 Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to welcome you to this I.I. in a webinar and we're delighted to be joined today by Ambassador Pierre Viermont, senior fellow at Carnegie Institute, who's been very generous to take time out of the schedule to speak to us this morning, particularly so as he has just come from a flight from and we are truly grateful for him being present with us after that. And he will address the question of changing dynamics in European foreign policy. And Ambassador Viermont will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so. And then we will go to questions and answers. We would appreciate for the question and answers if you would give your name and designation. Just some administrative details and you'll be able to join the discussion using the quick Q&A function on your zoom, which you should see on your screen. And please feel free to send your questions and during the session and we will come to them once Ambassador Viermont has finished his presentation. Just a reminder that today's presentation and Q&A are on the record. And please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIA. Let me now formally introduce Ambassador Viermont and hand over to him. He is, as I mentioned, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Institute where his Carnegie Europe, where his research focuses on European neighborhood policy, transatlantic relations and French foreign policy. He was the first executive secretary general of the European External Action Service from December 2010, where it was instituted to March 2015. In his 38 year diplomatic career with the French Foreign Service, he served as ambassador to the United States 2007 to 2010 ambassador to the European Union, and chief of staff to three former French Foreign Ministers. He has had a number of special tasks given to him. He served a special envoy for the French Initiative for the Middle East peace process, and he also led preparations for the Valetta conference to tackle the causes of illegal migration and combat human trafficking. In that context, we will welcome Ambassador Viermont's presentation on the changing nature of European foreign policy and where he will focus on the quest for a genuine strategic autonomy for Europe, and the need to adopt a geopolitical mindset to achieve this, including, I imagine, at the strategic compass with with Ambassador Viermont's distinguished background. I can't think of anybody better to address this difficult topic at the moment for Europe with all its challenges. So may I hand the floor to you Ambassador Viermont and reiterate the welcome to the IIEM. Thank you. Thank you, Mary, and thank you for inviting me at the Institute of International and European Affairs. I'm quite familiar with the work you are doing. And I've always been impressed by the quality of your, of your papers and your, your thinking your strategic thinking about all this so it's a real honor and a great pleasure to be here. I would be able to discuss with you this issue of the changing dynamics ongoing at the moment in in European foreign policy. I was thinking that maybe being myself a French citizen and a former French diplomat, it would be interesting to give you this perspective of the changing dynamics from a, from a French point of view. Because France is going to have the presidency of the European Union, as, as we go along. And because I think it would be more lively for our discussion to try to, to take that, that focus and that approach in discussing this. The foreign policy with regard to Europe has been moving in a rather interesting direction, certainly under the presidency of current president Emmanuel Macron. So for many years, France has always had this goal of being a power capable of acting among other global powers, and finding its own national way I would say of having a French diplomacy capable of having a sort of balancing act between the different global powers. You certainly remember and our audience certainly remembers the goals attitude towards the United States towards what was then the Soviet Union, even towards the young new Chinese regime that he recognized in 1964. There was this idea as we say in French of a, a, a power that was able to find itself, an ally of the United States, but none, but one that was not aligned, capable of having a policy of detente with with the Soviet Union and moving ahead with the, the Republic of China as, as we were going along. But the reality is that this was possible when we were in the middle of the Cold War with the new highly complex world reality we're facing today. Things have changed. And from for France to act in this somewhat lonely approach to this goal of finding the right balance between the different powers that are acting and playing in the on the international scene. The task has become much more difficult. If you only look at what we have been trying to do in recent years, starting a new dialogue with with Russia. What has so far led to very small results, building a relationship with China has not been easy either for France, acting on its own. And I would say, even in our relationship with the United States, there has been a lot of misunderstanding difficulties that have appeared here and there. The most recent one being what I would call the orcus incident that we have seen recently that shows how, how difficult it can be to act on its own. And if you look at an area like the Middle East with new regional actors moving in like Turkey like Iran like the Gulf countries. France also has made French foreign policy, as it was defined in the 60s or the 70s, more more difficult. And what we have seen with Emmanuel Macron has been precisely this idea that if France wanted to stick to this goal of power. There should be a one that stands up to all the competition from other global power. It couldn't do it alone anymore. It had to do it with Europe, and it had to be part of the whole European scene where we would be able to help Europe to build up its own. And Macron calls its own European sovereignty or what has been also called a strategic autonomy. And I would insist on that, because this is not entirely a new idea. And one like Valérie Giscard d'Esteine, the 70s, came up with the same idea of Europe being able to be a more global player in the world of today and being what he called a Europe puissance in the French in the French vocabulary. The reality is that most of the previous predecessors to Emmanuel Macron were much more involved in improving the integration of an enhancing the integration of the European Union. In other words, mostly dealing with internal policies of the European Union. And Macron was instrumental in supporting the, the economic and monetary union, and his successor Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande played major role in enhancing what was then internal policy reinforcing the internal market, with more strength on other internal policies related to new technology to the digital world, etc. And you could name many, Emmanuel Macron has brought something new, which was this concept of strategic autonomy that would enable Europe to play its part in the middle of a very complex world today. Where world affairs are becoming more and more about competition, and even sometimes confrontation, where Europe needs to be able to play its own part, and to use as Joseph Borrell has said, the language of power when needed. Here, I should add one point that I think is important is that a lot of emphasis has been put on European security and defense when we talk about strategic autonomy. And this of course has been somewhat controversial, because some of you member states have said very openly that they didn't think this was part of the social contract of Europe when it was launched. That even to some extent this was not part of European's DNA, when it was launched in the 50s or the 60s, the founding fathers were precisely pushing for a union that would move far away from the nationalistic trends of the past that had brought us to world wars in Europe, and therefore they were pushing against everything that could be related precisely to the concept of power. Europe was not built up as a power but mostly as an economic market, and as an organization and an entity that would defend values, very much related to the Wilsonian concept of international relations that we hadn't seen with the whole multilateral system that was brought up, Europe thought of itself as a champion of multilateralism. And so this is a major change with what we have been doing up to now. And when we are thinking and when France is pushing for Europe, recognizing itself and perceiving itself as one of the important global powers able to play its act among other global powers in the world of today, which is about complex realities, linked to hybrid conflicts, cyber attack, competition in the new field of digital technology, artificial intelligence so on and so forth. And here is the point I wanted to make. As much as when we discuss all the 27 of us security and defense, this can be controversial. I'm quite impressed by when we discuss strategic autonomy under the inside the field of economy, of trade, of digital, of new tech so on and so forth. And there we see slowly emerging consensus among all the member states that that we need to be much more agile and much more willing to push forward European interest. When I came into the European Union working as a young diplomat when the French were pushing the concept of reciprocity when we were discussing trade. Nobody wanted to hear about it. All our partners were saying, here we have France again, this old and renowned protectionist nation that is going to push again for more protectionism. Today we have the European Commission coming out with a very interesting communication and what could be the new EU trade policy, where they talk about reciprocity, where they talk about the need to put in our toolbox instruments that can help us to fight against extraterritorial sanctions or other types of sanctions that some of our trade partners have put against us on the what the new commission calls anti coercion instruments. This is something we never discussed before. Interesting to have also proposition legislative proposition by the European Commission on the whole issue of digital markets and digital services. As we had a few years ago, the ability altogether to adopt the general regulation on personal data protection in the digital world. All this is new and shows suddenly the awareness of the European Union that it must fight its place in the world's affair and find a way of being more tough against some of its partner and being able to respond to some of the attacks it is facing today. One word about where we are now today. Where do we go from this effort by by France to convince its partners, its EU partners to be bolder and more audacious in developing a European sovereignty in all different fields as I was saying before. Security and defense on foreign policy, but also on all economic sectors as I was saying before. Of course, first observation France is going to have the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers from January up to June of next year. And therefore, we have an agenda where many of the issues I have raised a few minutes ago will be very much in the forefront as we go along. As you know, there will be the need for the EU 27 member states to adopt what we call the strategic compass, which the external action service and Joseph Boyle himself has have introduced a few days ago, which is a way of building up a strategic culture that could be common to all 27 member states, which is not easy. We come from very different angles for reasons linked to history to geography. Poland is looking at the threats it may be facing on the international scene is different from the way Italy or Spain or even Ireland are looking at the same at the same concern. And therefore how to unite all member states around a common culture about where our strategic interest lies and how to protect those interests from the confrontation we're facing around the world is something totally new for all of us and something that we need to move along in order to reach that goal of a common strategic culture. But it's more than that it's about also giving us the right instruments to go ahead with implementing that strategic culture and I'll come back to that in a second. And it's also about and that will be also part of agenda about improving and enhancing the relationship between the EU and its different partners, NATO, the US, and facing some of the more difficult parties, third countries that we are facing at the moment on the border between Russia, China, the girls countries, Turkey, and Iran, and many others, I could say India, for instance, Japan, some of the actors in the Indo Pacific region which is becoming more and more topical in some ways, and where we need to find altogether a way of moving ahead. But it's also moving on the economic front, as I was saying earlier. Being able on all those difficult issues we're facing today, think about the follow up to the COP26 that just took place in Glasgow. How can the EU altogether stand up and have a common position in defending our ideas and our concept of the energy transition, and the green revolution that we're facing today. It's about remaining a pioneer in some of the new digital innovations that we're facing today. I could go on but just to make you understand the kind of priority we're facing today. All this is part of our foreign policy, and a way for the European Union to be seen in foreign policy circles as a relevant actor that has a voice on the international scene in the multilateral forum. And that can, as we go along, be heard more and more with a voice that is listened to by others. One last observation from that point of view. It's a long way ahead, and the road is still very long and winding road, and it will go much further than only much beyond the French presidency. So I would just like very quickly to make what I think personally is a is an important point, an observation out of my experience in the European external action service, which was after all the instrument that the Lisbon Treaty put forward, in order to give the European Union that kind of voice on the foreign affair on the foreign affairs world and scenery. Foreign policy is about three things. It's about strategy. It's about priorities. And it's about skills, I would say diplomatic skills and division. It's the strategy. I was saying a few minutes ago with the strategic compass if we're able to adopt it, we will have a common strategic culture, but strategy is a little bit more than the strategic culture. The ability once you have a common strategic culture to put forward to put into motion that culture, and to start having a vision of where you want to lead European interests ahead. And that's important. And I don't think we're still there at the moment. The level which I said a few minutes ago were priorities which is how to develop a European foreign policy. And we have very straightforward questions, which are our priorities in our neighborhood. Is it the Eastern partnership that is it the southern neighborhood. Is it both of them. Is it the Middle East is it Africa. Where do we go from where we are at the moment. We have to take a stronger attention with regard to the Indo Pacific region. Is it very far away from the European Union. Are we ready to stretch our presence and influence as far as Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia as well. Are we ready to that. Do we have the capabilities for that and the capacity to do that. These are major questions. We will discuss that during the French presidency, but it seems to me that we will need much more time to be able to reconcile all these different interests that are not equally shared by all our member states. We need to find a common ground for all the different member states to feel at ease and comfortable with some list of priorities that we have to to set together. And the third level of course is the diplomatic skills, a capacity for the European Union to be more nimble, more agile, more proactive. And this is also where we need to improve our act, and that will take time, because the European Union is still a young entity with regard to foreign policy. It has to build that skill that brand of you diplomacy that will be somewhat different from the others and that that has to find its own way. So if you take for instance what we have recently seen in the border between Belarus and Poland and we're witnessing that on a on a daily basis at the moment with this surprising hybrid attack I would say how the Belarus regime is instrumentalizing the like migrants issue, and how it has made migration a political tool for foreign policy, different from what we have seen with countries like Turkey, for instance, or Morocco. And here with Belarus. It's much more artificial and something that is of its own, I would say, at the moment. And here we see very quickly, what is maybe missing at the moment with the diplomatic toolbox of the European Union. And the capacity to be rapidly aware of what is going on on the situation in on the ground, and to give the right assessment of the threat that we're facing there. With with the right equity and the right sense of what is going on on the ground is not an easy thing to do. It requires knowledge of what is going on on the ground intelligence but more than that, it requires an understanding of what is going on which is not always easy. It's more than anticipation. It's understanding events as they are unfolding. And that's not always easy. The second thing, of course, is to be able to respond quickly, and in a united way, and Europe is always a bit clumsy in doing this and needs more practice, I would say. And the third issue, of course, here is the capacity to innovate and to event invent the proper response to a situation as new as the one we have seen at the border of Belarus and Poland, how to work with the help of the UN of other multilateral organization with NGOs and other partners in the Middle East from where these migrants are coming and to go and reach out to Iraq to Turkey, maybe to the Emirates also in order to have everybody on board and to be able to find a solution to the problem we're facing. What we are witnessing at the moment at the border between Belarus and Poland, and bodies, all these different ingredients, and makes a very good showcase for where the European diplomacy needs to and how it needs to improve its act. And from that point of view, I think France needs to be more forthcoming in helping the EU diplomacy to become more agile, more nimble, more active than it has been in the past. And maybe France has to be and has to invest itself, thanks to its own experience, a long tradition of diplomacy for many years. France may need to invest more into this goal of uprising, uplifting EU diplomatic toolbox and diplomatic abilities as we go along. I've been quite too long and I apologize Mary but I had a lot to say I guess, even if I just come back from a long transatlantic journey.