the war, supposing that what we hope here is that Ukraine wins the war and can negotiate on acceptable terms some kind of peace. What should be in the view of the panelists? What should be the degree of autonomy, strategic autonomy of the European Union vis-à-vis the United States? And given the fact that the European Union obviously will support the massive cost of the reconstruction of Ukraine. Thank you. So there's a lot on the table here. Much of it is institutional, focused on the European Union. Concerns about that and the whole question of strategic autonomy, which has been around a big discussion for a long time. But what we get a feeling for here and also the broader global debate, because this does plug into the global debate about the West and what it is and what it stands for and what's at stake here, but also the question of this possibly spilling over. There has been a great deal of discussion about any lessons that maybe other countries are taking from the Ukraine war about how to pursue its own foreign policy interests by violating another area's territorial integrity. So, let's get some responses from the panelists. Again, a lot on the table. Who would like to begin? Norbert Lipkin. Yes, thank you. And perhaps I would pick the question of Volker Perthes. He asked if what does European security mean in terms of institutions, budgets and narrative. And I would answer these questions in reverse order because when you start with a narrative, the answers follow out of this, out of this, of the response to the narrative. Yet I think there is space and room and necessity for a European narrative. And only if you think about the possibility of an election of Donald Trump, which I consider as the nightmare as such. We have the war in Europe, we have the war on the Middle East, but this implosion of the West from inside, this is the real threat to the West, not from the outside but from the inside. So if you just consider this for a moment as a possibility which can't be excluded, then the narrative is absolutely clear. We have to provide as Europeans for the security of our Europe. And security has become also indifferent in other areas, the new paradigm. People feel scared, they feel not protected in different areas in the economy but also in this area of physical military security. So I think this is the core narrative we have to develop and we can sell because it is the truth. It is what we are facing that we have to provide and care for ourselves and we can't rely only and solely as we have done in the decade of the Cold War on America. And I say and I add even if Joe Biden were to be re-elected, there will never be a time as we have seen in the Cold War when a Europe was only the receiver of European security. He will come back at some time to the new priorities of American policy which is the reconstruction of the American economy and of course the competition with China. So either way we will have to face this necessity. And if once we have made this clear that this is the historic challenge of our time for Europe, then the ensuing questions get the answer. Of course the budget has to follow the essence, what is necessary for our time and the institutions will adapt to a policy which is necessary. So I'm not scared about that. May I ask you though just to intervene, do you see the political will among the European Union member states to come up with the agreement and the resources to strengthen those institutions particularly on the military and defence side? Because right now the European Union does not even have that identity outside of NATO. So what we can say that we have remarkably developed, so the state of mind and the state of policies after the war compared to the pre-war time is fundamentally different. For example Germany really can say our society, our attitudes have as profoundly, as quickly changed as it has never occurred in the post-war period. However I admit not sufficiently, if you measure it with the past profoundly impressively, if you measure it against what is necessary insufficiently. So my answer to your question is we could act out of insight and foresight. I do not expect this unfortunately. What I fear is that we will act and more react out of necessity. We could avoid it, we could be better prepared but I think it's not hard to predict the circumstances that Europe has to bring itself to a level of responsibility because we are forced to act. And then Europe is acting quite convincingly. I would just point out at this point that the need that many see for reforming institutional reform in the European Union also in terms of its decision-making process when it comes to foreign and security policy. If it's going to be only unanimous decision-making that's going to be a difficult task. Okay, we'll bring in Zaki. I'm always amazed in such a debate to see to what extent the Europeans, the European Union is constantly underrated. And your comments which are coming from a non-European view but it's perfectly acceptable are the perfect illustration of this. I've lived longer in Europe than anywhere else. I started talking about the limited effort but I think that Mr. Rodgen made it very clear. I mean the changes which took place in Germany are absolutely impressive. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, people were laughing at the Germans because they had in mind to just send helmets to the Ukrainians. Now, now, now Germany is the first provider of military aid to Ukraine behind the United States. And the quality of the German equipment is outstanding. So as a European, I'm very proud to defend what the Germans have done and the changes which took place. And even in regard to their energy dependency, what Germany did is absolutely formidable. So I remember meetings of the Gimnik just before the beginning of the war and journalists coming to the HRBP and telling him, but how can you expect having a common position of Russia whereas you are all divided? But he told him, wait a minute, wait until the end of the meeting and you'll see. And what happened after the meeting? That was the decision to take very harsh sanctions against Russia. So in terms of military effort, a change is taking place. But of course it's not going to happen within a year or two years. It's a sea change. And let me just come to three questions but in fact I don't see a lot of disagreement among us. The word Titan vendor I believe is something that has been put out there now in the result of this. On the EU-US relations, I think that we do agree that this relationship is absolutely crucial, fundamental. Nobody is putting into question the importance of this relationship. And I think that we do all agree now that we need to make a European effort on our side and because we cannot foresee what could happen in the future. Now the point on which I disagree respectfully with you concerns the global south. I mean if you go to the global south and tell them that in Ukraine we are defending Western values and you need to share the values, you are going to face a huge opposition. So you should certainly not bring to them the Ukrainian issue through the lenses of democracy because you have to put the emphasis on the territorial integrity of nation states. And in fact you have democracies which are going to tell you well that's your problem, it's not yours. And if you take Latin America, is it part of the West or not? So if you take Latin America, I mean most of countries, almost all of them are democratic countries, but their narrative and their interpretation of the conflict is not very different from Asian or African countries. They tell okay there was an aggression but there are so many aggression in the rest of the world. And secondly it's an aggression but don't expect from us more than condemning the aggression because we have our own agenda and we don't want to see the Ukrainian agenda hijacked by other issues which are much more important for us. And this narrative and this perception is widely present in the world. And it doesn't matter if countries are democratic or not democratic, African, Latin Americans or Asians. It's simply not the truth. I mean you have to look at the reality of the world as it is and not as you expect it to be. Thank you. Bogdan Kliet perhaps you can pick up on some of those points and also maybe speak to the question that was raised concerning the risk of spillover in this because that's a quite great concern. Together with Robert Gates. The United States faces more serious threats to its security today than it has faced in decades perhaps ever. It has not before faced four allied adversaries at the same time Russia, China, North Korea and Iran whose combined nuclear arsenal could be nearly twice the size of the US within a few years. This is Bob Gates. Of course this is the specific situation of the US responsible not only for security in Euro-Atlantic area but also engaged in other parts of the globe. But let's not forget you know that to some extent this is also our problem because the West consists as we know of two parts of the Atlantic Ocean. That's why I absolutely aware that there is a difference between those threats coming from the east and from the south. From the east we have traditional conventional threat in the form of military aggression, full-scale aggression in the neighborhood of Euro. When in the south we face more asymmetric threats because nobody can predict that even the bad evolution of Hamas Israeli war can create a military danger for Europe. There can be massive migration flows. There can be a next wave of terrorist attacks on our soil in the European Union. There can be various cuts of energy supplies to Europe but those threats are different. That's why we should be prepared for with different responses to those threats. When we speak about the US possible policy or strategy after new presidential elections in the United States. Yes, this is one of the main challenges for us for the West and nobody can predict what will happen in the US. So we should be prepared to keep Americans in as we kept Americans in during the first Donald Trump presidency. Of course political cohesion of the Alliance was undermined because of Donald Trump's approach. But thanks to the commanders, great commanders of the US Armed Forces, NATO cooperation, military cooperation was going ahead. What should we do in Europe? Referring to what Elizabeth asked about. This is the Spanish presidency right now that concentrated our thinking about strategic autonomy only on social economic issues. We abandoned this military, political military aspect during last month because of this good cooperation with the United States. Because mainly of the Russian-Ukrainian war. We should keep thinking in those categories, social economic categories about the European strategic autonomy. Not forgetting, only one sentence, not forgetting about the security and defence union that could be achieved according to the existing treaties. Because there is no mood for changes of treaties in the European Union. But we can go further with the European defence and security union within the European Union. This is one of the possible directions. Thank you. We only have one minute and 30 seconds left so I would like to give you an opportunity to intervene. Yeah, you know I think to live free. It's universal desire, not the western or eastern or southern desire. This is universal desire. Why we choose freedom? I think because of that. We want to live free. And in my country, freedom is non-negotiable because freedom equals to our independence. Freedom equals to our right to exist. And I know in the West you may see some socialists or even communists, even friends of autocrats. I think it's not new thing. But desire to live free is very important. That's a universal thing. But other thing I really concern that this middle eastern conflict and also there are flash conflicts in Asia, South China Sea, Taiwan and Korean Peninsula. And also North Koreans are delivering that arsenal, that weapons. They say almost 1,000 containers of weapons and I read that. Those things are concerning. And maybe if there is more flash points, it may next in Asia. If that come this war or conflict become more global, I think that's nightmare. Because of that, we have to talk about more issues related with the global things. Of course we have to pay attention originally. Thank you. Thank you very much. You ended directly on 0-0. Congratulations for that. We are out of time. It's obvious that we could continue discussion for a long time. We said there's much need for discussion. Fortunately we are at a place where we have some brilliant minds and some really experienced policy makers and analysts to help us put things into context. I really appreciate your input from all of you. I was hoping for a frank and open discussion. We got that. It's a really, really difficult subject. I hope we can follow it up perhaps bilaterally at some point. I want to thank our audience for being with us today. Please feel free to continue our discussion later on. Warm round of applause. Thank you.