 and welcome to everybody. One welcome to our booklet launch and panel discussion here tonight on the militarization of the EU and the presentation of our booklet, the militarized union. Glad to see you all here. If you would like to have German interpretation that we're offering, then you find the German channel in our chat below. And as in the middle, we'll be speaking in German, so you'll also find the English translation then in the Zoom bar below for our discussion later on. My name is Axel Wuppert from the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung's Brussels office, and I'll be guiding you through this evening. Interestingly enough, just a couple of hours, just before our event, the European Commission together with representatives from the European arms industry has now officially launched the European Defence Fund. So now for the next years, overall 7.95 billion euros from the EU budget will be handed out to the European arms industry. And from our perspective, this is not only violating EU treaties, but also stands exemplary of the EU's shift from civil to military priorities, in particular over the recent six years. At the same time, the future combat air system, the F-CAS project, has recently attracted criticism for the massive costs that it is and will be causing even before any plane has ever taken off. It also shows the competition between member states over technological ownership and protecting their own industries, and it's already undermining the promises that came with a closer cooperation on the military level. And lastly, by incorporating autonomous drones farms, the F-CAS project will exacerbate the global arms race on autonomous weapons, another development that we'll have to watch out for. And finally, following the recent NATO summit and the apparent US orientations toward the Pacific, we have once again heard calls for the EU to take care of its own defence and security and invest in its strategic autonomy, whatever this might mean. So these calls have again become stronger and louder. So these are just some highlights that I want to share before we start, that I think show how relevant, how timely and how tropical and at the same time important our discussion is tonight. And despite these alarming developments, and this is also where we started from discussing our booklet that we're presenting tonight, is that these alarming developments, the militarisation of the EU, what it means for peace and safety of people in and outside of Europe, and what it means for taxpayers in the EU, how the arms industry is profiting from it, and to what extent the EU is preparing for war is publicly not well known, even among those who we see as part of the left and political spectrum in Europe. And our booklet, the militarised union, understanding and confronting the militarisation of the European Union that we present tonight seeks to address specifically this. It offers a comprehensive introduction through discourses, structures and actors at the core of the militarisation of the EU. It also seeks to deconstruct myth about the supposed economic and political benefits of closer military cooperation, explain why this paradigm shift threatens peace and human security worldwide, but also presents peace policy concepts and approaches to take action. And this booklet has been written by office from the UP Network against the Arm Strait, and at this point you're also a big thank you to the UP Network against Arm Strait for putting this together and for making this possible, also based on the work of the members of the network in recent years on this topic. The booklet is now out in English, I'll chat link in the chat, but it will be translated to German, French and Spanish. So we are very much looking forward to discussing this booklet tonight. And at the same time, take stock of where we currently stand after the launch of the EDF today, but also the introduction of the permanent structured cooperation PESCO, the coordinated annual review on defence card and also the adoption of the EU peace facility. I want to take the opportunity tonight as well to look ahead and discuss what will matter in the coming month and how we can effectively confront the further militarisation of the European Union. And to do so, I'm very glad to welcome Aslem Demiril here with us. Aslem, you are a member of the European Parliament, vice chair of the subcommittee on security and defence, member of the Lincoln and the left, and I would say a very important voice within the left on the human militarisation and on criticising this process and bringing it to broader public attention. So we're really looking forward to your assessment and to your opinion later on. And I would also like to warmly welcome Leticia Sidhu, Leticia, your EU program officer at European Africa Against Arms Trade. And you've been vital in bringing this booklet to life. So at this point, also big thank you to you for our cooperation over the recent months and weeks in making this possible. And last but not least, Bram Franken, Bram, your researcher and campaigner at Fidesz-Axie, member of the EU program steering group. And you've been researching the influence of the arms industry on the process of human militarisation. And you've done comprehensive research on the lobby efforts of the arms industry and arms and security industries in Europe. So we're also looking very much forward to your expertise in our discussion later on. Regarding our next points on the agenda, I've been talking enough now. So in a minute, I'll hand over to Leticia and Bram to give us an introduction to the booklet, to share what's in it, what perspective did we take in addressing the topic and offer you an overview of what you'll find in it. Following this, we will have a statement by Eslambini, that will then also set the stage for our discussion that will follow. And for this discussion, we really seek to have it as interactive as possible. So we would like to include your questions from the very beginning. You can do so by using the Q&A box. So if you have a question, please feel free to write it in the Q&A box. But you can also take part here on the panel. If you use the raise hand function that you should find in the Zoom bar below, you can raise your hand and we will then promote you to a panelist and you can switch on your camera microphone and ask a question or share your comment here on the panel. And you would like to do that actually from the very beginning. So please don't hesitate in asking any questions or raising your hand. I would like to open up the discussion here as soon as possible. Regarding technical aspects, this event is being recorded and we will publish it later on our YouTube channel. So if that is an issue for you, please let us know and we can take care of that in the later video editing. I would also like to thank my colleague Luisa Schmidt who is with us tonight if you should face a problem. I think it should be possible for you to contact Luisa via the chat and start a private chat with Luisa should you have any technical problems along the way. I hope that I didn't forget anything important by now. If so, we'll find out along the way. And without further ado, I would like to hand over the word to Leticia for an introduction to the booklet. Thank you very much, Axel. Well, I'm very honored to be here and to be able to present these booklets today to everybody. First, of course, a big thank you to the Rose Alexander Foundation who made this booklet possible and all the support and work put in it and including translation and this event today. I'd like also to mention the four other authors. So that have contributed to these booklets which are all members of the of the NF Steering Group and member of organizations of the group. So I will briefly share my screen. Let me a moment for this. The idea to introduce the group will be to sorry, to briefly explain what is in the booklet. And then from there, explore a bit two main issues which are to see two main issues about the role of the arms industry and the militarization dimension. So let's see first what are the questions that our booklet intends to answer. And of course, the first question is about when did this happen? How this militarization happened? What are the main steps of the process? And most importantly, what was the role of the arms industry? And we will come back to that later on with Ram. The second aspect was to try and understand the why. So why is this happening now? What is the political discourse behind the narrative to justify it? And also explore as I started to mention whether there is a common understanding of the what for and where this process should lead the EU to. The third chapter is probably the more complex one, but also very important about the who and the what. So questions about who initiated, who decides, who is implementing those policies. But also what are those different policies and programs? What are they completely about? How much money is dedicated to them? And last but not least, who benefits from them? Yet the political narrative is not sufficient to explain these policies, programs and the significant budgets that are dedicated to it recently. So there are also economic and industrial interests behind. This is what the chapter four explores and also tries to explain whether this will contribute to job and growth or not, whether this will lead to savings and avoiding duplications or not. But EU Ministerialization also raises numerous concerns about its impact on peace, as Alex introduced, where this EU power really contributes to peace and safety, not only in Europe, but also worldwide. What is the impact of arms exports on conflicts and on violence? Are there the cause or the consequence? And lastly, we try to conclude the booklet on a more positive tone and hope, proposing alternatives. What other security narrative is possible? What should you do instead of ministerizing? How can you help and engage as a citizen? In order to answer all these questions, the booklet intends to provide you with different sources, with facts and figures to control the official narrative, with references for further reading with accessible material, with sources for going more in-depth from official to media or academic references, and examples of campaigns and actors to engage and to take action. And with that, I hope you will enjoy the reading. And now I think Bram, whether I don't know whether or actually you want to jump in, if not Bram, I think you can jump in directly on the arms industry. Okay. Many thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk to them. I will also share my screen, so I will highlight the role of the arms industry because this is one of the core elements of the booklet, what is the role of the arms industry, how it is influencing EU policies to start by showing a graphic. So this shows how the EU budget for security and military policies has exploded in the last 20 years. So at the beginning of the 2000s, there was no budget at all for security and military spending. We have the first program coming up in the 2000s, 2007, 2013. There is a security research budget of 2.8 billion euros. And gradually this increased to the budget for the coming budgetary period of 2021 to 2007 to 20 billion euros. So there has been a real explosion in EU budgets for security and military spending. So how did this happen? In the last 20 years, we have seen that EU policies and the EU arms lobby have become increasingly intertwined. And I think there is a quote from an arms lobbyist from Raytheon who once said, and I think this really describes the process which is going on. And he said during the webinar, we are not hunders, we are partners. And that's how the arms industry is seeing itself in relation to the European Union. This quote is reflected by the arms lobbying group ASD which described itself as being constant in close dialogue with both the European Commission and European Defence Agency. But it's not just the arms industry which sees itself as an ally and a partner to these European institutions. But it's also European Union itself which is defining itself in relation to the arms industry. For example, last year we have the EU higher representative for Foreign Affairs, Josef Borrell, who said, I'm strongly convinced that the future of the European Defence will start from the European Defence industry. Which I think is quite astonishing that this support for this European Defence arms industry is out in the open. Already in 2005, the researcher Frank Snaper wrote, the influence from the industry on policymaking processes is astonishing for the initiated outsider to see. So it's no coincidence that today on the official launch of the European defence funds, the arms industry is one of the main entities. There are several speakers today in the official launch of the European defence funds who are from powers and other arms companies to present their interests. I want to focus on a couple of ways that the EU arms lobby is functioning and now they are pushing for increased militarisation. Small technical problem, that's okay. So the first way that the EU arms industry is defending its interests is by just establishing new agencies. So you have the European Defence Agency, which was established in 2003 and where the arms industry played a vital role in making sure that this defence agency ever came into existence, which is also emitted by the European Defence Agency on its own website, where they have the history of the agency and how they came into existence thanks to all the good work of the European arms industry. And of course, one of the main objectives of the European Defence Agency is to defend the interests of the industry. So here you have agencies where the European defence industry had the lobbying for which then started defending on the institutional level the interests of that industry. The same is the case for the new DG for the defence industry which is part of the which is this administration of the European Commission and which also has as a stated objective to improve the competitiveness of the European defence industry. So that's the first one. The second one is how the arms industry is functioning is through advisory bodies and one of the most famous advisory bodies where the defence industry was represented in was the group of personalities. So that group was set up in 2015 and as you can see on the slide was highly dominated by the defence industry. There were more people from the defence industry in that advisory body than there were people from the UN institutions or from the parliament. So there was a huge there was a huge dominance by the defence industry in this group. Afterwards they gave advice to the European Commission which then led to the establishment of the European defence funds of which then commissioner Bengtoska of the DG crew said good news for the defence industry, new European defence funds before the end of the year and also we see that the companies which are benefiting most until now from these funds are the same companies that were represented in the group of personnel. The last way that the EU defence industry has been able to establish influence and context is of course the true Robin doors. So that's quite a traditional way of influencing policies of having good connections with institutions by just hiring the people who used to work for those institutions and a very high level case of course is the previous CEO of the European defence agency who seven months after he finished his mandate as the CEO for the European defence agency jumped to Airbus and started lobbying for Airbus. So how come you resist the arms industry? I think there are a couple of ways and the first one is exposing counter-denerity. So a lot of these wheelings and dealings of the defence industry are taking place by including stores. There is not a lot of attention or not even a lot of transparency. So first the first thing we have to do is to make sure that these practices are being exposed to the public. Secondly, we have to counter the narrative. So the things that the defence industry and the European institutions are using as arguments are always the same. First, we need the industry for jobs and second, we need the industry for our security. And I think in the booklet, we clearly show that these arguments are just absurd. First of all, the economic words of the defence industry is rather small. There is very little proof that cooperation by the industry on an EU level leads to more efficiency. And of course, more important, we know that the EU defence industry is not leading to more safety because we see what is happening in Yemen, for example, or other conflicts in the Middle East where the European arms industry has played a big role in sustaining and these conflicts by selling weapons over EU governments have done nothing to stop this. And then the third way to resist the arms industry is by confronting it. So we have to confront this militaristic approach. So we all know what arms companies hope to achieve and that's to maximise economic profits and they can only make these profits by selling to their clients and these clients are governments so they should be accountable to us. So we know that their income is public money, so we can confront them there, go to their shareholder meetings, condemn their products and clients and obstruct the arms service, lockports and prevent ships from leaving European shores with weapons and ammunition. That's how I believe we can confront the arms industry and I believe that we should not talk a bit more about the processes of militarisation. Yes, thank you, Graham. So the last aspect we want to address and I will also share again my screen. Here we are. So well I'd like now to share a few elements about why we say, why do we think about the militarisation. It may sound very obvious for us but as you probably have seen that very regularly, this claim is regularly discredited as being ideological. So what are the facts and arguments to support our statements? The first point of course is to start with the basics. What does that mean? What does militarisation mean? And we need first to clarify that militarisation is not about having an army, in that case a new army or not, which is the most common argument we are opposed with. In fact, there are four elements that characterise a militarisation process. One is to give a military character a functioning. The second is to answer to or to adapt to military needs. The third is to prepare for war in particular with equipment and training. And the fourth is of course about taking military actions. So let's see now concretely to which extent the recent developments we describe in this booklet meet those criteria or not. And I reassure you I'm not going to go through all the details of this but the idea is to see that we have our criteria and the main policies and programmes and you will find out all the details in the booklet. The first element to consider is that only three of these main policies I highlighted are intergovernmental. That means decided, funded, mainly decided and funded under control of the member states with a rather limited involvement of the commission. Not to say the parliament. This is the PESCO, the Permanent Structure Corporation, the Peace Facility, below and together with the EU missions. The other policies that are here are in fact initiated by the commission funded by the EU budget with the blessing of the parliament. And this is already a fundamental paradigm shift which has broken the red line and the taboo about not funding military related activities with the EU budget. And I guess that Mrs Demiwe will tell us more about that. And this started in 2016 with the adoption of the preparatory action on defence we showed and that has been seriously accelerating since then as Bram showed us with the budget. So what are those different programmes about? The first ones, the first ones are about answering military needs. The PESCO is to encourage military cooperation between member states. The defence fund is to strengthen the European arms industry. But in both cases they ultimately want to provide the member states with new or enhanced military capabilities. Then another step of militarisation was taken when the president of the commission, Junker, asked in 2017 to all commissioners to find ways to answer the military needs within their civilian programmes. So this led to a number of programmes of civil programmes aiming to adapt infrastructures like transport to favour military mobility or the space programme to facilitate access of the space facilities for military actions and resources like in that case attracting skilled youth for military uses. And that's only the main examples. And then even the external aid budget has been solicited under the concept of what is called security for development. The idea that security is needed for development. So part of the budget is now used to train and equip security so that includes military forces in the identified partner countries in the south. And that can refer to a country like Mali for example. And the peace facility that has been recently adopted and that we start this year which is funded by national contributions is also taking this policy of train and equip to a higher scale and which will allow the delivery of lethal equipment to those partner countries. The peace facility is also about facilitating military missions. That is military interventions in Lucille so not formal occupation but part of military action. But after in those military needs and military capabilities do not happen just for the sake of it. So whether it is intended or not developing this capacity will also facilitate military interventions either from the EU or from the member states and the material preparation for war. However preparation for war is not about only about the material the equipment. It's also on a broader perspective about the symbolic and cultural preparation for war and about an intentional process. So if we take the symbolic dimension at EU level we can see that when facing critics the promoters of the EU militarization try to don't play it to isolate its industrial programs. But in fact in public the EU leaders refer to these developments as historical steps as a new consensus for Europe. And the present progress towards the progress towards European defense is seen as the miracle formula to seduce sectoral European citizens putting it on the same food as the internal market or the euro. So it's definitely not a significant process. From the cultural preparation for war this means preparing people mindsets to the natural or obvious necessity of developing military capabilities. So completely out-hiding any alternative vision. The first aspect is of course the economic narrative that Ram already touched upon it claiming that this would save jobs and growth and that this would lead to savings and avoiding duplication. You will find the booklet ample elements that demonstrate this is absolutely not true starting with the fact that EU, PESCO and NATO all together still encourage or even constrain member states to increase their military spending on top of the billions coming from the EU budget. The second narrative is about securitization. So by securitization we mean the process through which political problems or societal challenges like climate change in particular are identified and dealt with as security issues. So at EU level this translates into describing the European way of life as facing multiple threats and thus the need for a Europe that protects which is the new motto repeated over and again at EU levels. The last element that according to the definition we are using is about intentions. There is no doubt that this process is an intentional process. We have seen it is initiated by the EU and it is agreed upon by the EU decision makers with very large majorities. What is not necessarily that clear is about the final objective the intention for the EU project. There is no consensus as mentioned by Axel on what European defense may mean what strategic autonomy mean autonomous from whom nor a common military strategy shared. However what is clear that considering the securitization narrative and that new challenges like climate change may not be properly addressed this means that those EU funded military capabilities will be very useful to defend the european geostrategic and economic interests and to defend the european hegemony at large. So this raises of course the concern about the impact of EU militarization on peace and safety. Bram already mentioned the question of the arms exports this militarization will definitely exacerbate the global arms race the defense fund for example aims to boost the global competitiveness of the industry that means more arms exports and as as Bram mentioned a significant part of those exports go to areas under conflict of tension or authoritarian regime and the research has demonstrated the correlation with refugee flows. Another important impact which is contrary to what is being officially claimed is the fact that becoming a hard power would reinforce the EU as a soft power. Our argument is that this will be rather the contrary. Year in year out so far the EU was considered a rather neutral actor based on value all the limits we can see to it but still this was a large perception in the field. Militarization will definitely change this perception and on top it will of course divert human and financial resources from peaceful solutions. Indeed claiming that doing both at the same time is possible and that the fight against the root causes of conflicts and major challenges like climate change will remain a priority is not credible first because it's already not happening it did not happen before so why should it happen now with an increased competition between policies that are even contradicting each other. And also second because the military way looks easier is made more popular thanks to the political narrative and the securitization narrative we mentioned and not to say of course because of the over influence of the military industry complex that Bram mentions. So what can we do I can only but go of course to the past that Bram already opened which is countering the narrative because it's not a question of one vision against another one it's because many of the arguments are just wrong from the beginning so that's something important I think to also work on. Engage and take action of course Bram gave some examples here you see also examples of actions at EU level but I insist that the national level is very important because the decisions are from the member state or from MEPs who also are part of national context so we need also to change the paradigm to change the narrative and the mindset to build the basis for a peaceful alternative so not only control their own narrative but also bring elements for an alternative and well I do hope that this booklet will help you to do so and with that we give you back the floor Axel. Great thank you very much thanks a lot Leticia and Bram for this overview and yeah you too are the authors of the of the booklet as well as well a big thank you for your contributions in the booklet and I think what your presentations showed and also one of the attentions of the booklet is to show how deep this process of human visualization actually goes how far-reaching it is that it's not a thing that happened overnight that it has a history that it's built up and it's clearly a profiteer of it and this is the this is the arms industry. Now I would like to give the floor to Eslendimiril for sharing let's say a state of the art that then also sets the stage for our later on discussion and yeah we'd be very keen to hear as well about the lawsuit that the left German delinquer actually filed at the German constitutional court against the European defense fund and linked to that and this is I think also very interesting for our discussion later on how we confront this process and which tools we can use on the way doing so for the coming month and years so Eslendimiril looking forward to your contribution. Thank you Axel I'm going to speak German I hope that's fine hopefully the English translation is working if not let us know I can also speak English but I do prefer German because yeah that helps me to really convey the message that I want to come across first of all thank you very much to Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung to Bram and Leticia for this study and the booklet which I'm sure meant a lot of intense work on this topic of militarization because it is a very well hot topic so to speak it is a topic which suddenly is really being moving forward and pushed forward really at at high speed and that's really really worrying when I speak to citizens in my country and another EU member states I always feel like well people are of the opinion yes the European Union is based on values the European Union is even has even been awarded the peace Nobel Prize and so that doesn't work when you think about the fact that now we are looking at militarization but that's the part that a lot of people are not aware of they don't even know about it and that's something that I find very worrying for now and for the future but first of all just one fact from Germany and Germany a military mission came to an end our mission in Afghanistan the German mission in Afghanistan came to an end today after 20 years and from the beginning the left the linker in Germany criticized this mission this deployment we always criticized that this is yeah just a succession of useless wars or against terrorism as they were called and we always said that these bombs these wars will not help to combat terrorism they will just cost lives and will cause a lot of suffering but still this war was fought for 20 years now there was a lot of support in Germany as well because people said well this is how human rights will be defended or even women's rights will be defended and fought for so we in turn were then criticized because we were opposed to this deployment but now 20 years on I can say with hindsight that our criticism was correct I wish I was wrong but unfortunately we were right from the start this military mission this military deployment has not improved the situation in Afghanistan at all on the contrary the situation of women hasn't improved and the Taliban hasn't been fought or defeated and they are actually more powerful than before in some areas and are more encrusted in the political structures there so I think that's a very recent experience that we've been able to gain from recent history and I think we should learn from that and we can see now on a European level where people say well there are worrying developments well why there are dangerous structures and we have to fight them but of course we cannot fight them on a military level that's what we have to make very clear and in order to make that clear I think it helps to point towards these recent developments for example in Afghanistan I'm very happy that this mission in Afghanistan has been ended but of course I'm also aware of the fact that people in Afghanistan will not be better off with the end of this mission that there will still be escalation so we have to find other answers other responses civil support civil capacity building Malala also mentioned that she and the Afghan peace movement says say that they need support for educational infrastructure for example they need civil help and not military help why is this deployment important why did I mention it well because we can see that Europeans are involved in global wars and we can see that there are some global powers who fight for their military interests and even if you want to defend your values they tell us that they can only do so on a military level or that this military level is important however that shouldn't mean that democratic solutions or partisan pottery solutions should be put aside because military threats for example can cause their own kind of dynamics we're talking about arms technologies for example where we are in a kind of competition or arms race with the US and China we're talking about different defense funds etc so there's an entirely new dynamic entirely new threats which could be leading to massive distractions and dramatic consequences worldwide something that we cannot even conceive right now the European Union is always being said is a peace union a union of peace but in the Lisbon Treaty for example there were already elements of the permanent structured cooperation they were there already but they weren't activated with brexit however this approach pesco was activated and that means the first step towards military capacity building of the European Union has was taken at the first sign of brexit so member states were asked to commit to militarizing to committing to the military funding etc and now we have budget lines in our budget for the first time which have a clearly military component it doesn't just consider the defense fund but we are also talking about budget lines who are dealing with espionage with intelligence so other aspects which also have an impact on our everyday life and we have military components here we're talking about the fact that europeans export arms on a global level and that in europe we keep developing arms that we or the european arms manufacturers want to import worldwide so well the door is always kept open for these exports for example and article 41 paragraph two for example when it comes to joint spending for military action was violated and why is that being done well because the european union is preparing for conflicts regional conflicts global conflicts and the european union wants to defend its own interests here and another key word is the fact of a global strategy which was also mentioned the european union said we want to protect our economic interests trade roots trade interests and that is supposed to be done as well on a military level if need be we are talking about 8 billion euro which will be invested here of course in a global comparison this is not a major figure but what's important here is that for the first time the european union took the step of giving itself its own military capacity its own military budget and for the first time the EU arms industry in the member states are committed to working together on creating larger projects with very far-reaching scope and that is clearly violating the EU treaty the article 41 because that kind of approach is clearly excluded here in paragraph two and we therefore have accused the european union of violating the treaty on the german level we have taken this to the constitutional court in germany and in germany for example if there is a military budget or military spending the parliament has to the parliament the the german parliament has to be included from a certain threshold a certain sum onwards and that is not the case on a european level you can spend as much money as you want so to speak without the parliament having to agree to it and here once again the left party group in the bundestag and the german parliament is going to court and says that this is violating the EU treaty and that is why the german government should have been opposed to that so we don't know how this court decision will be taken we cannot take it to a european court because we cannot start legal proceedings on the basis of the lisbon treaty but what is possible is to start a court proceedings in other member states and depending on the decisions that will be taken depending on the judgements by the courts we can take this further and i think it's very important because with these court proceedings we show where we stand a lot of people in the european union are not even aware of the existence of a european defense fund they don't know about a budget line of called military mobility they don't know what the peace facility is about which sounds very nice talking about peace and so on they don't know about intelligence military components and so on people are simply not aware of that and i think with taking these matters to court we also create more awareness and that's a very important step and last but not least it's i think extremely cynical that this budget the first budget with military budget lines was adopted in times of a pandemic a global pandemic where a lot of people in the european union talk about protecting their health in times where a lot of families had to do homeschooling while working from home because they were told we cannot invest in a more school and more education facilities and more technologies for education because we simply don't have the money and yet we have investments one million one billion eight billion in arms projects in military projects that's simply cynical and i think this is a time which is also being used for reorganizing themselves on a geopolitical level maybe decision makers try to use the fact that people are not paying attention but we can also attack at the same level and create this awareness and really oppose ourselves very strongly against these arms projects thank you for for for this input and yeah for setting us the stage for our discussion and thank you as well for for highlighting as well the end of the afghanistan mission of the german army and the general ending of this of this military mission in afghanistan and the toilet has taken um we have we have a q and a question and i would like to encourage everybody who's who's joining us and who's now joining us as an attendee to raise your hand if you want to join us here and ask your question live but also use the q and a box to share your questions and then we mean it we take them up so if you share a question and or if you raise your hand we've included and there is one question in the q and a box from herman michael i will um briefly read it out seen from a political point of view opposing european militarization seems very problematic the three main political families in the eu the epp snd social democrats and renew the liberals are positively in favor greens are not opposed especially german queens in recent positions even at the left uh menon chance uh france is umis is defending in a quite shabbiness way french military industry and the french force uh defrap the challenge um for the peace movement seems extraordinary um this yeah is is definitely um a reality that we have to confront and i would like to um add to this question and then directed to utilita and from and also to us then um maybe first to utilita and and from um yeah the challenges are are enormous and um the the peace movements um let's say is in different states when we look at different member states um we have different um different rates of organization um different strength and mobilization potential um of the peace movements and but we've also seen very promising um um activities um especially around um blocking harbors and preventing arms exports by european harbors in recent month um and i'd like to ask you what is your perspective on on the coming month um and potentially also years now that we that we have the human militarization um process now set sail um with all the structural with all these structures um that you've um mentioned before are now created and um and found the um and found the in place um what is your take on it what what is your strategy or what do you think um is a promising strategy in dealing with this and confronting the further militarization process of the u given the state um of the peace movement and peace organizations are the varying state um of these organizations um across the u and what i'm also looking at here and your role as the inner network um what is your take on it um for the next month um let's see sarah brahm what i would like to jump in i can maybe start with a more european perspective let's say from the network um and then i can add on on concrete actions maybe uh at national level uh well yes definitely the challenges are enormous and uh as uh mr michael said and someone else in the in the discussion it's huge and of course uh the chances we have to reach our objectives are very low so probably that's our benchmark or our motivation is not about okay well let's do it if we are sure we can get to it um mainly let's do it or let's fight that because it has to be done it has to be fighting whatever the result is at the end whether we are successful or not the choice from my point of view as as a pacifist is to say well we just have to do it until the end uh there is no choice because no one is going to do it for us um now concretely the things that uh seeing it by step because that's definitely something to approach by step at u level we know we cannot stop of course the process it has been uh voted it's over for the next seven years we know we are not going to stop the defense fund for example and other elements and many times i explain that we see ourselves like the story in the shoe uh that will always be disturbing and that little by little you may have to stop working it may take seven years at some point it may have to stop working so our project from a very narrow perspective from our program is to continue uh narrowing continue challenging uh what is going on challenging the problems about the over influence of the arms industry how the benefits continue countering the the official argumentation etc etc so that's something that has to be done anyway in terms of bringing information to the larger audience give material for citizens to understand what is going on that's something that needs to be done because that's the basis we need information we need to know what is happening uh and then we can start also imagining something else um so well from the other point of view that's probably the the main element and also i think something which is important is that it is difficult but we also see the convergence of fights like Oslem was saying there are major health issues including in europe there are major education issues and poverty issues in europe increasing there is the climate change of course and the link between climate change and war is increasingly visible and increasingly awareness awareness about this is increasing in all areas so a key element i think to help move that the issue is also to make all these things clear and to support each other that different struggles can support each other and feed each other with with elements information or joint support and etc so that's an important element someone trying to fight against climate change is in a way also fighting against against militarism um yeah i think bram maybe you probably want to compliment yeah thanks yeah i think at the EU level we have lost a couple of battles but it's certainly not the end because as Oslem said who has heard of the european defencement and i think that's very it's a good remark like a lot of people haven't heard of the european defencement because until now it also it still was something abstract uh what was it going to be i think now that the defencement is here it also opens up the possibilities to now it's also vulnerable to criticism and we can we can we can actually show what's going wrong with it that's for on the EU level i think i agree with the remark that on a lot of levels we see increased militarisation and it seems that it's difficult to resist this at the same time we see unprecedented levels of unwillingness to to accept this militarisation so if you if you look at polls among among the european population there there is a huge majority which is against nuclear weapons there are huge majorities which are completely opposed against a militarised foreign policy against military interventions it has almost become impossible for european government at this moment to do a large-scale intervention outside of european boots and the crown just because there is too much too much opposition against such such policies so what they what they are doing they're still trying to have their militarised foreign policy use drones but they're trying to shy away as much as possible from from putting boots on the crown so i think it shows that there is a huge resistance against against these kinds of this kind of hard foreign policy we also see that there is widespread mobilisation against arms exports so the arabia has become a big struggle which is being picked up across europe we have the example of the different ports in italy and trance and belgium where actions took place where this sodie ship was was being chased away by protesters or where port workers simply refused to load in these ships you have several court cases which are going on which are actually in some cases successful in the uk you have the high court which which it's said that arms exports to sodie arabia are unlawful you have a court in belgium which has rule which has suspended all exports of weapons to sodie arabia at the moment from belgium which is normally sodie arabia is normally a huge client the biggest client of the belgium of arms industry there is nothing leaving the country for the last year or so so i think those are all those are huge steps which are being made which are successes and which and where we are fighting back with with with a certain extent of success and then i also agree with leticia that's an important thing we have to do which we should do more than we are doing at the moment is this convergence of struggles just this month an international campaign was launched to abolish frontier where the links are being made with this military militarized border policies from which the arms industry is profiting and where migrants are being targeted with military technologies and i think this is very i think this is a very important struggle and i think it's also i'm very happy to see that there is that there is a campaign launched now which is actually challenging this so i think besides the bad there is also the good yeah thank you very much for this for this kind of optimistic outlook yeah and in the chat we have the the link to the abolish a frontier campaign which is going on at the moment i guess us then you would like to react to some of the statements maybe you do so and then i would like to come back to the question of of him and then michiel also regarding new parliament and let's say the more political side of it but first the reactions to the statements yeah yeah i will try and answer the question myself of course i do agree very much to what letitia and bram said and yes the question is justified the challenges are huge and they are enormous but we've always had challenges like that that we were confronted with and and i think there has always been well the powers that be an opposition and this is not just a case for peace policy we can look at trade unions at labor law women's rights women's right to vote was it easy to achieve that was it easy to achieve LGBT rights to be acknowledged no it wasn't but that doesn't mean that we have to follow the powers that be it rather means that we have to create a balancing power on the other side and counter develop counter arguments we are we do talk about or we do have security threats that we're facing the health situation of people for example the pandemic licensing of vaccine etc these are very topical issues that we have to address and we are told that there is not enough money to deal with the health situation or with the educational infrastructure and on the other hand money is being spent on the arms race and that simply doesn't make sense and i think people agree to that leticia also mentioned climate change of course climate change is also impacted by wars wars cause a huge amount of pollution even the biggest amount of pollution ever co2 production for example is caused to massive extent by the arms industry and by waging wars and of course we have to create a link between those two topics but in a different way as it is being done at the moment and yes of course we have to address the production of arms exports on a global level and we really have to tell people what is happening here what is going on so this doesn't just happen in the parliament we can be successful on a political level if we include the population if we have people participate if we create awareness if we explain things if we really address the topics that people are concerned about and create links with peace politics and with peaceful approaches and we have to take all these worries seriously that people are dealing with and the threats that they feel to their security but we have to turn the arguments that are normally used around i mentioned the example of Afghanistan and Europe was involved in the war there but of course this war didn't happen on European front lines however we have had an increasing number of military conflicts where European forces were deployed so we have gained some experience in military action and unfortunately we have had to learn that this kind of approach will never work will never be the solution and even if we manage for example to combat forces or terrorist forces in the country then a war will just cause a new problem so war is simply not the solution and well we have to ask of course some people who say we have to invest in arms to boost the economy to create jobs we have to ask what will these arms be used for we have had people going on strike for example against arms exports and there have been other positive movements when it came to the ban on nuclear weapons there are positive developments who make us see some light so that's where we have to start in Ireland for example the debate on a military or militarized union is very different from the debates in let's say in France so we have to look at how this topic is being discussed on a European level on a global level and address all these questions in a different way of course that's not going to be easy but it's never been easy anyway however that doesn't mean it's wrong or it's impossible I think on the contrary it's more important than ever to get active here because trade wars for example can also lead to actual wars and that's very dangerous yeah thank you very much for putting this into perspective as well we have another question in the in the Q&A box and this also links to the previous question and yeah relates to the question of also the the political side of what we're discussing tonight then if we look at the European Parliament as we've seen in the first question the left being the only political group that is clearly opposing the militarization of the EU and bringing this to broader public attention and clearly criticizing it we've also now seen the Greens in Germany who are step by step giving up their peace policy let's say remains of their of their early phase so the Green Party as a peace party as it came to be is now step by step abandoning these positions and making a move towards a coalition with a CDU with a conservative party in Germany and preparing for this and then via via this process then also abandoning its peace policy positions that's at least my impression over the recent month so the question do we stand alone here on this if we look at the political landscape first to you as Lim and then also to Letizia and and Pram who are our allies and who can we build upon to work with and that may be later on to Letizia and Pram and to you as Lim and also the question the European Parliament with its vote on the European Defence Fund voting in favour of the European Defence Fund the European Parliament has also given away its the possibility to have any control over the spending of the budget so that was also a disappointment when we saw that the European Parliament voted in favour of the European Defence Fund giving away any control mechanisms that it could have negotiated yeah so these two questions to you the political landscape in the European Parliament in opposing this process and the role of the European Parliament as a whole what what is that what can be done yeah also the political instruments that are given i would say they are the political instruments that we have i think are a farce we're talking about a committee on ethics for example but that's just the charade really because we know that the commission really sets the pace here so that's not really some leverage that we can use however there has been some movement due to a certain amount of pressure that we have exerted and i think the fact that the link took and the situation took hold in Germany has created some awareness our commissioner for industry Mr Breton for example raised his eyebrows by the way that's very telling that this topic is linked to the industry commissioner and not to the defense commissioner so well the commission knows that it is operating in a twilight zone when looking at the treaty so things are being taken seriously when we take actions well it probably won't mean that the European defense fund will be stopped especially when considering the fact that courts take politically motivated decisions as well but we will create awareness we will create publicity for this topic and this will help us to tell people things the way they are and in the European parliament we tabled a motion for rejection and the Greens did follow it however in the German parliament the Greens rejected our going to court so the Greens also act in a different way in the European parliament they know that a rejection motion will go through they will follow it and the Bundestag they know it will not go through so they position themselves differently we're talking about a electoral campaign as well which is going on in Germany but still even in the Green Party we have a lot of young people who want to combat climate change and who see the link to the threat of war to militarization and they do take this topic very seriously and I think that will change things as well in terms of party politics and so on and that's a positive development so that means NGOs also have to address all parties have to really put the pressure on and on a German level I can confirm or have to confirm unfortunately that we as the left the link are the only ones who are really being clear about yeah opposing this kind of war or military politics but still our voice is being heard by some people and we won't give up we don't have any massive manifestations a peace demonstrations at the moment and so on due to the situation but that doesn't mean this will no longer or will not ever be the case again because this money will be spent on military action and that means this money will no longer be available in other areas in the area of job creation in the area of education and so on so for example trade unions have also started a campaign against militarization so there is hope and there will be a certain movement I think but that's of course the situation in Germany I can't speak for other countries yeah thanks a lot and this then will also be a question towards prominent it is a problem you touched upon that already sharing examples on how successful campaigns against them arms exports are working and activities and actions taking place against arms exports but I also like to ask on the question of of allies there is a lot of talk about that the peace movements peace organizations have to see closer ties to the climate movement and that these two struggles need to be interlinked or it needs to be a stronger connection so what would be your perspective on this also the question of mobilization potential because yeah as as Lim said looking at it from the German perspective is one thing we've also seen in the in the chat a comment on the situation in France which looks different so what is your perspective on on that and the mobilization potential when we look at for example the Netherlands or France and then also the questions of of allies and our struggles so that's great very open and difficult questions my feeling and I would more talk on a personal point of view maybe I don't want to engage all of that members but I think the first allies we have are the citizens first and foremost because they are the ones who will then be able to influence the political parties according to votes or decisions they may take etc provided that they are informed of course and also they are allies in terms of taking action I think the national level what is interesting from what we've heard so far it shows also how the national level is important because in many groups you would have very different I mean talking about the potential allies there are some we just don't really have any hopes about but we can see that in all the progressive side you may have different position according to national positions it's not only about I mean in the left also you have someone mentioning before the case of France which is more complicated even for the left I think that in Greece it's also a bit of a problem and they abstain in the work on the defense funds the Greek MEPs from the left because of the specific situation they face with Turkey so that shows that this is a key point is the national level so it's of course criticized the EU and someone was asking about where the fact that EU would de facto be a war project I think EU is what national countries does with it and then you have of course what the member states want from it but you also have what the MEPs do from it that means that national citizens have much more leverage on the EU what that they think that's the first thing maybe we need to do is to make people aware that they can influence the EU level two through the national level or through commitment or through engagements it's not something easy of course we know there is no miracle solution but I would I would tend to to encourage that this strong connection between the EU and national level the EU is not happening in a vacuum just just per se I mean it's really a result of a more global trend which is not only EU it's also a trend you can see in many other countries in the world this securitization narrative and militarization and and and half poor approach is not only specific to the EU unfortunately um yeah there are many things to be said to be honest on that and at the same time I would not really know which wants to focus on maybe bram you want to compliment it just um just briefly before before you come before you come in from um I think that was um a raised hand um from let me see Ernesto Orlando so Ernesto if you'd like to um join here and contribute then you're most welcome to do so um so just want to um bring that in here so yeah great so we will take you up um just after um bram has the the opportunity to um to briefly reply to previous questions and then uh it will be to you Ernesto um it is a bit of a complex question and I think it's mainly a complicated question because it's a challenge at the moment for the peace movement um to sometimes make these connections which doesn't mean that these connections are being made so I already saw that uh Wendela shared a report in in in uh I believe in the Q&A uh on a report which was published recently um um the garbant footprint footprint of the EU military industries uh where you see that um that that the that the fight against climate change is also an anti-militarist fight the same goes for um migration um that which is also a fight against border militarization so these so these circles interconnect and we should we should make it visible that these um that these struggles do interconnect um so yeah that's what I wanted to say I think thank you very much um we are now trying to get Ernesto to join us here so yeah hi so thank you very much um to everyone for this really inspiring panel um I'm not really from the sector although I've worked uh in civil society in Afghanistan for some years so I was very happy when Oslem has mentioned it uh quite a bit uh I think these have been really emotional weeks for anyone involved with Afghanistan uh in the sense that really it's the biggest failure that we could have imagined for the military and it has passed um in a total silence at least from the Italian side I'm a Italian citizen although I live in Brussels um this it's really shocking how in a way this uh failure with which could have been uh emblematic and informative for the future has um has passed in a total silence um what I wanted to to just ask was uh really um how an extra push on the advice and the tools that you can give to citizens to engage citizens to bring forward this fight I mean I scrolled through the the booklet that was launched today it's super informative this said I think that it slightly falls short towards the end about uh conclusive actions and what can really be done in the sense I've seen an interesting initiative from the Rosa Luxemburg website for calls for a booklet so it's for contribution for a booklet against authoritarianism which is really interesting because that focuses on things that can be practical and I guess that the the objective is to design something that is then to put into practice and maybe whether it's an option to also do something similar for peace movements and something that can be also then dispersed and translated I feel that uh Italy is a bit missing here um in the in the discussion I know that Francesco uh the other contributor to the booklet uh is uh is now being published quite a bit on Italian newspapers but I think that there's needs to be more uh and Italy is playing an essential role these months uh we it's it's very clear uh Mario Draghi is holding the reins while Marco and Merkel uh will go through elections I mean not anymore but Germany will go through elections uh so yeah um uh really please go ahead and provide us with any information tools that we can then use uh and uh and put into action thank you great thanks a lot thanks a lot for that contribution we'll definitely take that on board um and and also hurt your your comments on um on the actions and providing providing more thought and guidelines on on how to take action um thank you very much that's very valuable um feedback for us um in the further process in our future work on this topic um that we'll for sure continue um I would like to or yeah direct the question then again not an easy question and uh prominent it is say you've you've been mentioning it before as well um but um taking up Ernesto's question um maybe first we're also coming to the end um in a nutshell what citizens can do um you know say maybe a three-step process if we want to bring it on or something something in that direction and let's say um a handy package that won't could take up um if I would like to take action tomorrow um what is possible what can I do as a citizen um before we are coming to the closing round then um still I would like to ask if anybody else has a question here um from the attendees if any of you would like to join and make a statement as well or have has a question um we have a question in the Q&A box it would be a very good thing to hear from you Olaf to use some of your thoughts on how the future of Europe could be without securitization and naturalization or what is the Europe you fight for um and we can keep that for the closing round and that's also a question that I had in mind um and I think this also then relates to the question of how we address citizens or what can citizens um take up on on an easy to grasp alternative um to break it down this is the alternative uh that we offer and this is the alternative that we see that this process is not without alternative and um the European Union um can look differently um as it is said it's also a matter of when the states make out of it um and what's happening at national level um so yeah maybe the last round on on visions and um and alternatives um in a nutshell because yeah I think it would be nice if we can close within the next five minutes so I would fast get the word to the teaser and from thank you um just to clarify are we supposed to try and ask for the two aspects about uh how to engage and the vision because I was not so sure but I can do both at the same time so it's done yeah yeah yeah if you um yeah yeah about about actions and I fully hear the fact that people want very concrete things the fact is that a lot of the concrete things you can do depends a lot of also your own situation so in which country do you live uh what are your own uh resources potential uh existing engagements or not um you might be aware that the peace movement is usually quite small with very limited resources in most countries it's not the case everywhere but that's the first point to take and if we speak about the EU program uh well it's one person per time in Brussels it's me just working part-time in Brussels so we definitely don't have the capacity so don't be surprised if you don't see you know demonstrations and petitions going around we just have one person per time that's all we have as a resource so definitely we are very limited we hope it will change over time that will change if we see a strong if there is a strong citizen support that would encourage more uh more uh more funders and foundations to to support our work it also depends a lot of your own national situation whether you have a strong peace movement approach this peace movement see what kind of of help they need if you are more interested in in in detailed recommendation or research dimension uh then provide help I mean you can look for these places where you can use that if you are more about willing to go in actions to block harbors so it it's not that easy to have a kind of list of of hand package of something very easy to provide to you to take actions because there is a wide variety of type of actions also depending of your context your availability what you can do what risk you can take or not etc etc so I'm afraid I would have to go back to those willing to engage and say well you need to find your way to engage that's difficult especially in our current world where we are used to receive everything on internet or on a mobile phone or on return on facebook well let's also go back to the basics let's let's go ahead go where you want to find something to do and the first yeah I mean the first contacts are the peace groups or climate groups if you are interested on climate and help also climate groups to be aware of the militaristic dimension behind climate issues etc etc as regard the EU we would like we want to fight for let's be very also some concrete examples the EU has programs or had at least so far instruments for peace and stability in which for example they had a small budget to support civil society in the ground to do mediation to do dialogue one thing that we are usually not very aware of is that peaceful ways to resolve conflicts are extremely time-consuming and human resources consuming so that's something where the EU could instead of putting half a billion and to the eight eight billion into more military weapons without changing what national governments do if this money was going to train about mediation about dialogue about non-violent ways of dialling of negotiating in diplomacy that would be a huge change I mean the US example is that they have more people to run F-35 than they have diplomats so that's also the starting point it's just you don't have the people to diplomacy or negotiation then it doesn't work so I think the EU could very well be a huge provider of mediation and negotiations talents training their own EU staff training people citizens in Europe and in the field to understand how it is possible to reach peace through dialogue and mediation because of course it's not about dropping weapons and then pretending there would be no more wars and conflicts because we drop weapons of course this is not that easy unfortunately but so that's just a small example of what you could do I think to be just different and promote a different approach yeah so I hear you of course it's what Leticia was saying I think what you can do is organize that's always that's always how it works that's only you can only create change by organizing and I think in every European country there are groups which are trying to try to resist and trying to build up alternative alternatives or trying to resist current policies so for example the data is actually we've been we've been doing actions in the European neighborhood but also against or the arms lobby has been doing but we've also taken actions at arms companies to to to fight against exports abroad so I think yeah which is also being said in the comments find find the national group and try to support them in any way possible I think that's the only way in which we can make change possible in the long run and then and alternatives I think a foreign policy which is based on human rights and international humanitarian law would already be a huge step forward holding companies accountable for what they're doing not only arms companies but also other companies which which have operations across the world try to build a more equal world or across the south of war being tackled I think this is this is what should happen and I think would also would be an alternative if you know that the budget of the United States State Department which is doing most of the diplomacy is has the same budget as as two aircraft carriers that shows something about priorities so the funding which is being put into the into this war machine is so much bigger than the funding which is being used to create viable alternatives to make to to make the world more equal for more for companies are being held to account where they have to yeah where they have to where they where they go to court if they do something wrong instead of being being shielded from from yeah so yeah I think that's those are a couple of steps forward which would be an alternative and would already be a lot nicer shall I continue straight away okay thank you Axel I'd like to try and address an astos question initially I said that changes in society will not take place in the European parliament or the parliament is not the only place but that doesn't mean that I think it's not important to increase the pressure on the level of the European parliament of course it is important that members of theory in parliament not just from the left party group should be addressed should be contacted by citizens by NGOs and well the pressure should be increased on them and there should be people contacted them writing to them and saying they don't agree to this kind of politics and that is an important step and of course that can only be made possible this increased pressure by getting organized organizing yourselves is very important and climate politics is another topic here where people are addressing it from all sides from the right or the left side of the spectrum so I think it's a challenge for us or it's our task really to create a link here between the climate movement climate politics and peace politics and yeah that's where we have to get organized and bram mentioned some examples as well and when I for example I'm an advocate for stopping arms exports people say to me and I suppose that's the same in other countries but the employees will lose their jobs and if we don't export these weapons then other people will do it and well then we have to tell them we have to just change the supply chains we have to change the whole system so we have to kind of widen people's horizon we have to show them what it means to export weapons and what it means for the situation of employees and so on and really have to take them on board of the peace movement for example at the end of the first world war there were uprisings of soldiers of women and that contributed to ending the war so if we work together with workers with trade unions with NGOs on a european level I think we would be able to stop exports to Saudi Arabia so there are really some points where we can get active and there are various groups which advocate stopping these exports and I think the trade unions are an important point of leverage here not because I come from a trade union background but because trade unions do have a lot of political influence and people always address jobs and employment and sometimes make this link between weapons create jobs and economic growth but this is kind of a well a dead end because this economic growth cannot last and the jobs will not be safe forever either so well what would I look like things to look like what are what are the alternatives if yeah I could have a perfect world then of course I would dream of a world where we don't have wars where we don't have any more weapons where everyone is equal that we don't have any more inequalities in the european union and worldwide and yeah but of course I know that's an illusion at the moment that makes it even more important though to keep fighting for it and to keep creating an opposing power and to keep really moving human rights forward humanitarian international law forward and then a next step would be to really fight the arms race to join movements which are against militarization which are in favor of demilitarization and I think we will find support for all of that in among our citizens I think another important aspect is also the fact that there are inequalities worldwide and these inequalities be they economic social cultural and so on these are the ones that lead to wars and when we fight against militarization I think we always have to go back to the cause as well we have to look at economic inequalities or even inequalities in the european union and that is what we have to make people aware of that these inequalities can create armed conflict and that is a threat and we should point out that that is the fact because there is a tendency in the EU in NATO for example to look at things kind of symmetrically in the same way and we have to show that things are not symmetric that there are inequalities and the majority of the european population the chinese the russian the indian the us population is not being taken on board that this is not symmetrical but that NATO and the EU are supporting interests of a very few people who support armed conflict so I think looking at the roots would be a very important aspect here and by the way there are several studies that have been commissioned by the left in the european parliament or have been published by our party group some of it in german which I published myself but some of it also in english for example documents explaining pesco artificial intelligence for military use those are the topics that are addressed here and if I can contribute to that kind of sensibilize or creating awareness then I will continue to do so thank you bringing it to an end yeah we've actually taken up some of your publications in the further reading section of the booklet and that's what I would also recommend to anybody who's reading the booklet to also consult the further reading for further inspiration and links and I say you are on mute just for 30 seconds don't worry just for 30 seconds oh yeah great perfect yeah that's the that's the benefits of zoom meetings that is that is an amazing amazing feature of this online world speaking for 30 seconds while being muted well what I just said is that taking up as in your point we've actually taken up some of your reports in the further reading section of the booklet and I shared again the link to the booklet here in the chat and also recommendation for readers to consult the further reading for for more aspects it's now yeah coming to 20 to 8 so I think we can wrap it up here a big big thank you to you three to slim from and leticia for joining us here tonight for sharing your perspectives your opinion and your ideas also to our participants to attend these for your questions and for your participation to my colleague Luisa who's been working in the background fixing quite a lot of technical aspects so big thank you to Luisa for keeping us alive here and of course to our interpreters for your work tonight and for making this possible and finally and I think your your closing statements made that clear as well there is potential and and we have great people working on this issue and yeah also credits to the European Network against Armstrong for their work that is also reflected in the booklet and yeah all the best and success for your upcoming campaigns events and actions and I think there is potential for people to join in and to join your struggle so with this I would like to call us a day thanks a lot and we will for sure meet again and we'll keep our work on this on this topic so stay tuned you'll hear from us on this rather soon thanks thank you very much thank you