 What I plan to do in my talk was first speak a little bit about the scorecard in general what we wanted to do this and thereby give a sort of snapshot of European foreign policy and how it was in 2012 and then zoom in afterwards on China that's the chapter that I've contributed as as author and I've been doing the last three years while I'm also writing other reports on on China and European relations so I mean if you look at the scorecard we started it three years ago and was a little bit of sort of an effort to try and and make a measurement of how is Europe doing on foreign policy it was sort of after the Lisbon Treaty where it was the initial sort of sense of now Europe is moving into become a global actor there will be the European external action service the European sort of version of a joint joined up foreign ministry that by by Baroness Axton as the first new Secretary of the Austen institution and so we wanted basically to say okay when when so this is the new sort of beginning and let's see how the track record fairs as you all know Euro crisis came at the same time so a lot of our findings the last couple of years been very heavily influenced by that then reality the sort of bandwidth for foreign policy and for making your mentor a global actor has been to a large degree pushed aside by the euro crisis I think the first year we wrote that Europe was sort of distracted by the euro crisis I think the second year we wrote that Europe was slightly it was actually diminished as a foreign policy actor under euro crisis this year the conclusion is actually a little bit more positive but on on the sort of slightly I would say negative background that I just provided in the sense that we have called it in the introduction a surprisingly good year in the sense that you can see sort of resilience in a lot of stuff of the different areas that Europe is actually not at least going on completely up the seams but and we've actually given somewhat better grades in in some of the areas that since I'm not sitting with all the knowledge that we've presented in in different capitals earlier on I mean I know in Brussels that even sparked a bit of discussion where even some of the people top people from the US contested at where they was really such a good year which is also why I now give the background of saying we've done it for three years the greats started very very low because we basically said well the ambition of creating Europe into a global actor has been overshadowed by by the euro crisis and that's what takes up to sort of sucks up the the mental energy of European leaders so that's a little bit of the off the background to why we are still this year sort of talking about a surprisingly surprisingly good year how do we do it I mean we try to evaluate what how Europe achieves its goals in in the world we are a team of researchers where we have in each member state there is a national researcher that helps us where we send them questions and can you all see yeah send them question I actually don't even know my Irish Ben Chumrah he's not here today so so so in each in each country we would have it in this case in Ireland it's Ben who's helping us out and then we divide it into these components you can see on sort of six big categories and and on the member states I think sort of one of the novelties that you see if I introduce is basically also in not just in the scorecard but in general also grading the member states in some of the publications I've been doing where we've in the China program we're doing a power audit of your China relations instead of just looking at what comes out of Brussels all of the sort of policy statements out of your China summit and so on also saying but what are the different groupings of member state countries how do they align themselves and in that one the your China power ordered have sort of different sort of slightly quirky names for the different groups of countries that accommodating the cancer list and the gung-ho free traders and so they put in in different groupings to show how is actually China policy that comes out of Brussels made out of these different groupings and the same methodology we've used with the scorecard of saying well we don't just evaluate Brussels but also of like how the different member states either contribute or dilute sort of the effort to make to shape a common common policy so that's where we categorize member states as leaders supporters and slackers which through the years I mean I would say now we have to sort of do a double research almost because the countries are now found out so of course when Ben and others in other countries now go around asking some of the questions particularly if it's to the MFA is my own form of profession people we of course try to spin it and say no we've been doing this in this year to help Europe and so on well knowing that of course it all in the end it ends up in some sort of grading grading system and my own take just to sort of say it's I don't think it's not a sort of scientific I think it's a well researched but basically we also want to come out in the end with a sort of narrative about how was that year and so on so it's I don't see it in in that sense even though we have to grade just as a system as a sort of completely scientific system of so evaluating because we've sometimes had foreign policies where people have gone a lot into the mythology but you could and all that is interesting and if you have any comments on it we always keen to improve it but I think I tend to emphasize to say it's a way of providing a snapshot of where where Europe is heading more than it is completely sort of scientific study of this is as I said about 212 I mean one of the the things we said in the introduction was that compared to the two previous year where there's that feeling of complete unraveling there is a sense and in several of the areas in my own area with China slightly as well where we gave slightly better grades but again from a relatively low starting point with Russia as well I think some of my colleagues there some of the way in EU dealt with Russia and its entry into the WTO and so forth but of course there's still this big question looming over over Europe about which we put on the sort of the question of Europe's continued loss of of soft power basically the fact that the euro crisis sort of dense Europe's image abroad and that of course has an impact on how well are we able to sort of achieve our goals in the world and that one we have actually thought could be really interesting to do a separate study on of trying to sort of look Europe from the outside and sort of take a group of large particularly emerging powers China, India and so on and see how does that spill over into perception of Europe as a foreign policy actor because right now it's it's more of a statement of feeling that you get particularly from my own research with meeting with China interlocutors it's really like you're still doing anything in foreign policy that was all about the euro crisis of course that's the primary question even when you come as a foreign policy researcher we'll be asked about euro crisis what's going to happen what's going to happen next so I mean the positive note is that yeah as you can see below is that European foreign policy didn't unravel into 12 here you can see the different components we have it's the relations with China as I mentioned relations with Russia it's with the US it's wider Europe which yeah that includes Turkey as well and sort of the Balkan then of course the middle east of North Africa where it's been particularly important to sort of measure how Europe has been able to sort of shave up to the events of the Arab Spring and then the last one is sort of of course one which in many ways is sort of core of of European raison d'etre sort of multilateral issues, CSDP missions, EU in the UN but again out of all of these there's a wealth of details so sometimes it's also you can say you can you can have talks going on on each of each of those issues and and and stay on there for a long time I mean I'm happy to when we do Q&A to sort of answer a question as best as I can also some of my colleagues area but of course I'll zoom in more on on China then just a couple of words on on the EAS as well which was meant a little bit to be the sort of the vehicle for for Europe's new foreign policy ambitions I think one of the things again we've seen over all three years and also links with what I'm going to say about China we've seen a sort of a slight renationalization of foreign policy that in reality at the same time as Europe institutionally with Lisbon Treaty with setting up new tools and Brussels were actually moving towards the setting up something that should create a more coherent framework several member states particularly among the bigger ones sort of move to moving slightly back and having more of it sort of a national I mean UK is of course an example out of out of all sort of policy stands by the current government of sort of always viewing things first through sort of the national interest but you've seen something similar with Germany both of course with the pivotal role it plays in in the euro crisis but also the way that it's becoming more and more sort of shaping force in in the sort of relations with emerging power and with China in particular which I'll come back to one of the studies I wrote last year was called on China and Germany was called the emerging special relationship and then sort of looked at how China and and Germany where Germany now takes up 50 or 47 percent of European so close to half of all the European exports to China meaning that they are sort of the same size as the three for big ones UK France Italy's been combined so there's really a difference in size there beyond that the German economy of course is larger than the others and that of course has also started to have a sort of political superstructure that Germany now does these sort of government to government consultations where Merkel basically sits down and before we went Japan it's going to be with Liko Chan on the Chinese side and with all their ministers on both sides discussing very practically everything from innovation policy to an industrial policy to education vocational training and which is actually the largest sort of gathering that China has within the outside power bigger than what it does with the US which much more focused of course on on strategic and affairs but here with the Germans much more sort of broad-spected on what's starting from from the economy and that of course to certainly those suck out some of the not necessarily when Germany is doing it this is like sort of to the detriment of Europe but it does at least suck out some of the energy when you have the largest member state that uses a lot of its bilateral energy in building its own sort of strategic relationship with China. I have a couple here but I think I wanted on some of the sort of most successful and the least successful well I mean one I can highlight from my own here when we when if I stop on the least successful is China under Dalai Lama issues of I think one that shows quite well the sort of the change in power structure if we go back 20 years Europeans after Tiananmen in 89 were able to put sanctions on on China where the remains are still the the arms embargo and and now we have a sort of reverse situation where when European leaders decide to receive the Dalai Lama even if it's a private capacity China would of course officially announced anger but would also slap this type of what you can almost call soft sanctions of like the ministers and not allowed and try to sort of curb elements of trade and and investment. The UK as the country in Europe right now is suffering under that and it's definitely one of the areas where you can see that the EU and member states combined have been the least effective to try to find some sort of musketeer oaths for how to protect one another against these sort of Chinese reprisals that then hit a member state individually and then the others are just happy like Lawn who was just on his first visit and just happy it's not him that's in the in the dark house or the deep freezer like Cameron is at is at the moment but I think it's it's an important policy to highlight that that's at least where Europe hasn't been able then to sort of pull sort of combined strength but fall individually. I'll mention this one then and then come on to to China more generally this is more that just shows sort of the leaders and slackers. There is a natural advantage of being big I mean that also reflects and also the big three of course come out on quite a number of issues as leaders and but I think when that being set and that's then you actually have a number of smaller countries that in a sort of slogan sort of punch up off their weight Sweden is the one I can mention particularly I mean where you see here has sort of a leader on 10 component and so you see on different areas that there are also groupings of smaller member states take initiative I mean the state the highlighted before Ireland is is is singled out as a leader and four of the issues here in the in the scorecard so I think we tried also with this to sort of show the full complexity of basically European foreign policymaking that is 27 member states that make it up and there are in some areas the some that take initiative in others others so and you could say one of the perhaps surprising finding in the UK is that with all the talk there is about about the UK about the UK potential referendum and even an exit following that in foreign policy UK still count and is actually an important player at least on the way that we have measured in 212 then let me jump into into China which is my own my own favorite pet topic just a quick commercial while this is here this one here is was our big project of a last year called three China 3.0 which Mark Leonard and a couple of others and I did together at the European Council on Foreign Relations it's an idea to sort of show given insight into Chinese debates that very often from the outside and here in Europe China is seen as a sort of monolith of thought you have sort of the official party documents that are and but in reality there's issues debate going on inside China about where the country is heading and we wanted to give sort of a better or put the limelight on these debates and so here with 15 sort of of China's top public intellectuals we tried to sort of look at where is China heading in the next decade both an economy on the foreign policy and on social and political reform and rather than focus on sort of leadership personalities in a in a time of change in China then look at what are the trends that's going to shape China and in reality I find that sometimes the debate can be even more lively than in in our own liberal democracies where we know democracy is a good thing that we take as a given we taking something to national liberal order as another given which is something that's debated in China whether it's this good thing for China with democracy be a good thing and so so that one has really been one of our key works on on China and but back to to the scorecard and how we looked at China in 212 the first one I put up and sort of as my head as what China didn't become the sort of the red knight of the euro crisis what do I mean by that and there I have to go back a little bit because when we did scorecard and earlier just to remind you in like this sort of end to 11 you had leading up to the European council when the ESFS was the sort of the temporary rescue fund was set up there was the idea to sort of leverage that that if Europe just put in I think it was 400 billion then we would be able to leverage up to one children and that would be with the help of the merchant powers where they especially look to China also to Japan actually because of their currency reserves anyway that sort of never really materialized then there is a lot of talk about how present is China in in different national countries European in their depth in buying up sort of public bonds and I think it's fair to say that I mean what we've what we've seen is that China sort of rhetorically and positively has been very committed to the euro I mean it's it's China EU 27 is China's largest export market so it matters a lot of course whether what happens in but we hadn't seen China's sort of in any way with any game changing amount of its currency reserves sort of suddenly flushed into Europe we saw a contribution through the IMF on 43 billion US dollars which is I mean to be reckoned with and positive but I mean not the sort of game changing amount which makes that sort of going back to some of the dreams of some in 211 that China would really be the one with their currency reserves that would just sort of prop up Europe and the nightmare of others saying well this is going to create a completely new level of financial dependency conclusion here in 213 is that that didn't really happen so that's sort of the first which also makes that you on the second which is more institutional you had two EU China summits in in 212 but it didn't necessarily produces more results for that reason I mean actually the one that was postponed in 211 was due and then it was moved into 212 was due to the euro crisis but it was actually because there had to be an emergency meeting on on the euro and we then postponed being one that studies China I remember seeing that from the Chinese side somewhat odd it was the same period where we were sort of courting the Chinese for whether they wouldn't sort of come in with the money and then we sort of cancelled the meeting on a very short term because we would have to do an emergency meeting on our own which made sense in European logic but just didn't really really link very much if you at the same time wanted to anyway those two meetings were then held normally there's one EU China summit a year was then were then held in in 212 which shows sort of the period of sort of slightly panicky approach was over but on the other hand it wasn't either sort of meetings that produced sort of great results and my third point is basically where I'm saying that all member states tend to be very strategic about China but slightly on their own that it's more and more relevant at the same time as there isn't that much new cooperation coming into sort of EU China summit you have more and more states signing their own bilateral strategic partnerships with China I think Ireland also recently during the visit had its own bilateral ISS I mean as a serving civil servants are full disclaimer with the one negotiating one for Denmark back in 2008 and we were of course very proud as sort of a small country that managed to get a strategic partnership with with China but now looking at it as a researcher it does make their own member states focus much of their energy basically on trying to sort of caught China's bilateral that makes sense because China represents commercial opportunities and but it does also make European sort of joint priorities like a secondary secondary concern and that's where I come back to to Germany as not as the worst at all but just as the one that's the biggest at the same time so when Germany also starts slightly to move in a bilateral direction and when you speak with German civil servants they say well we would love Ashton and the Brussels scenery to take the lead on this with China but nothing is happening and and our sort of commercial links are just so great so now sort of some of the things are following on like these sort of government to government consultation I mentioned which is really so the biggest cabinet sit down the Chinese have with them and and the sort of one other development from last year which wasn't even sort of one member state relation was actually a regional development that that China set up this Central and Eastern European Secretariat based on a summit in Poland where all of the Eastern European and Central European and actually also member states of the EU but also some of the the states of the Balkan states that are not yet members of the EU were present that was actually on sort of the Chinese insistence that it was like a larger grouping that of course also raised discussions about whether it's China a little bit setting up like the Shanghai Cooperation DSCO its own sort of internal regional organizations inside Europe and you could almost compare it to like then we had 10 years ago Romstall was dividing Europe into all the new Europe based on strategic preferences and now you have China based more on business map where where do we see opening sort of here's how we want to make our Europe map of new and old Europe I must say though that I think the Central and Eastern European countries got a little bit of you know cold feet or a little bit more lukewarm on also when they saw the way we're seen afterwards in in in Brussels particularly by the polls that were the leader on doubt and when the Secretariat later was set up it was very much a sort of Chinese Secretariat originally was meant to be one with or the Chinese had hoped it to be staffed with both Europeans and and Chinese as well and a lot of that is very linked to sort of commercial opportunities there's an investment fund in it there is sort of different openings for for sort of joint science parks and so all things you could say that most European member states anyway would really like to to set up with with China so in a sense to give a fair assessment of that evolution I think it also shows in particular some of my talks with with Polish official that they have been filled left out sort of drafting EU's policies they will either come it either it comes from Berlin or it comes from Paris or London and we're not really part of it and we don't see ourselves anymore as sort of new member states in that sense and we're particularly Poland of course sees it as a sort of right to replace them on the big six so I think they also wanted and if there's a lesson also from for for Brussels is probably that bring them more into sort of how to to shape the common policy because and so in the smaller Eastern European countries that I that I that were talked with officials said well for us it was just a practical way of getting to meet one of the Chinese leaders even though we had to queue up all 16 and it was like 20 minutes each it was better than waiting for for a Chinese visit which might come or might not come so I think that's that's important to give us sort of full picture of the whole thing then the last thing I wanted to highlight from the scorecard and which I think could be also a good way to start the debate is one of the categories I had in the scorecard is also broader about EU's relations with with Asia where to character characterize it it's been slightly based on two C's that it's mostly China that we see Asia as China the emerging power and we see it as the other C as commerce and very little in sort of strategic realm and particularly at the moment where you have sort of daily news trickling in on the Chinese and the Japanese on these island disputes which for many Europeans of course are hard to get are they really willing to sort of almost fight over some sort of rocks that only prop up half of the year out of the sea but these are really sort of big conflictual issues in in Asia the same with the whole sort of the US so-called pivot and now sort of rebranded as the rebalancing to Asia and what that means for for Europe and we put in the scorecard this year that that Europe hasn't really had that sort of strategic discussion among itself again because a lot of the energy goes goes elsewhere just sort of in survival mode about what this is actually really mean for Europe and what are our sort of strategic interests do we also as a transatlantic ally want to sort of move with the US to Asia do we do we have the capacity for that do we want to shape a more independent role for ourselves and some of these issues what we can see is we don't have a military presence in Asia as an honest broker so we just want to say well it's too complicated we want to stay in our we didn't want to be that much of a global actor we want to stay on your board which could be a sort of type of division of labor type of approach of saying well in the future if the US is moving to Asia and it's leading more from behind Europe has to be able to deal much more with future situations in in Libya future Georgia's in the sort of your role and Asia is is too far away at least we wanted to bring in the attention is that that that debate and that whole of seeing Asia also conflict conflict potential of course with the big elephant in the room the rise of China and and how that sort of makes new coalition and alliance patterns in in Asia or again europeans focus only on China's story about the emerging economic options which is of course the last piece that is so it will be particularly for Chinese men's transition now moving from to the investment and they spot that growth to more growth created by domestic consumption and that of course wouldn't take complete new opportunities to continue but just producing in China but also selling it according to the Chinese market so but so that was basically the last point of saying here's a big sort of strategic discussion which somehow sort of passed towards under the radar in in in the European debate I know when it's over the ages before we've been writing on the South China Sea issues and trying to give them provide a background for them into the European for European audiences and I think I think that's really important because whereas we've been used to seeing Europe as sort of the navel of and the center of Europe I mean not moving more towards the east and where others early on had to react to how the concept of Europe was shaping things we might have to react to how the concept of Asia is shaping things in the future and so it's a sort of not just economic relations but also the strategic relations playing out in Asia are going to be hugely important for us.