 Welcome to the second meeting of the European External Relations Committee in 2016. Can I ask mobile phones and electronic devices to put it on flight mode, please? We have received apologies this morning from Adam Ingram, and we would like to welcome the substitute to the committee, Kenny McCaskill. Kenny, I do not know if you have any relevant interests to declare. Rwy'n credu i'r first agenda item, yw'r continued inquiry on EU reform and the EU referendum. Rwy'n credu i'r alternative to the EU. I welcome all of our guests this morning to committee, and I believe you have all travelled from four different parts of Europe this morning, so we are very grateful that you have made the time for an early rise to come and join with us this morning. We have Professor Andreas Auer, Emeritus Professor at the University of Zurich and Geneva, Niels Engelschawn, Deputy Director General, Department for European Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Oslo. Knut Hermansen is a minister, councillor from the Norwegian mission to the EU in Brussels, and Dache O'Cullar. Nice to see you again, sir. The chair of the UK Project Group Institute of International and European Affairs and former Irish ambassador to the UK. As you can see, we have a very interesting spread of interests and experiences with us this morning. I believe, gentlemen, that you all have a very short, brief opening statement, so if we just want to start from yourself, Mr Engelschawn. Well, thank you very much for inviting us here. We are very pleased to be in Edinburgh for the first time, so it's a great pleasure to see your beautiful city. We have just shared between Knut Hermansen and myself. I'll just give a very brief introduction, and then we together will answer your questions afterwards. Just very, very shortly, as you know, well, we've said no to Norwegian membership into the European Union or the EEC for the first time was twice 72 and 1994. And what happened was that, well, in 1994, we believed that three elements contributed to the fact that we did not want to go into the European Union, the situation in the agriculture sector, the fisheries management and the sovereignty principles. There were three, perhaps, main reasons for not joining in for Norwegian population in 1994. Very much of the same was in 1972 as well. So, after that, we have been working with the EIA agreement, the European Economic Area Agreement, and that has worked as a political compromise for around 22 years, and is also the backbone of the relations with the European Union. And it's important to note also that every government and every parliament has based its European policy on the EIA agreement as a main agreement with the relations with the European Union. We believe that our EIA agreement effectively ensures equal treatment and predictability for operators, and it also gives us a certain degree of participation in EU processes. It ensures full access to the internal market, except from fisheries and agriculture, and which means that you have the same rules and regulations applying in Norway as you have in Scotland, Portugal, or any other EU state. In addition, we have a lot of other agreements, around 74 bilateral or international agreements with the European Union. The EIA is by far the most important, but let me also mention the Schengen Agreement on Justice and Home Affairs and the Dublin Corporation, which means that Norway is actually more integrated with the European Union than the United Kingdom, through Schengen and Dublin. A less formalised corporation, but still very strong, is our cooperation in the foreign and security policy area, where we align ourselves to a lot of the EU declarations, more than 90 per cent last year. We participate in EU battle groups. We participate in military and civilian CSTP operations. We have a strong political dialogue at all levels, both political and civil service level, and we also take part in the European Defence Agency. So, all in all, we have a very close relationship to the European Union, which means that we are fully integrated in the internal market. We have to remember that around 80 per cent of our imports and exports goes to the European Union. Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands are very important partners to us in commercial terms and the UK, of course. There is not an option not to cooperate strongly with the European Union, but membership is not on the political agenda. So, we have around perhaps 20 per cent of the Norwegian population in favour of a Norwegian EU membership today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Professor Howard, do you want to go next? Yes. Thank you very much the same for inviting me to this beautiful city and for giving a few informations about the relationship between Switzerland and the European Union. As Norway, Switzerland is not a member state and it's not on the political agenda to become a member state, but we have also, like Norway, or very much like Norway, a very much densely integrated economic system within the single market. 55 per cent of our Swiss exports go to EU countries and 75 of our imports come from EU countries. So, Switzerland is very strongly integrated. Since actually 1972 where the first free trade agreement for industrial products was signed between the EU, not EU at that time, but it was the European community at that time with Switzerland, which is the basis of our integration within the EU economy. Then came in 1992 the first shock as we did not integrate the EEA agreement, which at least partly has been built up for Switzerland, because as a compromise again like for Norway, but the Swiss people in a very important vote in December 1992 said no to this. So, we were in a new situation and then from then on started a complex process of negotiating bilateral agreements with the EU and the different member states that has been concluded in two waves, so to say. The first wave was in 2000 and the second wave was in 2004. Imagine it's one of the most complicated legally speaking treatise that you can imagine because on one side you have Switzerland and then the other side you have the EU and the member states, which at that time were not 28 yet, were a little bit less. So, this complex bilateral agreements have been several times, five times actually, approved by the Swiss voters. There were many referendums and every referendum was successful in this field. The most important, probably the most important agreement in this field is the agreement of free movement of persons that was part of the first package of the bilateral treatments. That was a single, very much important treaty that shows us how deeply Switzerland is integrated within the EU, especially the member states, Germany, Italy, France and Austria, but also UK and other EU member states. Other topics of these bilaterals are in, there are many, many treaties. There's about 135 treaties or agreements that are part of this package and they are the first five huge bilateral treaties are tied together by what we call a guillotine clause, that if one party renegades one of the treaties then all the others automatically, automatically fall down. So, this is going to be an important point pretty soon. Then we had a bilateral stool of which the Dublin Schengen agreements are an integral part, so Switzerland also is more integrated than the UK within the European Union in terms of Schengen Dublin agreements. You also know that we had some problems with taxation, but we finally managed, even in Switzerland, to agree to the automatic exchange of information. Last year the agreement was concluded, so that will enter into force in about two years. Then came the second shock and that was February 14 with a new initiative that was started by our populist party, which is the strongest party in Switzerland, about 30% of the voters and they managed to pass through a stop mass immigration initiative that put in our constitution a number of provisions that are incompatible with the agreement on free movement of persons and that are now open to implementation and discussion. We have the constitutional provision, it's there, but it has to be implemented by a law, by a statute and if the parliament is not able to do that then the constitution says within three years government has to implement it by decree and of course this is a huge problem. It says basically this new provision in the constitution says that Switzerland regulates immigration autonomously, you see the importance of the sovereignty issue, that it says that we regulate immigration with annual quantitative limits and quotas, we give Swiss nationals a priority for hiring, which is of course absolutely contrary to the EU law and first of all that we have to renegotiate all treaties that are not in accordance with this new provision, which of course singulates the free movement of persons agreement. The EU quite naturally said no way that we discuss and even negotiate on the free movement of persons issue, it's one of the basic liberties in the European Union and everybody understands that there can be no renegotiation so they don't negotiate but they talk, that seems to be a big difference in diplomatic terms, I didn't get the difference yet as a lawyer but that's where we are today, the political debate is ongoing, it's quite tough inside Switzerland and between Switzerland and the European Union. There is a new idea that have come up a few months ago of implementing this new provision by just a safeguard clause, a safeguard clause that could be either bilateral if the EU agrees on the basis of the agreement, there's a provision 14-2 that says that committee makes committee can vote special measure if there is a special danger for the Swiss economy but the Swiss economy is doing very well so probably the EU countries have not much understanding for Switzerland invoking a serious social and economic problems and then the government just two three weeks ago announced that if the EU does not agree with this bilateral safeguard clause then Switzerland might impose one unilaterally which of course is a violation of the same provisions so that's where we stand and I'm ready to answer other questions later on. Thank you very much indeed, Dathie, do you want to go next? Thank you very much and I'd just like to join my colleagues in thanking you for inviting me. The Institute in Dublin produced this book which some of you may have seen about a year ago and it's called Britain and Europe, The Endgame and it's an Irish perspective. In case you haven't read it I'll leave it behind afterwards and you might have a look. Why did we call it The Endgame? Because we felt now is that it is time to regulate the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU. It's been uneasy for a very long time and we felt it's necessary to regulate it, necessary to fix it for the foreseeable future one way or the other either in or out. We felt there was a need for a bespoke solution to take account of the specifics of the United Kingdom and looking ahead a little bit we thought that the European Union might consist of four unions if you want to call them that and that the UK were to remain within the European Union that it could participate fully in three of those four unions. Now what are the four unions? Well the first obviously is the single market. The United Kingdom wants to remain in the single market whether it stays inside or outside the EU. Secondly there was the economic and monetary union. There's no doubt in my mind that for the foreseeable future even if the United Kingdom remains within the EU that it will not join the Euro. But all of the other member states except one which is Denmark all of the other member states have a treaty commitment to join the Euro at some stage or another. So as the European Union evolves you can imagine a situation where all of the member states except perhaps two the United Kingdom and Denmark would be within the Euro. Now we think it is possible to negotiate a system between those who are within the Euro and those who are without which takes sufficient account of the interests of the various member states. In other words this particular issue which Mr Cameron has raised in his negotiation about the relationship between the ins and the outs we do think it is possible to find a solution in this area. The third union where we thought that might be a union and it is actually moving quite rapidly towards it is the capital markets union. The European commissioner who's in charge of this portfolio and I was in his office quite recently he's moving it ahead very rapidly is in fact an Englishman. He's the British commissioner and he is moving forward very quickly on this capital markets union. The other area where we thought in a more looser fashion but you can envisage where you would actually have a security union to take account of factors like energy security but also to deal with this whole issue of immigration into the European Union from outside the European Union. So we could envisage and we put it forward in the book we could envisage looking down to the future to a certain stage there being more or less four interconnected unions within the European Union in which the United Kingdom could participate fully in at least three of them and in the fourth one in which a solution could be found which would be fair both to the United Kingdom and to the other members of the European Union. And then we looked at the question of Brexit. I should tell you by the way that the book argues very strongly that it is in the interests of the United Kingdom in the interests of Europe and certainly in the interests of my country that the United Kingdom remain within the union. But we looked at what might happen should the United Kingdom exit. We looked at the Norwegian solution, we looked at the Swiss solution, we looked at the Turkish solution and we felt that none of these, none of them would provide answers to the questions which the United Kingdom Government has at the moment about its position within the European Union. And it's interesting that Jean-Claude Peris who's the former legal counsel for the European Council and for the commission that he's just produced a short paper for the Centre for European Reform. I presume you've seen it but if you haven't seen it I would recommend it to you very strongly in which he looks at the alternatives that might be available to the United Kingdom whether to be a Brexit. And his conclusions now are in much greater detail than in our book but interestingly they're exactly similar to ours. He doesn't think that anything outside the union would provide the United Kingdom with answers to the problems which it has inside the union. Thank you. Thank you very much, I'm happy to go to open in questions. Jimmy. Thank you very much. My first question, can I just say straight away that I'm not a Euro skeptic, I agree with your idea that the UK should stay in. But I find it very interesting that the populations for example in Norway that the population appears to be some 70% against joining the EU and yet the political establishment is very pro within the seven parties who have that there would be a majority for joining and yet the general population is against and I suspect the same thing is true in Switzerland. Can you explain why that is? What is it that puts the population against Europe where the political establishment is pro joining? Are you directing it to Jimmy? That's my question. First of all to the Norwegian sector I think probably but the Swiss also. Well it's not entirely correct that the political establishment is pro EU because you have several parties in Parliament that are against Norwegian membership in the EU and just one actually has that in this programme that they should see Norway as a EU member. That's a Conservative party, one part of the majority or rather of the government today. The other parties are either against membership or pro the EA agreement. You have two parties that are very against membership, you have the Labour Party that is split, you have the Progress Party, the other party in the government that is split as well and then you have two parties in the centre that sees the EA as a fairly good solution which also goes down then the boys down to the fact that the EA is seen as the lowest common denominator as a compromise and so the political establishment has accepted and has ruled in many ways on the agreement since the beginning and there's also a clear majority in the population if you look at the opinion polls at least. There's never been a referendum on the EA. There's a clear majority folks remaining in the with the European economic area. So there is a there is a maybe a lack of full consistency between the percentages of membership against of against membership in the in the population and in Parliament but still the Parliament has followed very much the population in saying membership is not on the agenda. I'll just come back on that. So what is it then within the population that is putting them against that particular the actually full membership rather than being in a way members without influencing the policy very much? Well it's a I think I just mentioned fisheries and agriculture and the sovereignty issue but if you look also and this is just my speculation it's difficult to you don't have one precise answer but if you look at the economy of Norway the past 20 years if you see the working of the Norwegian society the past 20 years it implies that Norwegian population is quite content with the situation as it is which means that there's no really push or strong urge to see a membership because status quo is acceptable it works. No it's difficult to say but I think if you if you look at the economy it's difficult and you see the the difficult situation in many European countries that has been at least in 2008. If you look at the situation in the eurozone it's difficult for a Norwegian to say why should we join there look at our own situation and the situation in the other European countries then it's difficult for them to see why should we become a member. For example the euro do you think that your members are against particularly joining the euro? I think it's the whole. Again 80% would say no to a membership because we know what we have we don't really know what a membership would mean and I don't think people wake up in the morning and thinking of the e-agreement is a fantastic agreement but it works for us and it's a it's a compromise that is acceptable to most. Have you got the same question to Professor Howard? Well if I've got yes please because I don't want to recall the thing but I would I would quite like to see what the swiss idea is. Thank you very much I must first say that I would never consider the swiss situation as being a solution for anybody not even for Switzerland probably because we are in a very difficult position right now but let me say why Switzerland is not a member of the EU. You're wrong excuse me the government swiss government is not in favour just a little bit like in Norway there is but one major political party which is the socialist party that still has accession within its programme but they don't even believe it any longer I mean they they they they they they probably going to put it out. One of the reasons why Switzerland said no in 92 to the EEA was probably our direct democracy system that people got the impression that whenever we transfer to the union so to say or to the quasi union EEA powers that are now belong up and belong now to the swiss parliament and to the people then the people's right to participate in government will be reduced and it will be a danger for swiss democracy to transfer all these powers I don't think legally speaking that is a sound argument but it was quite efficient politically at that time and so the swiss people have never been asked to join or not to join the European Union because the government never had the courage to ask this question to the people because they know the answer probably so this is strange because switzerland and the european union are very very similar we have the same kind of polity federalist type polity both countries have been built bottom up and not top down and we had the same mechanism of immediate application of federal law and EU law and so on I don't go into the details but still that's that's the reason that's why we stand and again the bilaterals the bilateral treaty system has been very successful for us in a way the cross national product according to some economists has increased significantly with these treaties and so mostly most people are happy with the actual solution but not now with the new provision in the constitution that is not yet implemented as I've talked about that question remains still unresolved and open to political debate thank you thank you Dai Okola, have you got a perspective on some of the analysis that you have done looking at the other models I know you mentioned both the swiss and the norwegian model but you also mentioned the turkish models have you got a perspective there and sort of answer to jamie's question well in a general way I think throughout the european union there is a an increasing dissatisfaction with brussels and there is within all of our populations a feeling amongst them that the political systems which are there are not dealing with their problems you look at my country for example opinion polls at the moment give the independence something between 20 and 30 percent of the vote in the forthcoming election there's a dissatisfaction with politics there's equally a dissatisfaction with brussels it's even farther away and people don't understand how brussels work and if things go wrong they blame Westminster or they blame brussels or whoever it might be and this is happening I think it's happening throughout europe it's not only it's not only in the UK it's not only in norway it's not only in Switzerland so I think this this is a deep factor right across Europe at the present moment and there's an anti-politician feeling out there there's an anti-establishment feeling out there that these bodies are not able to resolve the problems that we've got I just say that in a general way so if you look at what people in the united kingdom feel if you look at what the problems are and let's presume that the prime minister's request to brussels is an expression of some of those problems that need to be resolved if the UK is to remain within the european union I think by the way that the issues which the prime minister has raised in his letter I think there are solutions can be found to them all but there are two or three of them which are very difficult the immigration issue not the immigration issue the welfare issue is very difficult the the the question of the relationship between the euro ins and the euro outs in theory it's easy to resolve but to actually put it down on paper is more difficult and the whole question of sovereignty is a difficulty and it's it's this sovereignty is tied up with this notion of can we look after our own affairs can we resolve our own problems now I happen to personally I'm a very very strong believer that the independence of my state has been increased rather than reduced by the fact that we have engaged in brussels we have been able to look after our own interests and in my view we have been able to advance our interests by being at the table in brussels and I think this is the real problem with the norwegian and the swiss solutions and the turkish even more so they're not actually at the table where decisions are made about the regulations under which they have to operate so i'm a firm believer given the experience on my own island that we are more independent now less sovereign but more independent now than we were 40 years ago thank you thank you very much jenny you want to come back back in quite a little on that point do you think that monetary union was a bridge too far no what i think happened was that the regulation of the monetary union was there without a bridge and the reason why there wasn't a bridge there was because the individual treasuries and the individual finance ministries were not prepared to give up their sovereign powers i wonder i could pick up the point that mr cala made initially when you were talking about these four unions that you then went on to say that the norwegian swiss and turkish models are not ones that would lend themselves to to a uk solution and in fact then professor ever went on to say that the swiss model doesn't even lend itself to the swiss solution how do you recognize reconcile that though with with saying that the uk could find some kind of common ground within three of these four other unions as you described what does it what does their relationship look like is it a go alone watch watch uk arrangement that they would negotiate for themselves or would it not look like any of the arrangements that the other members have i honestly think that the uk's position where it on its own to negotiate would be much weaker than its position inside negotiating take for example the immigration issue there's no question that immigration is a very serious problem and there's from from outside the union into the union but there are also questions and it's not only in the uk about movement within the union i mean look at what's happening in france for example or in denmark or in sweden or indeed in my country to some degree um these are issues which the union will have to resolve we've got to resolve the question of energy security we've got to resolve the question of immigration how do we deal with things like for example this massive movement of refugees from the middle east i think personally i think the uk would be in a much better position to resolve these within the union rather than without the union because the union is moving towards a common position on all of this area which we call in our book for shorthand we call it a security union um the same is true in the capital markets there's there's there is a movement within the union towards the free movement of capital in a way that didn't exist in the past i personally think that the uk would be in a better position to look after its interests within rather than without does that answer your question i'd love to ask a professor about his view because you've already said that the swiss relationship is not even a particularly good one for the people of switzerland so if the united kingdom were to withdraw from the european union what kind of relationship do you think it could establish in its best interests sorry i didn't understand the question you've said that the the arrangement that switzerland has is not a particularly good one what would you see being the relationship that united kingdom might have with europe if it were to withdraw would it be as bad as the swiss example or could it develop a closer and better union do you think oh death these i'm sorry a very difficult question for me to answer i i'm probably quite convinced that the uk being a strong and important country can negotiate better solutions than switzerland could in its small dimensions that are that are ours even though we are strongly integrated so i wouldn't dare to predict uh what kind of solution the uk could find uh but i don't think that the bilateral treaty solution would be acceptable it has also come to an end in switzerland in a way these 120 treaties do not include the achico minutaire they they only integrate eu law as far as it was developed at the time these agreements were concluded and then there are negotiations on partial issues that can be adapted and now the u has said to switzerland listen these treaties solution is no longer workable we need a framework agreement and you should agree to automatically adapt and accept the development of the achico minutaire which is of course a huge sovereignty issue in switzerland especially with regard to the question who is to have the final word with what court is to going to decide if switzerland has to obey by the new achico minutaire or not the government has proposed that it be the european court of justice which is probably legally speaking the only court who can solve all these problems but then the sovereignty issues is raised and of course foreign judges is a red flag in the swiss political system so our populists are very happy with the solution because they can say we don't want foreign just judges in our country so it has no chance politically but still their negotiations are underway not negotiations sorry talks talks of a time for another question i wonder if i could ask the gentleman from norway and again from Switzerland what's your net contribution financial contribution to get you access to the european union what do your countries pay and what do you get back in terms of finance of course it's it's entirely up to the uk to decide what kind of what kind of relations they should have with the with the eu but of course an option is also called as the norwegian option the ea option uh to um to uh if if the uk decides to to leave the the eu then if they would like to enter into the ea then of course the first thing they have to do is to be become a member of the of eftan of the european free trade association and of course there must be some some negotiations with the other eftan member states in order to to achieve that then article 128 of the ea agreement stipulates that all eu member states shall be or i mean new new member states on new countries exceeding the eu shall apply for ea membership then new countries becoming a member of eftan may apply for for ea membership so in in eftan for instance switzerland is a member of eftan but it's not a member of the ea but then if if the uk decides to to apply for participation in the of the ea agreement then of course it will be uh negotiations with all uh ea contracting parties uh including the the free uh ea after after states and the eu side uh with their uh member states uh then it will be negotiations uh and the uk will have to take the four freedoms the four freedoms which is the backbone of the ea agreement and this includes of course also of the freedom of persons which will be a part of the akie community there uh then then of course uh there will also be negotiations on on financial contributions because the ea after states they they contribute financially to to social and economic coherence in the in the cohesion in the in the ea so there will be also negotiations on that but of course it will be a challenge for for the for the uk to to take the the akie community on the on the eftan side of the on the eftan pillar of the of the ea co-operation and of course also the the common agriculture policy and the common fishery policy will not apply because that it's not a part of the of the ea so of course it's uh it's a it's a procedure that it's set up uh there will be negotiations but it's uh it will be uh i would say some some difficult negotiations also closer to perhaps what a figure is a contribution figure from norway and from switzerland because it's not free access there must be a cost associated with per year yes it um i can just very briefly on that it's um the cost uh first of all we don't pay a fee for participating in internal market and that's an important issue for us our fee in in that sense for participating in internal market is taking in ea legislation or EU relevant legislation um however we do pay for what Mr Hadamonson called the the social and economic cohesion which means now we have just finished last summer we finished um negotiations on how much we should pay for the next seven year period and that amounts to 2.8 billion euro 2.8 billion euro over seven years and that goes to the 15 well countries with the lowest economic uh GDP in in the european union so 2.8 billion euros after long negotiations uh i was part of it myself um and uh difficult negotiations we negotiate with the european commission and the external action service and they negotiate on behalf of the member states on the mandate from the member states um and those negotiations took actually a year and a half uh difficult ones but we managed to come down to solution which was acceptable both to the EU and for us so uh that's one part of the of the um uh the what we pay to the economic and social cohesion in europe but in addition we pay for program participation the most important one being the horizon 2020 the research and we take part in other other important programs erasmus plus and so on but that's more on a voluntary basis in that sense we're not obliged neither to pay for the economic and social cohesion as well but uh there's no legal obligations there but the political obligation is quite present in addition of course we pay for the for the FTA institutions we pay for participation in the different agencies where we do participate everything from front tax to the food agency and so on um and then you get a return from the horizon 2020 for instance a research so so the total cost is difficult to to uh to assess in in detail but if you say that we pay around 75 euro per capita if we look at the cohesion money only that will be around it which means that we are in the higher end of the european union members compared in per capita what we pay in the cohesion thank you i don't know first off in equivalent figure for switzerland if we have time to yes i think the answer is pretty much the same as maybe just to it from from the norwegian case there is no general fee for participating in the single market of course and for uh participating in all these treaty agreements that that we have concluded there is no absolutely general contribution but the different projects and the different agencies of course we participate we participate in the research research we participate Galileo and we pay for Galileo but then also again the return from these programs are very important so that we pay for instance i found the solution research framework program 7 207 to 14 2.4 billion have been paid but the return was more important for the swiss researchers and um air transportation about 10 millions uh overland transport it's not really significant shengen um uh was which was approved by a popular vote we contribute also to front decks and do tit programs within this program uh there is the very important framework program on media and on the horizon 22 and unfortunately after the um 9 febri 14 switzerland was excluded from horizon 22 which is a dramatic for our young researchers and students and professors at universities as it is for the swiss youth in general so there are we and and also we have the same um principle of contributing uh towards the social and economic cohesion especially after the 205 enlargement of the european union we have agreed to pay 1.6 billion uh of swiss francs to the cohesion principle not all of this has yet been spent but it's on the way and it has been approved by a popular referendum so this is probably the only vote that has taken place where the economic where the enlargement of european countries have been approved by a people which was not the people for member state but still so this is it's also impossible to to give you a figure of how much annually switzerland contributes to all these programs but in return i think the return of it we have to take into account that the swiss economy and the swiss people and the swiss society have greatly also benefited from this relationship and uh and that is also the very difficult to calculate and to put into into fine figures so it's quite clear that despite switzerland and norway not being formal members of the european union there is quite a significant financial contribution made to european union and clearly the presumption from that is that will the uk to exit the european union there would still be a significant financial contribution being made to the affairs of the european union definitely say so i'm particularly interested not only from hearing from the swiss experience of problems with freedom of movement but particularly from norwegian experience on the freedom of movement question what impact has that had in norway and are there particular pressures in that area at the current time um it's it's well of course now we all see the migration issue now uh as a member of of shengen we have uh of course the migrants or refugees coming from middle east have also a lot has ended up in norway through the shengen because you have a passport free area or you have a check free area in the in the shengen so they go they end up all the way up to to norway but i think the most important things to say first is that the free movement of person has benefited us quite well we are totally dependent on foreign workers in a lot of sectors services construction and so on they the group the most prominent group of foreigners in norway is polis and the second one are swedes polis we have around a bit less than 100 000 we're a population of 5.2 million people so we have 96 000 polis in norway you have 36 000 swedes which is our closest neighbour and you have 33 000 lithuanians so and most of the polis and lithuanians are in the construction sector and the services sector and those that has contributed largely to the economy of norway in the past years so we have benefited from the free movement of persons but then you have the the other issue which is the migration issue which is not the same but it's very often it's often interlinked and often mixed a bit through shengen and that's a different issue and then now not least since last summer where the refugees are coming to to norway and and the figures are i think the last figure for 2015 was 26 000 refugees coming to norway both through european countries other shengen countries from danmark or in particular from swede but also um a bit strangely enough through russia in the border up north which means they come from a non shengen country coming over the border in in the northern norway quite quite a significant number there that until november last year and then it stopped completely for several reasons the political reaction to both categories to obviously people coming from the rest of europe and the refugees is there a different public reaction to well it goes a little bit in waves uh that there was uh if you look at the refugee issue it there was a lot of sympathy until last autumn and then it turned slightly due to the fact that it came so many uh but in and then now we uh do you see that in the media attention and so on but uh it seems now if you detect a little bit on in the media you see that maybe it's going back to a more positive attitude again because we've been fairly restrictive now because we have clothes actually uh on a non-permanent basis the border to sweden as sweden has to danmark as danmark has done to germany as you've seen as a domino in in several european countries so we have done the same thing so there's more control now um which means also now we have a discussion on whether is this the right way to do it or not my government has been very clear we did not have any choice uh because the fact that you had thousands coming in was extremely and will be extremely expensive and we don't know how 2016 will be uh but the public opinion you don't see a strong support for right extremist parties we don't have that um so it's a um more or less fairly strong support not least in parliament to the measures that Norwegian government have made and there's not a popular feeling going very negatively against the refugees of concerning the migration from ea countries european countries very little negative attention there has been questions of course of social dumping of issues concerning labour law labour security and so on but in general most people have accepted that and and it goes fairly well perhaps we could hear about the swiss experience here well i think i have to give you an information that is quite significant that switzerland is of course a very strong immigration country our population of foreign people living in switzerland working in switzerland paying taxes in switzerland is close to 25 percent in comparison britain has seven germany something like eight and literally something like six or something uh norway ten so the proportion of foreign people are it's a very strong population so this this maybe in some ways it can explain why uh this right wing of a movement a party movement has come so strong into a strong position in these last years because they say of course we are no longer at home uh they take our drops away and so on you imagine all the political debates that have come up so this is um one of the reasons why this unfortunate vote of febru 9 14 passed through because the figures there of annual immigration are not talking about the migrants of last year i'm talking about the immigration from mainly the EU countries uh and was close to 80 000 people a year additional people moving in and working so this was thought to be too much and this is why they said stop immigration massive immigration mass immigration which is of course a very difficult term so that's our situation in general and also like in probably in norway what happened last year with the migration movement coming from the middle east and coming from from from africa um the people associated the two that said that we don't want uh more immigration be it uh from outside EU countries or from the EU we want to decide and to regulate ourselves our immigration problem of course um we had this before 10 years ago we had quotas and we had uh maximal annual figures of immigration it did not stop immigration because it all depends on the state of the economy if the economy is is blooming then immigration will will come and swiss economy is economy is quite successful and it's totally dependent on foreign workers in many many fields not only construction but also uh health uh services and uh i mean swiss economy without foreign workers you can i can't imagine to join the debate did you want to yeah i just just wanted to to add that as for the concept of free movement of persons also imply that Norwegians could go to to other ea countries to work to study there and that is all that that has also a very positive effect do you want to give us the Irish perspective because again you've got a slightly different view yeah we've a fairly large immigrant community now there's about 20 percent of the population of the greater Dublin area is immigrant mostly from within the EU not as many refugees as there might be elsewhere in Europe i think the important thing to remember from a united kingdom point of view is that neither the united kingdom nor Ireland are within the shengen area we're outside and we have our own relationship between ourselves and so far in Ireland there has been very little anti-immigrant reaction largely because the immigrants by and large are all working and they're all contributing to the economy very large numbers of Poles and very large numbers of Lithuanians as an as an always and these are people they're just like the Irish did for generations these are people who are moving away to looking for work and so on the whole i'd say the the attitude towards immigrants from within the European Union in Ireland is positive but the attitude towards refugees is really untested because we don't have a lot of refugees and i understand for example that the although we're prepared to accept quite large numbers for example from Syria there are very few coming there they're more going to places where they already have existing networks or existing relations okay i've got jayney did you want anywhere quick supplementary and then it's been answered on that thank you very much yeah you've been answered and he's putting his bed in just now good morning panel one of the queries that we have discussed within the committee is the EU law and about how that's impacted within our law now and if obviously we had to exit the EU how that would look or how that would dismantle or would it dismantle and so i just wanted to ask to what extent have norway in switzerland adopted the body of the EU law into their own legislation and can i ask for a second part as well not only we adopted it into have you went beyond what was formally required to be there want to go first professor our yes no we didn't go beyond but we pretty much sticked to the actual status of the EU law we said we were not obliged to do that it was an autonomous decision but autonomous you have to put into brackets of course and it is somewhat like my neighbor has said it is somewhat disappointing in that sense that we adopt and accept most regulations of the EU without having to say a word about their contents and about their working out but this argument is secondary now in the political debate there is just no way that Switzerland could one day join the european union i mean the political debate is so much anti EU bashing is very popular among politicians in in switzerland even within the the left parties on the right parties and all parties they they like to do that because uh because they it puts us seemingly in a better position which is of course not the case well um in the ea for the after countries we take in all legislation that is internal market relevant of internal market relevance which means that everything under the free movement of persons goods capital and the services which means also public procurement state aid and all the regulations and directives that is linked to that all secondary legislation linked to the internal market functioning except again from agriculture and fisheries which is part of the internal market but we in in our system we define it a bit outside the internal market so everything is in the ea through a particular procedure and that's where you perhaps very often talk about the democratic deficit because if i can just very briefly say how this works is that we as an ea after country we are allowed to participate with experts in the decision when when the decisions are shaped in the european commission when the proposals are made uh because as you know the commission is the only uh institution with the right of initiative so in that phase until the proposal is tabled to the member states and parliament we take part as any other EU country as experts in in working groups and so on but the day that proposal goes from commission as a proposal to a formal proposal to the member states and parliament we are formally out of that process and then it's processed within the institutions parliament and negotiations with the member states and so on and then it comes out in the other end and that's where it goes into the ea system again and where we then uh have a look at the final text assess it and consider it whether we should take it in or not we have said yes in all uh every time we do have some issues where we are not in agreement with the european union whether it's relevant for instance is this ea internal market relevant or not we have a few issues like that but mainly we agree what comes out of this we take it into our own legislation sometimes a bit takes some time afterwards but we the main main bulk is into Norwegian legislation and it's also important to say that most of this is unproblematic sometimes it's better is what we already have maybe it's something it replaced something we don't have um so it's uncontroversial and problematic in in most most cases but we do not take part in the formal decision making in the EU when you have the final text of the legislative piece thank you i just call it but yeah a little something it's not so much dealing with EU law but dealing with cooperation in the justice and home affairs area there was very considerable and i mean very considerable concern in Dublin uh two three four years ago when the then British government decided that they were going to remove themselves from things like the european arrest warrant and cooperation in frontex and all of these areas i'm old enough to remember and i was involved in relations between the united kingdom and ireland when there was no extradition and where people were being murdered in one jurisdiction and could not be extradited to the other jurisdiction for crimes that's all done away with under the european arrest warrant it's effectively automatic and we were very concerned uh two three years ago and eventually as you know the united kingdom government changed its mind and renegotiated its way back into these areas now should there be a brexit that's all up in the air again okay and is that coming to the question oh sorry there's something else yeah mrs Anguson if i just add one thing because the ea legislative process is slightly different than our shengen process where we in shengen actually can take part also in the discussions under the council so we have formally more access under shengen legislation than in the ea legislation but again we don't participate in the final voting but that's not necessarily a problem neither because you don't have that much of a voting and we often reach compromise that we can live perfectly well with thank you very much i've actually got two points first i was interested in the the irish viewpoint in terms of independence and interests and you seem to have a very strong opinion that you are more independent than you were before you joined the european union could you possibly give me an example of that please um yes agriculture before we joined the united kingdom our main market for agricultural produce was the united kingdom it still is by the way the main market for our agricultural produce but we had absolutely no say whatsoever in the prices which we were receiving for our agricultural produce so a pound of butter irish butter was available in birmingham in 1972 for considerably less than the same pound of butter was available in my hometown dublin and the difference was not paid by the british government it was paid by irish taxpayers as an example so we're able to negotiate in brosles about the circumstances in which our agricultural produce is sold and it goes right across the board we're able to negotiate on whatever we wish prime example for example of where british and irish interests are very similar is in the whole area of financial services the two governments working within the uk working within the eu have ensured that the sort of regulation which governs financial services is one which reflects our interests and which serves our interests now before we joined the european union nobody would listen to us i mean the population of my country is about the population of the size of greater manchester we just we had no say whatsoever now we do have a say that's what i mean by being more independent before we joined the union we lived on a little island out there in the middle of the atlantic and we could sing to the birds and sing to the wind but it didn't have any effect it now we now have an effect and it also you can you can actually make a contribution to the world that we were not able to do before think of the contribution made by people like peter southerland or ray mack sherry this contribution made by armish people in a way that helps us all could not have been made when we not members of the union thank you very much that's a good comparison but it's still cheap by the way from island and the other question i want to ask was particularly in northern sweden it seemed to me with the impression that at the moment there's not an issue about minority communities entering your part of the world i would like to say that the reason for that is at the moment you have the first generation and they seem to be working on out of the public gaze and public arena but when the next generation comes who will be educated locally who will be bidding for jobs in hospitals and banks in an industry it will be a different ball game and that's when you will need to get your act together in terms of equal opportunities and there will be issues then so this is something maybe you can take back home as a uh a polite warning that things things will happen that you'll need to be ready for in the next generation because bosnia is an example in europe that what happened in bosnia was that a lot of minority community when they came out of the farms and into the capitals of the cities problem started so we need to learn those lessons okay some of the conversation we've had this morning is about capital market security union one of the things that we touched on was the energy union and obviously energy in in scotland in particular is something that's very very important we do have an oil industry we have a gas industry but we also have you know against some tough profiling wins a developing renewable industry but specifically in norways position how does it operate for your oil industry for instance or any your emerging renewable industries is it easier to operate you know your energy needs your energy you know gives to the rest of the world is it easier to operate without the EU or would it be easy to operate within the EU and what sort of tensions do you think would arise there well it's it's difficult to see how it would have worked within the EU but as it works now it's mean again we go we take in most legislation in the energy field as well whether it's for renewables whether it's for energy efficiency energy safety and so on but those i must admit are the perhaps one of the areas where we have the most difficulties in the adoption of the key because we don't necessarily have the exactly same interests but not least also because of our own discussions of sovereignty but mainly well europe is our main market we would probably have sold the gas and oil whether we had the EA or not but our clear view is that the EA has helped us at least have access to an internal market also for our oil and gas products but admittedly some of the issues are a bit more contentious than and other issues but we have managed to find solutions every time also in the energy field and i'm quite confident that we'll find it also in the outstanding issues now in the energy field one of the difficult issues sometimes is whether it's this is a very small minority of the cases but whether it's we consider it EA relevant or not because we believe that the geographical scope of the EA agreement does not cover our offshore or continental shelf but the european union believes that it also covers the continental shelf so we do have a slight well different interests and different different views there but our in we are very clear on that we don't believe that the agreement has any relevance for the continental shelf as such one example there is the offshore safety directive which of course is important to scotland as well where we believe not necessarily that the content is that difficult but we don't believe it has any relevance because it applies on the continental shelf which we means are not relevant for the EA the argument from the EU side is that this is internal market relevant thus relevant for the EA so there is an imbalance or a difference of view there but we i'm confident we'll manage to find solutions here i think obviously we've got some challenges in the the oil and gas industry in Scotland right now and we have very very serious challenges in our emerging renewables market because of regulation and in my opinion a government that has a preference for one and not the other but the upshot of it is that energy security in scotland becomes less secure all over you know it is a policy so that's that's one of the concerns that i have do you think some of the arguments that we have from people who want out of the EU and people who want to stay in the EU is to use the oil and gas industry as an example of that for both sides of the argument and it was really you know my question is to try and cut through some of that and whether you know the challenges that are being faced in energy sustainability now are would be made better or supported better by being a member of the EU or are the challenges that they're facing as a consequence of being a member of the EU we hear both sides of that argument all the time but we never seem to have a resolution that comes from that and i just thought maybe you have a different setup in that sense that you could give us some insight all legislation that is linked to the energy market all everything that has to the market is actually part of the EA will be part of the email whether it's a third energy market package which i haven't not yet taken into the EA but it's definitely EA relevant so in that sense to us i don't see there would be a huge difference whether we would be inside or have the EA agreement because the agreement takes in all legislation now we talk about the energy union the talk about the energy union are from the EU side we are following that with very keen interest and try to of course play in our views but we see that a lot of what could come out of the energy union will be applicable also for us in the future so so but that's through the agreement and that's why there we have the obligations there you think that the sets of lines are much more stable for norway because you have a sovereign oil fund and you have you know took the decision 30 40 years ago to ensure that that money was invested i think it's difficult to say no i can't i don't know okay okay okay maybe not a fair question i've got is there any other questions from our colleagues jamie you've got a supplementary kenny did you want to come on me anything not jamie on you go um yes um the membership of after and the ea is already asymmetric in terms of the respective sizes of its members what challenges do you see resulting from a considerably larger country such as the UK joining and what would be the feeling of a country like Norway uh being faced with uh a member with say 60 million population uh trying to join after uh and your um organisation uh what would be the feeling and and how i do you think it's it's it's it would be how also what would the timescale be uh if if if that could be agreed upon this was not the same with policy advice to just maybe maybe say one thing that uh among the alternatives to the status quo in switzerland the ea is again in discussion uh but the answers that our diplomats got from the norwegian side was that the region was not extremely keen of switzerland joining the ea because it changes that's what we heard i'm not if it i'm not i don't know if it's true but they're not particularly we would not be particularly welcome because it changes the power structure within the ea of course and probably with the UK joining the ea it would be even worse or better whatever you prefer yes what what would be the norwegian angle on that uh i would say that of course it will change the power structure within the within the ifta pillar of the ea corporation uh i think uh as for now uh the ea has proven to be a solid platform for cooperation between norway and the EU because it has this flexibility that makes it well it we have a kind of a pragmatic approach within this corporation in order to solve problems and due to the fact that norway, eisenland and Liechtenstein of small countries uh our interests do do not have so much impact on the EU internal market but obviously if the UK should decide to join the ea on the other side then of course there will be more interest it will be a large country coming in and potentially i think it will be possible to have more conflicting interests so i think that it might be some more difficult to find all these pragmatic solutions in the future if that would be the case thank you very much yeah the UK currently have a whole set of opt-outs and derogations do you think that um flexibility that they have now would be available to them should they take up one of the models that that you operate i'm going to come back to because you have a of course we we do have in the ea we do have some some derogations but i mean those derogations are there because it's uh it's possible for for the UK to or for the EU to to accept it because we are small countries uh for instance in isenland there we have a derogation in isenland for for live animals due to i mean for for animal diseases and things like that in isenland because of the geographical uh location of isenland so so there are some some derogations that we do have in the ea uh corporation today i think that uh in the future it will be more difficult to achieve those derogations of the these exceptions if if the ea if the side will have a bigger impact on the internal market so so i think it's it will be a shift so i think in some of the work that your institute have done they've looked at some of those aspects i wonder if you've got a perspective to give us i mean the the reality is our relationships within or without the european union are governed by regulations i think we've listened to our norwegian and swiss colleagues and i think i i would conclude i don't know whether you would agree with me that most of the regulations under which they operate are actually made elsewhere they're made within the european union um that will continue even if britain exits the european union the regulations will not be made in london they've been made in brosland um and it seems to me the real question is does the uk wish to be at the table when the regulations are being made or just pay for them and operate them after they've been made now that's a little bit simplistic but i think it is the reality um and one thing that has always struck me over the last um 30 or more years and i've been dealing with the united kingdom very closely for a very long time and that is the united kingdom has had a huge influence in the drafting of the regulations under which we all live huge i mean the single market itself is largely a british invention and somehow or other british governments have never been able to accept that they have had a huge success in many of these regulations rather than the failure i remember at the time what eventually became the lisbon treaty was being negotiated the british negotiators would go over wherever it was every week every fortnight and they'd have 10 demands and they get nine of them and they come back and they complain about the one that they didn't get instead of waving the flag as we would do we got nine um i think i really do think the reality is going to be whether britain remains in or out the regulations and that's what all of this is about the regulatory framework the regulations will continue to be made in brosland they will not be made in london in a way which the rest of europe will have to cooperate with i mean it's either it's not britain creating a new world it's britain pulling out of the existing world if it exits i enjoyed that contribution there i just wanted to ask you a final question for me mr cameron on behalf of the uk has four demands for euform on governance competitiveness and on immigration and sovereignty sadly switzerland and norway won't have any influence on the outcome to those negotiations but ireland probably will do you think those those four priorities are well are those four priorities shared by your countries indeed think he will ultimately be successful in achieving progress in those four areas will be successful in the negotiation yes and i think a lot of his concerns are shared widely around the table and certainly the irish government will be as helpful as they possibly can now there are one or two areas where the irish government might have difficulty but the irish government will be as helpful as they possibly can to mr cameron because the irish government wants the united kingdom to remain in the european union and it was quite extraordinary that when mr cameron gave his speech a couple of weeks back in the house of commons reporting on the last european council he singled out the irish prime minister for for praise in a way that no british prime minister has ever talked about the irish prime minister before it was extraordinary um no i think he will be successful in the negotiation there are a couple of difficult areas the the the treatment of workers is a difficulty it will be difficult to get down on paper a satisfactory relationship between the eurozone area and the non eurozone area though there haven't been any difficulties it's worked reasonably well up until now i think the the question of the powers of national parliaments versus the european parliament could be a little bit difficult as well but i do think he could end up and will end up with a successful negotiation but i wonder is that the question and it seems to me as an outsider but an outsider with long relationship with the united kingdom i have a grandmother and a grandfather buried in Birmingham it seems to me that it is it's it's much more cultural it's much more historical it's it's in some extent even emotional and i'm not so much talking about scotland and i'm not talking about wells i certainly i'm not talking about northern Ireland i'm talking about england it's there seems to be a resurgence in emotional terms of some sort of english nationalism and so even if he gets a successful outcome and i think he will get a successful outcome those who are arguing against continued membership of the european union they've already written that off i mean they're talking about coming back from unique with a piece of paper you know so i i do think the europeans will do everything possible to bring about a successful outcome for that negotiation whether that will have a really positive effect on the populace i don't know he could hardly recommend a yes vote if he gets none of them could he no he couldn't but i think he will get them all did other members have a view on those four priorities and whether they would be shared by your country from outside we have of course not said anything about his demands being a non-euw member but what my government has said is that we believe that it's in the europe's i'm not using euw but it's in europe's interest to see great britain or united kingdom stay in the european union we share this very much of many of the same value same ideas as the uk whether it's talk about cutting the red tape less bureaucracy and the importance of the single market but at the same time we also see the value of the free movement of persons so we wouldn't see that being endangered but in norway's interest the government has said very clearly we believe it's in our interest that the the uk stays in the european union well there is one point where the outcome of these negotiations between uk and euw touches up on a topic that is very much at the heart of our political debate in switzerland and that's immigration of course and i can't speak in the name of my government i'm sorry i'm just a lawyer professor but quite a few people and parties in switzerland have the idea that if uk gets something on the immigration issue and maybe you could also give something to switzerland on the same issue for not long respecting fully the free movement of labour and of persons i do not think that it is quite reasonable because the means that are um in discussion in both countries are totally different if i understand it well britain wants to reduce the access to social security by the foreign workers which is not the problem in switzerland and switzerland wants quota and quantitative limits which is not the case uh with with uk i think so the ways are totally different and i don't think that there is going to be a direct influence and um of course switzerland now waits until the negotiations with uk continue and maybe reach a solution before they come back and want to open finally negotiations with the european union about implementation of this provision in our constitution so there is some relationships but it's it's probably um not so direct as many people would hope it is okay i think we may have exhausted our questions for you today yeah can i on behalf of the committee thank you so much for for coming and being at committee it's always extremely helpful to get you know a range of perspectives on some of the work that we are doing you've made a an excellent contribution to our work here and obviously our final report when it's published we'll make sure that you have a copy of that but again thank you so much for for coming along and we really appreciate your being here thank you i'm going to suspend for about five minutes comfort break and then we'll be back in the chair thank you i suspend okay welcome back to the european and external relations committee moving on to agenda item two this morning we have the brussells bulletin you have it in front of you is there any questions clarifications brilliant thanks convener there's a little section there on employment skills and education and it talks about the digital skills agenda and it also refers to digital champions ambassadors for the european union's digital agenda i'm just wondering if you could find out who these digital champions are whether they're a uk one or a scottish irish welsh equivalent and the comment there that 100 million u citizens have insufficient digital skills is a message i think for all of us to to pay some attention to so i'd be grateful for any further follow-up information in detail on that that we can find really on the last page women innovators it's got nine finalists here do we have or is it any way that we can get the names of the nine finalists and any of them from scotland that we can say that we should be able to get that information for you thank you jimmy well just a couple of things i thought that the under european council summit migration again was top of the agenda and then they talked about meeting in the wake of the attacks in paris amidst a subdued atmosphere in brussells fight against terrorism was also an area of focus but this thing again doesn't say what they anything about what they discussed and what it's the unit it seems to me unbelievable that they can they can't say what was discussed and it's again i think this thing is very very weak compared to what it used to be this this this bulletin because i mean you know i mean the issues of such importance these and again the second thing i mean that we get on to agriculture and fisheries the most significant of the feature with the analogation of fish quitters and it goes on about richard lockhead but what it doesn't say is that the they've now decided apparently to try and run the discard ban on um which was the pelagic the one for the pelagic the herring in the macros went to start the started last year and and they're now saying that the that that's going to cover the demersal fleet as well but that's not even mentioned in here and that's incredibly important for the guys in the north sea because they thought they had another year to play with we can we can clarify that then i'd like to clarify that but again it's this flipping bulletin is no good that's my view we'll put it in my legacy paper now jamey the other thing is about the the security issues that's a private that they have those meetings in private so we only ever get whatever the published note is so you don't get some of the details because i think the deal with terrorism and security and all of that stuff as well so that's always difficult to get that but we can certainly get any clarification on the other point maybe i'm shooting with done a bit but i just do feel that it's not as it's not as there's something the whole layout of the thing is not what it was and i know said that about fireton recommendations to give to scotland use euro but so we can do that i've got rodin first comes out a couple of things just to say in terms of the notes of the comments in relation to the climate change issues following the the paris conference and the view of the european parliament the whilst generally positive there's much work to be done and i think from looking at that bulletin that seems to be a realistic assessment of matters so it's whilst there's an important milestone certainly not the end end of the way the other thing i noticed under the heading aviation is that there is a conference taking place should be as we speak aviation summit and there is reference to a substantial is looking for the figure i shall come to a second air traffic european air traffic increasing by 50 by 2035 in the context of this parliament having some sway over a passenger jet again that obviously it's an important issue yeah i'm going back to jamie's comment about the bulletin i think one of the one of the things missing is that we actually had an officer that was spending physically spending days in brussels who was able to dig into a lot of stuff that it's maybe missing here and i do recall that there was a conversation that we took there some time back that we would revisit that to see whether we're still missing that and i think we i think it's clear that we are missing that additional support that the officers would get but somebody physically being in brussels could we explore that i know it's too late for this session perhaps but we can discuss it as part of the legacy paper here definitely wow jimmy the the bit about the alcohol i'm rather disappointed that mr mcaskill's left us actually but um they're saying that uh the minimum unit prices such as the proposed in scotland would restrict the single market and but however they've left the decision uh to the scottish courts which is quite interesting i think because i thought that the the the the european court superseded that you know came above the scottish court i think because yeah you're right in regards to the determination that they made but there was also a determined determination made on the the government making a decision on whether it would have an impact on health and i think that's why it comes back here because if the impact on health outweighs the economic impact then you know governments have maybe got some free reign there but like this whole argument it's not being that clear especially when we get determinations from brussels so i think that'll be something that's on-going okay is that everything on the brussels bulletin happy to share with our other committees and highlighting to the committees the issues we've raised that are pertinent to them okay thank you very much that concludes our business today so we'll go into private um to have the discussion about the evidence prepared this morning so suspend the meeting now