 Well, thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Dan. And it's great to be here. Thank you very much to the Institute for international and European affairs, which is always always willing to host me and of course in particular to Barbara Nolan and the Commission representation for co-hosting this event in the infinitely more elegant surroundings of the National Gallery. I'm conscious that if you turned up yesterday, you would have heard a talk on Paul Henry and if you wait until tomorrow, you could hear something about Tintoretto's Venice. I'm not sure quite how we put T-Tip in between these two rather more elevated subjects, but I would dare to say that while trade is perhaps not going to win out on artistic interpretation, it doesn't lack for complexity, ambition, and it does require a lot of talent, commitment and precision. Before I start to talk about T-Tip, I'd like to maybe just put these trade negotiations in a certain context because I've been the EU ambassador in Washington now since last November, and one of the things which strikes me is the enormous strength of the relationship between the United States and Europe in this very challenging period. And to be frank, I mean I've been around the European Union as Dan said for a long time, longer than I sometimes care to remember, and I honestly can't think of a more challenging international environment than that through which we are going at the present time. The opening years of the 20th first century have been totally momentous. We started with 9-11, which was 14 years ago, which led to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the consequences of those interventions that we know. Next week on September 15, it will be seven years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which helped trigger a global financial crisis. I vividly remember Tony Blair saying at the time of the 9-11 that perhaps this was the real millennium. I sometimes think that actually the collapse of Lehman Brothers was perhaps the real millennium because I think it more than any other has defined certainly the economic and social climate in which we have coexisted. But the fact is that the international climate has been equally challenging, and frankly for Europe we now find ourselves in 2003 we opened Javier Solana's security strategy, which says never has Europe been for so long at so peaceful or so prosperous or so stable. I won't say it was hubris, but 12 years later, I think we now find ourselves living in probably the most dangerous neighborhood in the world. Whether to the east what is happening with Ukraine and Russia, which is a dramatic change in the entire security architecture of the European continent, or what is happening to the southeast and in North Africa, where we have a non-precidented change in the entire security situation. And since the middle of the first decade of this century we have been sending civilian and military missions in many hotspots, the anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia, in Georgia, the Palestinian territories, Mali, Ukraine, and moments of hope like the Arab Spring, unfortunately, have fallen short of the expectations and indeed in some cases turned into a nightmare. And of course Russia's aggression in Ukraine has dramatically changed the situation. And of course at the most immediate crisis we're facing is the migrant crisis, or should I really say, the refugee crisis. It's not the purpose of my talk today. I have some prepared notes and they will be distributed and I talk about this subject at a little bit greater length, but I don't want to dwell on it here other than to say that this is certainly a huge challenge for Europe. And not just in the traditional sense of the word challenge, because it goes to the heart of the moral narrative we claim for why Europe is a force for good in the world. And I realize how complex this discussion is. I know how sensitive it is and we should not minimize the sensitivities and we should not minimize some of the fears which our citizens feel faced with with what is happening. On the other hand, we have to put it into context. The numbers coming to Europe are a fraction of those having to be received in the neighboring countries of Syria. They are a fraction of our total population. We are, and I always like to remind my American friends, we are the largest economy in the world. When America and China argue whose economy is the biggest, they're actually arguing for second or third place. It sits not very well with the largest economy in the world to say that it's beyond our ability to offer refuge and shelter to several hundred thousand people fleeing conflict and war in an unprecedented situation. I think there's a lot that's hugely positive. The naval service has done great service in the Mediterranean. Huge generosity from the Italian and Greek people being in the front line, even at times of economic difficulty. Some words of difficulty in Hungary, but look at the outpouring in Germany and in Austria. This is the response we need and I know that President Junker is going to come forward with a very ambitious set of proposals from the European Commission this week. And I sincerely hope that the people of Europe and the governments of Europe can respond to this, not just with intellectual and legal and economic arguments, but frankly with arguments from the heart about what defines our very existence as Europeans and everything that we say we stand for in terms of welcome commitment to human rights, openness and humanitarian gestures. It's easy to send money to have people housed elsewhere. It's slightly more challenging to have them in your own your own backyard and that's the challenge we're going to be faced with and I'm absolutely certain that the people of Europe and the institutions of Europe will respond to that challenge in a very constructive way. In all of this and all of these many challenges the unity between the United States and the European Union has been absolutely crucial. I cite two examples, the case of Ukraine, where I think no one expected the degree of unity which was maintained firstly by Herman Van Rompuy and then by Donald Tusk and by the Commission and the high representative, Federica Mogherini, in having a united transatlantic response to the challenge posed by Russian aggression in Ukraine. This is an extremely difficult situation, but one where we have managed to maintain very close unity and in so doing I believe we've sent a very strong message. Another example I can cite is the case of Iran. They were mainly the European sanctions which brought Iran back to the table to discuss how we could craft a diplomatic and political solution to a potential acquisition by Iran of military nuclear capability which would have been a massive game changer in the entire balance of power of the Middle East. With strong support from the United States, with three of our member states, Britain, the UK and France, and a coalition of France and Germany, shared by the high representative, initially Xavier Hollana, actually then Cathy Ashton and now brought to a successful conclusion by Federica Mogherini, we have managed to craft a remarkably successful diplomatic outcome which is a victory for diplomacy, for politics, for common sense. And I'm delighted to say that it now looks as if this will be approved by the United States and that this plan can go forward. But without strong unity between the United States and Europe, this would not have been possible. And I think we increasingly realize that we are the ones who have more in common with each other than either of us have in common with anybody else when it comes to values, democracy, human rights, rule of law, individual liberties, market economy principles. And this is I hope going to guide us as we go forward into the 21st century. And I know that this is going to apply regardless of the administration in office in the United States. And we say that watching with great interest the election year which is coming up. And I'm very fortunate as ambassador to have a ringside seat in what is one of the greatest pieces of political theater that you can possibly imagine as the glory of an American presidential election. So it's against this background that I wanted to talk about TTIP and the transatlantic trade and investment partnership which we are seeking to craft. As Dan has said, the Atlantic corridor is the largest economic corridor in the world. And this is sometimes forgotten. We are much more heavily invested in each other than either of us are anywhere else in the world. And that includes Asia, important though Asia is and should and will be for both of us. It is true in terms of flow of goods. It's true particularly in terms of investment as this country knows extremely well. We account for nearly half of world GDP and nearly a third of world trade flows. So no other commercial artery in the world is as integrated or as valuable. But we cannot rest on our laurels. We know that the rest of the world is moving, the emerging countries are moving, the bricks are changing the nature of the global supply chain. And we have to embrace further integration into the 21st century. We would have preferred of course to do this on the back of a successful outcome in Geneva of multilateral liberalization. Unfortunately that was not the case but we are continuing to work in that direction. But never forget that even if we had a successful multilateral liberalization, we would not have been able to address the full range of issues that you need to address in modern trade in order to have a successful and ambitious agreement. Issues such as government procurement, issues such as intellectual property including geographical indications, issues such as regulatory cooperation or cooperation in the area of rules, competition rules, labor standards, environmental standards. These are not issues that we could have addressed in Geneva anyway. So we are really building an hope to build an extremely ambitious trade deal which was launched indeed at the G8 meeting in Lockhearn in 2013. So we've been negotiating basically for two years. This is not an extremely long time. A typical trade deal takes between five to six years. We've just concluded an extremely ambitious agreement with Canada and that took six years. I was fortunate to do a fairly ambitious deal at the time, still a fairly high benchmark of a trade deal with South Korea in 2000 and 2009. But of course we were able to do that in two and a half years but that was on the back of an existing deal between Korea and America which gave us a template and a model on which to work. So we are not yet necessarily reaching the end game in these trade negotiations but I think we have to understand what it is that this deal can bring for us. One in seven jobs in Europe is linked to exports and these are for the most part highly skilled, better paid jobs and while the overall EU-US economic relationship supports around 14 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, Europe's exports to the US in the area of chemicals, medical devices and IT sectors, all important to Ireland, support about 4.7 million good quality jobs. TTIP will be a powerful shot in the arm for Ireland as it rebuilds its economy on a more diversified, sustainable basis. Ireland is an export nation. It exports 80% of everything it produces. Tens of thousands of Irish jobs depend on foreign trade and the US is a vital export market. In 2013, 20% of all Irish exports went to the US. The value of food and drink exports alone was over 500 million euros. In fact, for the agricultural sector, Europe has a strong surplus in the area of processed manufactured agricultural products going to the United States. The pattern of trade is the US exports commodities, we export rather successfully to the United States, high value quality processed agricultural products. Of course also, as everybody well knows, US firms are playing an important role in Ireland's economic recovery with very heavy investments. With only 1% of the EU population, Ireland accounts for more than 14% of all US investment in the EU, investment that supports around 100,000 jobs. TTIP will make it easier for US companies to invest in Ireland and vice versa. And of course, the agreement is a strategic alliance with a country, as I've said, who is an important partner in political and security matters. So where do the negotiations stand? Well, to be honest with you, we have been working our way through the very boring parts of trade negotiations. I know that people like to think there's a huge public interest in TTIP. I've never seen such public interest in a trade negotiation and I was director general for five years. I sometimes find it difficult to convey how utterly boring trade negotiations are. And I think unfortunately those who now follow the trade negotiations are discovering just how boring they are and they're therefore convinced that we're hiding something from them, because there must be something more exciting going on. I think sometimes people think that trade negotiations are like a tennis match. Celia Malstrom serves, Mike Froman returns, rushes to the net, there's a lob, there's a smash. I have a competition ongoing in Washington as to which sport really catches the utter tedium of trade negotiations. My first suggestion was cricket, but a British colleague said to me, wait a minute, cricket is far too exciting to be compared. So the competition is open, ladies and gentlemen, you're welcome to make your suggestions. The serious point I'm making is that those people who want to watch these negotiations, and by the way, everything is now on the web, the commission has taken the unprecedented decision to publish all of our texts, everything that's going on is out there, and unfortunately there is no secret. It is what it is. It is working your way tediously through what will eventually be a thousand pages of fairly boring, detailed texts about tariff schedules, about quotas, about service schedules, about government procurement rules and regulations, about intellectual property. Of course, when you get to the end there's an exciting debate about whether you eliminate 100% of your tariffs or 99% of your tariffs because the people who are in the 1% of the tariffs have an economic interest. Of course when you get to the end there will be an argument about just how big the beef quota is going to be. I understand that, that's when it gets interesting, but believe me, that comes right at the end and in the meantime you're just having these endless working groups working their way through and that's what we're doing. And unfortunately this just takes time and that's where we are. We're doing the boring, tedious stuff of preparing the ground for a political end game which we hope may yet come next year still in the life of this administration but it will not come for certainly many months. But I want to emphasize that there is a lot that we can get from TTIP. It will certainly be hugely important for the reduction of tariffs and the opening up of the services industry which is very important. But it will also be very importantly dealing with regulatory issues. And here I think we can have a win for our regulators and particularly for small businesses if we can eliminate unnecessary duplication, unnecessary costs of doing business across the Atlantic which do not add value in terms of the protection of consumer rights or the protection of health and safety rights. Take the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries, some 55,000 people work directly for these sectors in Ireland. Irish industry is highly competitive. But pharmaceutical factories whether in Rinkerskiddy or New Jersey already follow the same international rules on good manufacturing practices. But if you've ticked all the boxes in Europe you can't export your product to the United States. You have to go back and tick the same boxes there and vice versa. We really have to see whether this is actually adding value in terms of consumer safety or protection or whether we could actually reduce the cost of doing business by only having one check to the same rules. The same is true for medical devices and the same is true for many other products. Automobiles is another area where basically cars are pretty much the same on both sides of the Atlantic. But you can't actually export an American car to Europe or you can't export an American registered car to the United States because of very small differences in the specifications. Now of course I recognize that there are concerns and I'd like to just touch on one or two of those. Firstly the point Dan made is important. I'm a huge believer in free trade. I'm an economist by training. I think I consider myself a sort of spoiled economist at this point having spent so much of my life in a bureaucracy. But there's one thing I'm not sure if economics is a science but there is one thing I know is that the law of comparative advantage is true. Even if a country can produce everything it needs it will be economically better off if it only produces that at which it is most efficient and it imports the rest. Trade makes everybody wealthier but it is a disruptor. There are winners, there are losers. Jobs are created in different sectors to those in which they may be lost. They may be created in different regions than the regions in which they are lost. So you need accompanying policies. You need accompanying policies of education and training. You need labour market policies. You need regional development policies. All the apparatus of public policy to help people through the adjustment. In the United States they have the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act with the same objective, helping people smooth their way through the transition because trade does disrupt. But without trade we will all be poorer. We will still lose those jobs. We will still ultimately be less competitive but we will not have the benefit of the advantages which help smooth the transition. So in that sense I firmly believe that this deal will be hugely beneficial both for the United States and to Europe. But there are two issues I just want to touch on briefly which I know are of concern. One is regulatory standards. There is no question of reducing our regulatory standards on either side of the Atlantic. This is not a deregulatory agenda or a race to the bottom, quite the contrary. Both of us are hugely attached to our high standards of environmental, consumer and other standards and we are not going to give up on those. What we are seeing is where we can get more interoperability between comparable standards in order to reduce the cost of doing business. Secondly, the subject that Dan mentioned which I frankly hesitate to raise because if you think trade negotiations are tedious there is hardly a more tedious subject than that of investor state dispute settlement. Which is something I now know more about than I ever thought I would need to. All I want to say is this, investor state dispute settlement has been a feature of every bilateral investment treaty agreed since they first began 40 years ago. They have existed for 40 years. I have never heard any great controversy about it. It's a provision which exists to protect foreign investors against unfair discrimination by a national government where recourse to the national court would not succeed because of course it's a measure which has legally been adopted by the country in question. The classic example is the expropriation of foreign assets by a government which nationalizes them. There is nobody saying that you can't nationalize the assets but you have to pay the company compensation otherwise it's theft. There is no point in going to a national court to get redressed for international arbitration system. That is what investor state dispute settlement was all about. I recognize that times have moved on and creative lawyers of course are tempted to use these measures for perhaps rather more complex processes such as Philip Morris taking a case against Australia for plane packaging tobacco. A case still unresolved by the way we don't know how that's going to come out. So the commission has launched a process of consultation and is willing to suggest adjusting this system to make it a bit more transparent to professionalize the system of the arbitrators to make sure there's no conflict of interest between people one day being a trade litigator the next day being an arbitrator to allow civil society to be a participant in the process and generally to renovate if you like the whole process of investor state dispute settlement. But let there be no mistake about it. We're still going to need this investor against discrimination. I'm told that we should recognize that in Europe and the United States our legal systems are perfect there will never be a problem. I just point out that there is no law in the United States which prohibits discrimination against foreign investors. There is no law which prohibits that. I'm not saying it would ever happen but I'm saying it could happen. Equally in the United States I don't believe that any companies investing in Europe if they did not feel it at the end of the day they would have recourse to some form of arbitration if they felt that they were being unfairly discriminated against relative to European producers. And the most important argument it seems to me is that if we do not have such a clause in our agreement between the United States and Europe how are we going to insist on having it with other countries. People say well you judge the system. Well good luck with that when you start negotiating with a third country and the first thing you have to do is decide what you think of their legal system. We may feel it's obvious that we're not going to trust the Chinese legal system maybe. How are we going to feel about the Brazilian legal system? How are we going to feel about the Thai legal system? Are we seriously suggesting that every time we negotiate an investment treaty we're going to have an intellectual debate about the quality of the partner's legal system in order to decide whether we need a protection for foreign investors. I think this would be an absolutely impossible situation in which to put ourselves. So I think these are all the reasons why we need to retain this clause but with many safeguards proposed by the commission and the commission paper has been well received by the parliament and by the member states and it will be the subject of I hope a political agreement and a legal agreement in the next few weeks and we can then make that the platform with which we continue our discussions on this issue with the United States. The point I want to make is this, for the moment TTIP doesn't exist. It is a treaty in negotiation. Many of the opponents who say to me I'm opposed to TTIP and I say why are you opposed to TTIP? Because it's going to make GMOs to our babies because it's going to force us to accept hormone fed beef. It's going to deny us the right to regulate for health and safety. It's going to undermine the ability of government to determine our regulatory environment. Ladies and gentlemen, if that's what TTIP means I'm against it. I promise you I would never support such an agreement but that is never going to happen. It is not what the trade agreement is going to look like. It's not what the mandate is. It's not what the Americans are talking about. It's not what we're talking about. And anyone who wants to see that you can just look on the website and you can see what we're talking about and none of this is there. And final point is this agreement will be subject to the ultimate democratic safeguard of having to be approved unanimously by 28 member states, of having to be approved by a majority of the European Parliament and having to be ratified by each and every of our 28 member states. And by the way in the case of some of them it will have to be ratified by several parliaments. In Belgium it will have to be ratified by six parliaments. So when people say to me this is undemocratic, ladies and gentlemen my problem is I think it may even be too democratic. But it is going to be subject to full democratic control when the final text is agreed and before it ever enters into force or becomes law. So I really want to say that this is an agreement which has the potential to make a huge difference to our political relations to be a win-win situation for the American economy, for the European economy, to strengthen our transatlantic ties at a time when in a situation of international disorder we remain the two pillars of world stability and the respect for multilateral institutions and the rule of law and it will be a good deal economically because otherwise it will not be accepted neither in the United States nor in Europe and our negotiators know that. So I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that I have succeeded in presenting to you the challenge of this negotiation, the opportunities, some of the risks I'm sure, but also the fact that all the safeguards are there to make sure that in the end this will be the same kind of quality, robust, fair, equitable and democratically approved trade deal which Europe has been managing over the last 20 years. We live by trade in Europe and our trade agenda is one of the most ambitious in the world. If Celia Malstrom succeeds in completing the range of negotiations which she has on her table at the present time from Japan to an investment agreement with China, to revamping our agreement, to finalizing with Canada, to revamping our free trade agreement with Mexico, with Mercasur, revamping our trade agreement with Chile, concluding with Vietnam which we've just done, concluding with Malaysia and Singapore which we have also done and perhaps even more ambitiously in other parts of the world, Europe will be at the centre of the world's largest hub of free trade ever seen and that believe me will be a huge contribution to our future prosperity and our future ability to be a force for good in the world and TTIP will be a very, very important part of that agenda. Thank you very much indeed.