 I think most of you are aware of David's very distinguished biography. He serves as chief operating officer of the European External Action Service. He served as director general of the DGD trade commission, secretary general of the commission, as cabinet of the commission, because he would not recruit a director general of education and training. He says he began his career in the Irish foreign ministry, joining the commission in 1999. If my right direction was correct, David, did you actually start with the Department of Agriculture? I should probably not see me somewhere else. So with a great advantage of such as that, it's perhaps no wonder that you have gone on to such things. It's wonderful how it's such a good career. Well, David has been a great friend of the Institute here over many years, and we're very much looking forward to his address. Well, thank you very much, Tom. It has been a great pleasure to be here. And thank you for refreshing my CV. Indeed, I did start in the international trade section of the Commonwealth Training, but that will be for the memoirs on another occasion. My experience is there, and their experience will be by the way. It's great to be back and it's great to have this opportunity once again to be at the Institute. So it's nice to come to Dublin. And at least now that I'm living in Washington, it's nice to be able to fly back and forth and pre-clearance that Dublin Airport makes arriving in Washington infinitely more pleasurable. The last time I came through, the gentleman from the Customs and Border Protection Service looked at my passport and he was on my visa and my title is there, and he said, Sorry, what exactly is this? The European investor? He said, well, don't they have all the countries out of that? If we also have a European investor, he said, Oh, it's very interesting, and then he took me and said, Don't you have to be German to have that job? Which I thought was very prescient of him, but I tried to explain to other nationalities but also to have jobs in the EU and so on. He looked slightly like this. Okay, the other, the theme of course today is transatlantic relations after Brexit, which is not exactly the theme I suggested, but I'm happy to talk to it. I, of course, it takes me into the two things that whenever I speak in the United States I have to stand up and talk about it. I have to practice all my speeches all this year in the United States. Two things I can't talk to you about are the American elections, which are appropriate for diplomats to comment on domestic politics and Brexit, because of course that's a matter of thought for the UK. Well, if we haven't at least had the Brexit vote, we still haven't yet had the vote in the United States. And my standard line is that, of course, we watch with great interest what is happening in the United States. I have to say it's a remarkable privilege to be in the United States at this time and to watch the vibrancy of American democracy at work, and that's not said with any cynicism, genuinely. I had the pleasure along with many other diplomats of attending the two conventions, and it is a remarkable political process. But of course, we can comment on the outcome, and my standard line is to say that I hope the American people will choose wisely. But I was explaining to some colleagues earlier that when I said this at a meeting in Brussels, and then I was asked, what do you think about Mr. Trump's remarks about NATO, I think, or something? I said, I'm sorry, I can't possibly comment, but I do hope the American people will choose wisely. The headline by the Reuters reporter at that meeting was, U.N. Voice says, Trump's candidacy poses challenge for wisdom of U.S. voters. So, as you can imagine, this requires me to be extremely prudent in what I say about any of the U.S. elections. But obviously, in transatlantic relations, the outcome of that election is going to be crucial for setting the agenda for transatlantic relations for the coming period. I'll come back to that maybe before the end. I mean, my sort of scorecard, I'm two years in Washington, and my sort of scorecard of transatlantic relations is certainly, you know, 8 or 9 out of 10. I think the relationship is actually a very good shape. On the positive side, we've had, for example, the Iran deal, which was a non-precedented degree of cooperation between the EU and our member states and the United States in brokering that remarkable deal on putting nuclear weapons beyond Iran's reach. We also played, I think, quite an important role in Washington in trying to shape the response there, particularly of Congress, and myself and my German and British and French colleagues spent a lot of time going up on the hill explaining the deal from a European perspective, not interfering in the American process, but I think we contributed to the outcome which enabled this deal finally to be approved and we are now responsible on the European side for overseeing its implementation, but we're not really in this general action service, as the responsibility of overseeing the implementation and that's proceeding well. It's important, I think, to recall that the basis of that deal was particularly the European sanctions against Iran. The US had adopted sanctions, there were UN sanctions, but it was the severity of the European sanctions that really brought Iran back to the table and some of those sanctions caused quite a lot of hardship among European countries. Greece, I remember, had to give up entirely importing the Iranian oil at a time when it was its single and most important source of cheap oil and that campaign was taken by European countries, I think, genuinely out of the sense of commitment to the international community and the need to achieve an important, important goal. The same can be said, I think, of the reaction to Ukraine and Russia's behavior in the region. We have managed to maintain an unprecedented degree of transatlantic unity and European unity on this issue, which is not easy and complicated and not getting any easier, but there is strong transatlantic cooperation in the area of the Minsk Agreement and the finding a solution to Ukraine and, in the meantime, maintaining those sanctions. I would also mention climate change. The Paris Agreement was a very historic agreement, a possible, at least in part, by a major effort by the Obama Administration and the deal they made with China. Europe has been a leading advocate of climate change measures for about a hundred years and also contributed very hugely, I think, in Paris. And Greece was a success story of transatlantic cooperation in an area of growing importance. Another element of huge importance, which is sometimes controversial, but nonetheless, I think, a success story is the whole digital agenda, the whole issue of the digital market and transatlantic data flows and transatlantic cooperation in the digital area, which is going to be hugely important for both our economies. We had the hiccup of the judgment from the court, which, in the presence of a distinguished member of the court, I deferred to, but which caused quite some controversy today, but we were able to put together a new solution with the privacy shield. It was a tough negotiation, but I think it blew on. I believe that that new agreement would stand a test, which, undoubtedly, will come in the future, but in the meantime, we have created, we created a sense of certainty for companies dealing with data flows across the Atlantic, which is hugely in our interest. More generally, the area of the digital single market, which in my view has the potential, is probably one of the most important projects that the European Commission has launched in many years. The completion and the transformation of the European single market into a digital market has the potential to be hugely beneficial to American companies based here. I always emphasize in the United States that we greatly welcome the presence of large American digital companies here who are well established, provide employment, and indeed, under our own treaties, are actually European companies, as much as they are American companies. That's a very valuable contribution to our economic and social and employment life. Of course, that doesn't mean that they can't be subject to our rules, and that is an ongoing debate, which I know will be the subject of further discussion as the Commission comes forward later this month with more proposals on the digital single market. I try to explain to our American colleagues that the approach we're taking is to create a single digital market, but it cannot be a place where the digital sphere is unregulated. There's no reason why the digital sphere should be some kind of unregulated space in comparison with the rest of the economy. Now, the issue is to get the balance right between the burdens of regulation and the importance of innovation and moving with the technology and recognizing that regulating a high technology area is not easy given the speed of change. But I believe that the digital single market will have a hugely positive effect for Europe and also for the United States. Getting the interface of the two jurisdictions is sometimes going to be complex, and privacy is undoubtedly one of those areas which is going to continue to challenge us. I think privacy shield is a good response, but this is also a moving target. And I think the sort of, you know, Americans are from Venus and Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus. The approach is not true. I don't think Americans are more concerned about security than about privacy. I don't think Europeans are more concerned about privacy than about security. On both sides of the Atlantic, we're struggling to find the correct way of balancing the issue of privacy as a fundamental human right and the issue of security and the different concerns of our security enforcement agencies to be able to access the necessary information to protect our people. This is a common concern on both sides of the Atlantic. We do it in slightly different ways and getting the inter-connectivity between our respective ways of doing it and also to providing the kind of platform for a transatlantic digital market that we know we need for both of us. This brings me into the area of terrorism and security where we have seen unprecedented cooperation transatlantically in response to the tragic events both in the United States and in Europe and elsewhere. We should not forget the terrorism conflicts in the Middle East infinitely more than it does either in the EU or the US. But still it is a huge problem for us and we are working very closely. I have a few people in my delegation from Europol, one from an Irish man, who worked very closely with the US law enforcement agencies and we now have, I turn to our colleague from the US mission, we have 10 or 15 US law enforcement agencies with a physical presence in the in Europol actively working on transatlantic cooperation in this whole area which is intelligent sharing and pooling of information which is absolutely crucial to fight against terrorism. On the refugee crisis as well we have of course had a particular challenge here in Europe but I think we've had good cooperation with the United States in particularly trying to address the political issues at the root of the problem whether that's finding a solution in Syria or in Libya and of course we have the coalition along in the United States the EU is not an active military participant in the fight for the refugee crisis which is very much at the heart of the refugee crisis and finally we have a T-Jip and I read it where I do know it's very curfew here someone suggested during the week that maybe T-Jip had not succeeded I think trade negotiations take time we've been negotiating T-Jip for three years I think I've said here and I've said in other places the Canada agreement which we're in took nearly seven years we did conclude an agreement in South Korea in two and a half years but frankly it was on the back of a very good American deal with Korea which had not been ratified so we had an excellent template which enabled us to go very fast but the Koreans also had their own reasons for wanting to do that deal very very quickly typically an ambitious and complex deal of the kind we're talking about in T-Jip does take more than a few years continuing to work to see if this can still be completed this year with this administration I know that Cecilia Malistrom and Mike Froman are going to be meeting very regularly in the coming weeks to see if that is possible it's challenging but not impossible but frankly even if it is not achieved this year I do believe that this deal will come and I believe that it needs to be done it remains a very very important element for both the United States and the European Union whether a regulatory convergence greater economic cooperation the transatlantic economic corridor is the largest and most important corridor in the world by far and it would seem extremely paradoxical to me that with all the deals we're dealing with other people we could not do a trade deal with each other now I know when I saw in one of the Sunday newspapers over the weekend yet another article claiming that this would lead to a thorium standards the imposition of American food standards and so forth it's very difficult to argue against this until we actually have a text but I do ask people to look at the Canada Agreement which is a close template of what GTIP might look like and I defy anyone to find anything in that agreement which leads in the direction which some of the critics are saying there is not going to be a change in our rules on home beef or GMOs because of the trade deal that is simply not going to happen it's not going to happen in the United States they're not going to accept changes in their legislation because of the trade deal we're not going to accept changes in our legislation because of the trade deal and if you look at the Canada Agreement and those of you who are interested in GTIP should also take a close interest in the Canada Agreement because the Canada Agreement in my view is one of the most ambitious, comprehensive and potentially beneficial trade deals and to be very frank if we cannot sign and ratify and put into effect that trade agreement I doubt that we will have any credibility in the international trade circles going forward this is a hugely important moment of decision for European trade policy and I say this because I'm not the EU Ambassador to North America, I'm the EU Ambassador to Washington I have a very good colleague in Ottawa who will defend the Canada Agreement but because I really do believe that we debated in relation to this Canada Agreement will also be relevant to the GTIP when it comes to be decided and concluded so those are the very positive sides of transatlantic relations and I think that the relationship is in very good shape of course we have a general election in the United States and the single biggest determinant of the future direction of those relationships will be the outcome of that election and I already said what I can say and I'm not going to add for fear of somebody concocting another headline out of my comment but clearly this is a hugely important moment it's also, I have to say, remarkably entertaining when you're there in the United States but of course we have to bear in mind that it's not just political theater it actually has consequences for the American people but consequences for all of us I'm tempted to say sometimes in America that it's the greatest piece of political theater in the world and we were slightly jealous that we decided to organize Brexit on the European side to have a European co-production of political theater in fact the Brexit outcome as we all know is what it is I think we have to respect the decision of the British people, many of us may regret it personally, I deeply regret it deeply saddened me after nearly 35 years of European public service to think that a country would vote to leave but this is the decision, there's been a debate there's been a democratic vote it has to be respected on the other hand I think that our British colleagues have to respect the fact that this is a decision which does not just affect them it affects all the rest of us it has major consequences for the 27 and of course in those consequences we will have consequences for transatlantic relations and I know that many in the United States when they're not focusing on the election which is where their attention is primarily now are deeply concerned about what this means for the future integrity of the European continent the security posture in Europe the cooperation which we have of course on economics and trade but also on what we do in the area of military cooperation foreign policy security cooperation terrorism intelligence sharing, much of this is channeled through EU structures and processes and how that will affect the transatlantic relationship of deep concern to the American colleagues we also know that the United States of course wants to see the best outcome possible to this situation which reconciles the vote of the British people to leave the European Union with the need for the United Kingdom to remain closely engaged in the European continent and for the best possible relationships to be maintained between the UK and the 27 the biggest difficulty I think we have is the issue of uncertainty Uncertainty is the greatest enemy of us all particularly for business I did have a psychology lecture once and tried to persuade me that the definition of maturity was the ability to tolerate uncertainty I'm sure that's true but I think our maturity is going to be severely tested in the coming months and years it's not going to be easy to bring certainty to this situation any time soon we have to acknowledge that this is going to take time to work through we've never done this before no one has a perfect blueprint about how you might go about it there are so many innovative elements in any reflection you begin on this subject that is difficult to even know how to start and at the same time I think what people do want and hope for in the coming months is at least some clarity about the process and the beginnings of a process which offers a perspective of reaching an outcome in some kind of foreseeable time frame whether that be the two years about the 15th or whatever additional time frame is needed for the parallel discussions on forging a new relationship between the United Kingdom, the longer a full member of the EU and the rest of us so in all of this uncertainty I think is going to be the greatest difficulty it's going to have a huge Chilean effect on investment decisions maybe industry will grow more custom to the uncertainty and start then to reconsider these investment decisions but this is really our biggest challenge and in terms of transatlantic relationships obviously this poses a huge challenge for the United States which wants to maintain the best of relations with the UK, the best of relations with the 27 and individually and they frankly don't find themselves in a very comfortable position of trying to figure out how we're going to deal with this and I think it's in the first instance a European problem and we have to firstly get clarity as Europeans including the UK how we want to deal with this situation which respects the decision of the British people and the needs of the rest of us including the importance of maintaining the integrity of the EU and in fact put simply that there will be a difference between being the member of the European Union and not being a member of the European Union I don't have the answers today I hope nobody came hoping I would have the answers but this is going to be a major challenge in the next few months and how this deals with the council in Rabaslava with the European council in October we hope some greater clarity can be brought into the situation and we can see how we can also work with the United States to take into account their interests and desire to be to be helpful what I do think and what I would just like to conclude on is to say this that after two years in Washington I'm even more deeply convinced than I was when I went there about the importance of the value based agenda between us the economic relationship is important but at the end of the day when you look around the world we are probably the two major regions of the world I don't quite know what language to use because the United States is not a region it's a country we're a region who still hold to the fundamental values that underpin the world liberal order that was set up in the second hour of the 20th century and that is under threat it is under threat from outside alternative actors such as China such as Russia who have a different vision of how the world should develop and the values on which that international development should be based and frankly it's under threat from within I'm not going to comment on the United States election but you've seen the people who are voting for Bernie Sanders the people who are voting for Donald Trump these are not people who are necessarily supportive of the global liberal order which has brought so much prosperity and security to the west and also more globally and you see it in Europe the Brexit vote of course it was a vote about the European Union but it can take elements also of this unhappiness with globalization dissolution and portray with freedom of movement of persons this is the big debate of the coming years and I'm absolutely convinced that the United States and the European Union are an important role to play in defending those values internationally but also promoting them domestically in ways which are acceptable to our populations it's not going to be easy there are many challenges ahead but as Vice President Biden said when he addressed the Munich Security Conference last year and said that we are each other's best friend of first resort and I continue to believe that that will be the case going to the future Brexit or no Brexit whatever the American people decide I'm quite sure that those values and that alliance will remain absolutely fundamental to making things happen in the world the days when agreement between the US and the EU or Europe was a sufficient condition to move the dial internationally are gone I continue to believe that that agreement is a necessary condition to be able to achieve anything internationally thank you very much