 And I welcome everybody here today. It's great to see so many people participating in this event. We're particularly delighted to be joined by Peter Altmaier, who's the former federal minister for economic affairs and energy, and many things as well. One of the most experienced German politicians of his generation. He'll speak to us for about 20 minutes and then we move into a discussion with the audience. All of this will be on the record. In putting your questions, please use the question and answer function. And I would encourage you to put your questions in as soon as possible. I suspect they cover a lot of ground and it would be helpful for the discussion if I was able to group them a bit. So if you could cooperate in that, it would be very helpful. And if you want to tweet, use the hashtag IIEA. So now I will formally introduce Peter Altmaier. As I say, one of the most experienced politicians of his generation, he's been a leading politician for more than two decades. He was a wholehearted supporter of Chancellor Merkel and was involved therefore in most of the crucially controversial political decisions in the EU and Germany during her tenure as chancellor. He served as federal minister for economic affairs and energy, acting minister of finance, minister in the chancellery, minister of the environment. He was chief whip and began his political career as state secretary in the ministry of the interior. By a profession, he's a lawyer. And before becoming a member of the Bundestag, he was actually a functionary in the European commission. So I'm going to hand over to him and we look forward very much to what you have to say to us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine, for this kind introduction. Thank you all, ladies and gentlemen. When I was contacted via email by Emily Vinci, some days, even after the end of my political career, I gladly and immediately accepted the invitation. And because I have such a longstanding relationship with Ireland, it all began more than 1,000 years ago. I don't know, holy Orana, she has been an Irish woman and she has brought us to Christianity. She made us Catholic beings in the eight centuries after Christ. Remainants are buried in my constituency. And I have even hosted a group of EU commission civil servants from Ireland, traveling to St. Orana in my constituency. I met I've worked for an Irish commissioner, Patrick Flynn, when I served as a civil servant in the European Commission, not in his cabinet, but in one of his directorates. I met with John Bruton in 1994, when he was a T-shock, and later on in the European Convention, where we drafted a European constitution. I met with Enda Kenney, when he was an opposition leader, Leo Varadka, even recently, when he was the Minister of Trade, and I was dealing with trade as well in my capacity in the last government of Angela Merkel. Phil Hogan was a counterpart when he was a Minister of the Environment. And during the Irish presidency, he organized for us a guided tour in the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. That was unforgettable. And later we worked together, as well as Pascal Donoghau, who is now the President of the Eurogroup. And I must say that over all these years, when it comes to European policy, making the Irish have never been the problem. They have always been part of the solution. And that is something that has impressed me very much. And I have a personal souvenir of your institute, because I was an invited guest speaker. Then I worked in the Convention when I was a parliamentary State Secretary. I do not remember the date. It is between 15 and 20 years ago. But I still remember the venue. It was very distinguished. And it was a lovely atmosphere. Today, you have chosen the title for our discussion that couldn't be more precise. When we make, when we do a rational analysis of the European Union's tasks and challenges, I think everybody will agree that in its 70 years long history, the European Union has never, ever seen such enormous, multiple, and unprecedented challenges than today. It all started in 2008, 2009 with the banking crisis that we have controlled, but not brought to an end for all times. That's not possible. It continued with the sovereign debt and euro crisis, where Ireland was doing a great, great job at taking difficult decisions. We are all facing, for three decades, at least the climate crisis. That is the biggest threat for the younger generation and the planet. We are facing a technological transformation. That's not new, but it is in a way disruptive, as it has never been before. When you, when you, let's look at the German car, upper-class car produced, manufactured in Germany, we will still have cars in 10 or 20 years time, but different gadgets, no combustion engine anymore, electricity instead of fossil fuel. We will have artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, and many other innovations that are going to change the world. It is not just IT and digital revolution. It is biotech. It is all that is related to the disruptive tendencies in Europe and in the world. The question is, who is going to lead this revolution? Germany, my country, as a company of engineers, was used for almost 120 years to play a leading role in all these innovation processes. It was the first time when microprocessors were invented. We lost that role. Today, most of the innovations are being done in the US, in China, and elsewhere in Asia. This technological innovation can lead to a geographical disruptive transformation. When I was a student 40 years ago, the economic world consisted merely of the United States, Europe, and Japan. Then we saw the emerging power of South Korea. Today, China, that was seen as a developing country 40 years ago, has become one of the most innovative, highly technology-oriented countries with rapid economic growth. The question is, who is going to be the leading economic and financial center of the civilized world in 20, 30 years from now? It is decided right now, not in a long-term future. In the middle of all the challenges, now we have COVID-19 and we have this terrible war in Ukraine. This Russian aggression, this war that comes from Russia, from its president, Putin, and that has brought so much misery, so much violence, so much destruction to this innocent country that no one was able to imagine. Of course, we all have seen the illegal annexation of Crimea eight years ago. We all have seen the war in the Donbas the same year. We knew that Russia would possibly not tolerate enlargement of NATO by Ukraine, but nobody could imagine a hot war under such cruel, inhuman conditions that we are seeing now. And I think that one lesson that we should have learned is, under such circumstances, solidarity with Ukraine is key. I'm not interfering with my governments or European unions or NATO politics. That is not my role being a political pensioner for four months now already. No, my role is, however, to appeal to public opinion, to work behind the curtains in a way that we all realize that people in Ukraine who knew, who know that we would never enter a war when a non-NATO country is involved, but that people in Ukraine know that they can rely on us as far as humanitarian help is concerned, as far as reconstruction after the war is concerned, and of course, as far as solidarity is concerned, as far as the export of weapons is concerned. I know there are lots of debates on details, and as I said, I cannot interfere, but it is an important issue and we have to spend perhaps, and that is what I'm afraid of for some weeks, perhaps even months, a lot of attention, how we can make life a little bit easier for the poor country that suffers so enormously. And then the next question, the next question is why did this happen in our time? Why did this most cruel war occur in Europe since the end of the Second World War? Would we have had the chance to avoid it? And what was the mistake that was made? I think that will be debated by institutes like yours when the war is over. I think now we have more urgent things, but I can tell you there was a debate about it. When Crimea was annexed, we have adopted sanctions. We have stopped exporting weapons to Russia. France had built two aircraft carriers for Russia that were already paid. They were never delivered to them. We have expelled Russia from G8, became G7. We have decided as European Union economic sanctions, perhaps not severe enough, yes, that is something we will have to discuss. But I can tell you, as somebody who was, of course, in dialogue with the representatives of the European, not just the German, but the European private sector all the time, there were a lot of complaints why these sanctions were not lifted. And we always have argued they will be lifted as soon as the illegal situation with regard to Crimea has come to an end. And as soon as people in the Donbas can be integral part of Ukraine again. We have negotiated the Minsk agreements. France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia is a so-called Normandy format because under President Obama, our American friends did not want to be involved in the crisis. But this Minsk agreement was never respected not by Russia. It was not transposed by the two sides. And the question is, have we become a little bit too much taken by COVID-19, by Euro crisis, and other events? Why did we not insist on major initiatives over the last couple of years? And the next question is, what are we going to do? And in the 20 minutes, you have given to me just a few proposals. First of all, it seems to be clear for me that Europe has to revisit all its defense policies. In Germany, we have spent too little for defense for many, many years. There was a consequence of the enormous cost of German unification, 3 billion, 3,000 billion Euro, and the cost of energy transition that is underway for more than two decades in my country. We have to discuss when we increase military spending, how to use it, how to organize it. Would we be able to respond to aggression from outside EU and NATO? Would we be in a position to defend ourselves without recurring to the atomic nuclear threat? When I was a soldier in compulsory military service in the German army almost 45 years ago, then we were told, oh no, we do not have to have that capability to defend ourselves. We have the nuclear deterrence. And now we see that conventional wars are becoming possible again at a scale that we never expected to happen. We will have to discuss in this context energy supply. And I am very much impressed when I see that people say, oh you are dependent on Russia. Please end the dependency from Russia. Yes, of course. But the point is that Germany has been energy dependent for 70 years now during all his history. 70% of our primary energy consumption is imported. Nuclear elements, oil, gas, and coal. The only thing we are producing in Germany is renewable energies and soft coal. That is the situation. It means we will always be energy dependent. And even when the ecological transformation will succeed, countries, densely populated countries like Germany and others in Europe will remain dependent, especially because Germany is still a largely exporting country. We are producing the goods from many countries in the world. And this is energy intensive. And therefore, we have to say, well, if we substitute so-called dependence from Russia, will we then accept dependence on Qatar or states in the Gulf region instead? Or do we rely in the future? What the Trump administration always wanted us to do on shell gas from the US? I have no doubt that we can trust our American allies. But my green climate activists are pretending all the time that shell gas is more damaging to the climate than even soft coal or hard coal would be. So in Germany, nuclear energy is not accepted. It has been the founding myth of the Green Party to end nuclear energy. It was decided twice. And in 2011, by a large majority in parliament, and that means the question is, we still have three remaining power plants, and it's not so much to build new ones. Look at France, look at the United Kingdom, look at Finland, to build new ones takes more than 20 years. So the point is, the point is, what will be our answer short term? When I was dealing with renewable energies and energy transition as a minister of the environment 10 years ago in the transferry and as a minister for energy and economy the last four years, then I was convinced I would have or we would have a solution. We would say, okay, many, many renewable energies, but we cannot produce in our own country because it is too small to densely populated. We can produce in neighboring countries like Ukraine, like Poland, we can produce it in Australia and Canada and import it as a green hydrogen. We were as a first European country having a green hydrogen strategy, but green hydrogen, we become an alternative in 10 years time when it comes to quantities. And gas has become expensive and we are dependent. That is something that we have to discuss. And then we have coal. And I already mentioned that this is seen as one of the most dangerous climate problems at all. So what we need is a European consensus on it. In the convention where I worked with John Prudin, I remember that my red cream coalition government of Chancellor Schroeder at the time was vigorously against a joint European energy policy. For one simple reason, they wanted to switch off the nuclear power plants and therefore we said the energy mix is up to each country concerned, but can we implement the green deal by just accepting that every country is implemented its own energy policy. This brings me to my next thesis. We have decided the green deal two years ago. It was an enormous step and it was a successful step. Today, the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea have committed to the same objective and goal and aim to end the CO2 emissions by 2050. Germany has even been, as sometimes happens, a little bit more ambitious. We have decided last year that we will come to an end by 2045. And that means this energy transition, this climate transition, this green deal, is of utmost importance. And my thesis is no single European state has already a concept, a strategy, and a timetable on how to achieve the consecutive steps that are necessary. When I had the debate as a minister last summer with a gas supplier in the big cities, Gazak in Berlin, most of the apartments are heated by gas. And then I said, oh, what are you going to do? Because natural gas is not an alternative and queen nitrogen would be very expensive. The answer was, oh, we are now starting experiments. You will look how this and this works. I said, okay, but you have a city of almost three million people. You have hundreds of thousands of flats and apartments and buildings. You have to be ready before 2045. Did you ever realize what that means? You have to renew the entire infrastructure to replace one by another. And this is something that will be the case in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Poland, in all the European countries. We are very serious about energy transition and climate protection and green deal. Yes, we are. We were serious when we decided it. That was at least my conviction. I would, perhaps, not have been that ambitious. We had climate targets as a European Union before. A little bit less ambitious, minus 80% by 2050. But that was an enormous difference between 80% and 100% reduction. You have not 20% gap. The gap is huge and immense, because the higher hanging fruits are the most difficult fruits to be harvested. And therefore, it will cost a lot of money, a lot of GDP. We have to strengthen our economies. We have to make sure that Europe remains competitive, that Europe remains an industrial power. And that requires a lot of progress in the area of digitization, internet of things, the normal machinery, the normal industrial products and industrial machines can no longer be used without advanced digital technology. And therefore, I have tabled an industrial strategy as a minister in my country. I was heavily criticized by parts of the business sector. I had to defend myself. Today, we have a European industrial strategy, fortunately, and we have realized that Europe has to be become, in a certain way, technologically independent. What does it mean? It does not mean autonomy. We are living in an interconnected, interdependent global economy, more than ever. But Europe will have to make sure from the production of medical face masks and battery cells and semiconductors and microprocessors to other sensitive products, we have to make sure that Europe still is and remains one of the strongest economic regions worldwide. And we have to answer the geostrategic question. I will not answer it. I will just ask it. And the geostrategic question is, what countries do we consider in the future as our friends? And which ones do we consider as our enemies? I know that because I have dealt with so many Eastern European governments in Poland, in Ukraine, in the Baltic states. And when I argued at the beginning of my political career, that Russia has to become a democracy, because democracies are not aggressive in 99% of the cases at least. And you can rely on a democracy. And that is the best peace guarantee for all of us. Then I was contradicted by Vytautas Lansberges, by my friends in Ukraine and others, who suffered for more than 40 years under communist oppression. And they said, oh, no, it was not communism. It was Russia. Russia is evil. You may never trust Russia. And this was a substantial divergence between some of the countries in Western Europe with freedom and democracy after the wars of the Second World War and others in Eastern Europe suffering from communist and Soviet oppression. And then the next point is, what about China? What about India? What about the US? What about the Gulf region? And I know there are people in think tanks very concerned about the possible new bloc emerging between Russia, China, and India. China would have the technological capacities, Russia's raw materials and the energy, and India, the workforce, the labor force. And when you look at the reactions on our decisions in the Ukrainian war now, then it is interesting to see how reluctant India and China are behaving. Three or four years ago, the Trump administration, the biggest enemy, was China. Can we afford, as Ireland, as France, as Germany, to say, okay, it is China and India and Russia? And perhaps the United States and Mr. Trump is reelected in three years' time. I'm not so sure. Responsible politics means that you have to decide on cooperation, that you have to decide on alliances, that you have to make choices. These choices cannot be made by politicians alone. We need your advice. We need your expertise. And that is something that cannot wait until the next crisis, the crisis will arrive. We have to discuss it as soon as the hot war in Ukraine is over. Finally, and lastly, I'm not pessimistic. I'm optimistic. The European Union is still the best functioning economic integration model the world has ever seen. We have managed to survive crisis. We have managed to survive the euro crisis. We have managed to create and to have the single market in an impressive way. And even if Ireland is not in a very specific situation for many, many years, for us as the UK, we have implemented the Schellen area very successfully. And we have the euro. We have so many, so many benefits from that. And I think we have to remind ourselves the strengths and successes of the past in order to define the areas of action for the future. And the last point, please discuss once again decision-making processes in EU. They are excellent, but they are much too slow. And the European Union is not capable for what we call in computer language multitasking. We've always one problem that is consuming, eating up all our attention in the European Council. COVID-19, the euro crisis, the green deal, now it is Ukraine. But we will have to be able to deal with four or five challenges at a time. Otherwise, we can achieve something, but possibly too late and too little. And that would be not in the interest of the Irish people, of the German people, and any other people in Europe. And therefore, thank you for all your valuable work. Thank you for your attention. And I'm now looking forward to your questions.