 Lych yn ni wedi gael ddim. Roeddwn i'r ddaeth amlun o'r gyfnade nhw'n hyn? Thank you very much. That was an excellent talk I thought. I agree with you, with your thinking that we need to look at ways to build more solidarity among European citizens, so that there is that shared vision that we can actually have a debate about how we want to live together as Europeans. I'm just just wondering about the way you laid out we were going to get there. If I get you right, you were saying we were going to focus, or the European Union should focus more on the big projects, the grand visions. And I'm just wondering, do you think that's sufficiently close to the citizens? Do you think the ordinary citizen will notice a tangible difference in their lives or will notice the impact of Europe on their lives? We had the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs here at the Institute a few weeks ago and she was saying, she was talking about the roaming, the roam like at home that came in and saying we need to focus both on the grand projects and also on the small projects closer to the citizens. So how do you think Europe can make itself felt closer to the citizens? I think that's a really good question. I suppose, I mean, when I talk about a federal model in terms of governance, really I'm talking about decision making. So I mean, when you have decision making exclusively at a European level, in the European Parliament, the mission, it is so remote, people don't really understand it. Ireland is a really terrible example of this because we don't really have local government. I mean, it's a kind of a fallacy. We have things called local councils but they have basically no power. I was a member of Dublin City Council for several years. So I suppose what I'm talking about is decision making at a local level affecting local people in healthcare and education and so on. That's not to say you can't have big projects on those same topics. Things like mobility of insurance across the European Union is a really big project and it really matters to citizens' lives. Erasmus is a great one. I think that we have to have much greater decision making around education at local level. I think there needs to be more autonomy. But at the same time, you can have really positive initiatives like the Erasmus programme as one example and indeed Horizon 2020 and cooperation in terms of research through universities across the Union. So one isn't mutually exclusive to the other but you have to pick your projects at European level and there has to be a purpose to doing it on a pan-European basis and I think that's the challenge that we face in that regard. I think that that can be really tangible to people at a local level. It can have a really big impact on people's lives and I think if you look at the Brexit vote in the UK you see that young people overwhelmingly voted to remain in the European Union and that's because one of the most important big ideas or big causes of the European project which is free movement of people because that mobility for young people is so important. Not so important it would appear to the older generation although an awful lot of them have houses down around Morbea so I don't know, I seem a bit confused about that. So they're the kind of big ideas I guess that I think really do matter and are absolutely part of the European agenda. I think it's simple things like running a small business. I would definitely give credit to the Yonker Commission in this respect. The Yonker Commission has actually done a very good job in dealing with a lot of the bureaucracy and red tick that people complain about which they perceive to be interfering in their lives in a negative way as opposed to in a constructive way. So there's been a real effort to make it easier to do business, to be more mobile to cut down the bureaucracy and the requirements for micro businesses and small businesses and that's been very successful so stop interfering in that sort of stuff at an EU level. You have to have a certain mental regulation to make it easy for people to do business cross borders and to be able to compete and to prevent the sort of protectionism that instinctively a lot of member states would like to impose but you have to do that in a user friendly way and not a way that just grates on people who are actually trying to get on with their lives so it's a balance definitely and I actually think that the EU has really improved in that front. You don't hear about it much in the media of course but there have been major efforts in the last three years in particular to do that. I mean it's not a problem that you don't hear that C-European union doing any of this. That's not a generalised but that member state governments like to claim the credit for anything good that comes from Brussels and like to point the thing at every time something from a coffee that comes through. Yeah, yeah always and you know we're guilty of that in this country. We're probably not as bad as in some other member states in that regard. I'm thinking of some of what's happening in some of the East European member states at the moment which is quite concerning where Brussels is blamed for everything pretty much. I'm thinking of the UK of course where that's been the mantra for 44 years. There's been a lot of it in Ireland but we're not as bad at it. I think particularly we have a very internationalist outward looking team at the top of government at the moment and I think that that will count in terms of the narrative and the rhetoric around Europe in Ireland. I certainly hope so now yesterday's Apple decision did not necessarily help that rhetoric or tone and the response from the Department of Finance probably was a bit intemperate but besides that particular chestnut I think that the tone and engagement has been positive and certainly that's been the case coming from the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach I think in the last couple of months. Where can changes come from regarding that problem that Max identified because as it is the incentives for politicians to be more poor European aren't necessarily there and there's a lot of calls for solidarity and this kind of issue that a pro-European outlook but why would you do that if you're a politician? Where's the political will coming from when it's easy to go to Brussels and say yeah we're all in and then just go home and say oh we're just at this meeting and they're not thinking about you at all. Does there need to be fundamental changes in the European Union or within the structures that we have and the treaties that we have is there a way of fixing this problem of solidarity and dissonance? I think it's very difficult. You'll find it in large member states between the centre of the capital and the regions. Have you ever met anyone from Cork? I'm married to one of them. It's always going to be a problem. There's always going to be that suspicion and that kind of blame game. You find it internally in member states and obviously you have it vis-a-vis Brussels but a large part of it is just a complete and utter lack of engagement. I mean most of our TDs frankly know nothing about how the European project works. There's just no incentive and because we're physically we're in Ireland it's even more acute. I recall when I was in elected politics and indeed in youth politics the amount of exchanges that went on between parliaments, between MPs through their political groups, so through the EPP, ANDE and so on. I mean it was constant. German MPs would be visiting Dutch MPs and French MPs and it was a constant exchange and we are quite excluded from that. Not by design but we're just marginal. It actually requires us to make an extra effort. It requires the Iraqis as an entity to put resources into it and to make it a priority. It also requires TDs and senators to educate themselves and see it as a responsibility. I don't think you can force people to assume their responsibility. You just have to encourage them and they need to do it themselves. I also think that the media has a role to play. The media also needs to be educated and has a responsibility to educate itself. I mean if you look at Brussels at the moment as one example you have one correspondent from the Irish Times and you have one correspondent from RT. The independent doesn't have anybody in Brussels. News talk doesn't have anybody in Brussels. We're actually really poorly served in terms of our own media. There's a junket and they kind of are junkets. A bunch of journalists go out and they go to a couple of briefings in the commission and the parliament and then they go for a lot of drinks and then they come home. Newspaper editors also have a responsibility and radio editors and so on to actually make the priority to educate their staff and themselves when they're going to be covering this stuff. It is so fundamental to everything that goes on in Ireland. Whatever, we can really say what the percentage of legislation is that emanates from European institutions somewhere in the region of about 70 to 80 percent but it's a hell of a lot of legislation and policy that is directly decided. It's influenced by us but it's decided in Brussels and to just ignore that blindly and pretend that everything happens and we're at this when it really doesn't. We need to raise our game in terms of understanding the process and educating ourselves. I'm not actually from Germany. I married an Irish man so I moved here. It's interesting so it's a very personal experience and if you look at the economy of Ireland it's all very much concentrated on the states, all the multinational IT companies that are here and having a lot of Europeans working for them and then you have a very strong connection to the UK but if you look into the other countries like for example Germany where I'm from or France or all the other European unions on an economic point of view I think there could be more leverages but that's something my personal view and I would be interested. Is that historical? What are the reasons for that? Partly cultural, partly historical and partly just because the single market still doesn't work because it should. Cultural is, we speak English, we're not great unfortunately at learning other foreign languages, European languages so it's kind of a laziness or at least a failing in our education system so it's easy for us to do business with the UK and others and it's a start of course because we were under British rule and so our links with the UK are hundreds and hundreds of years old. Since we joined the European Union or the community as it was in 1973 our dependence on the UK as a market has dramatically reduced so exported goods is about 40% now to the UK less than 40% to the UK likewise services and our dependency on the rest of the European Union as a market has greatly increased and that sort of process is continuing all the time so we have much stronger trade links now with France, Germany and other countries than we did but it's still a challenge and when I was Minister for European Affairs of course a big part of what all ministers did and do is promoting trade with other member states and obviously because I was across the European Union a lot of the time I did a lot of work with Enterprise Ireland and IDA in France and Germany and Belgium and Hungary and other places and some of those markets are still very protectionist it's very, very, very difficult to get a product or service into the French market for example that's probably the most protectionist of all the member states and Ireland has obviously been a huge advocate of deepening the single market and getting on with the agenda of a single market for services in the European Union which we don't fully have and the digital single market and that meets a lot of resistance from some of the member states so it's a tricky one it's improving but it's slow and obviously then the language barrier can be it's not always but it can be a challenge but it is improving and Enterprise Ireland do a good job in that they're very little resources I know we're expecting stuff in the budget but IDA and EI need a lot more funding to help because small companies really you're talking about indigenous business the MNCs are great they employ a couple of hundred thousand people more indirectly in the Irish economy and they're really important and we're not going to give that up lightly for sure but everybody wants to develop the indigenous economy everybody wants to see more indigenous Irish exports in goods and services but that needs support to open those markets and to help particularly small and medium sized companies that just don't have the market knowledge they don't have the access they don't have the capacity they need assistance to do it other countries are also just better at developing intellectual property and also at developing investment capacity, indigency and I think there's a lot we can learn from other countries some of them are in other countries Israel is a brilliant one as an example that really could help but I'm sorry we're veering a bit off top but it's an interesting one Yes, so here on in the news the commission chose to bring Ireland to all the offices regarding the advocates and it came out as well in the Danish news and on the Danish so across the commission on the Danish stage so how does how do you see this case about Ireland is it fair to promote investment or is it like this morning fair competition? I think there's very little that's fair about how we tax corporate entities globally it's not unique to Ireland it's a global problem and I think the solution should be global and I think the solution should be global and I think the solution should be global and I think the solution should be global so no, it's not fair having said that do I think it's the business of the European Commission do I think really it's a competition issue no I don't and I would have strong views about that but you know the case is what it is and we're going to have to both the government and Apple are appealing it and it'll go to the ECJA I actually think that we'll probably lose the case but I think that we'll probably lose the case and we'll have to we'll probably lose the case so that'll have profound implications in probably four or five years time but do I think that the action of the Commission yesterday was right or proportionate I thought it was outrageous frankly I thought it was a stunt everybody who is involved in this case who is aware of the facts knows that the Irish government aka our officials and the Department of Finance have been dealing on a daily basis with Commissioner Westwick's cabanae and her team in DGComp they are well aware of the constitutional challenges the public procurement challenges which are EU rules that the Irish government is trying to abide by in setting up this fund and the way it was handled was a publicity stunt I think it was appalling and that's just my view and I think that anybody who has been involved in it and how it has worked over the last number of months since the fund was imposed couldn't but agree with that there is no objective reason for the Commissioner to take that action yesterday other than publicity I think it's really unfortunate it damages the reputation of the Commission here it damages Ireland's reputation unfairly and unnecessarily across the rest of the European Union and it's just not right because while the Irish government is appealing it and we can have a difference of opinion with the Commission the Irish government and particularly our finance officials have been deeply engaged in this process hand in hand with the European Commission to try and absolve it and it was really it was shabby the way they approached it and the lack of notice and everything it can only be described as a stunt I'm just curious about the tax standardisation to your views in terms of the conversation going on in Europe because obviously Ireland is a part of the perceived as a part of the problem by other states so I would like to hear what is debated and what's your opinion about that I mean I mean it's a debate that's been going on for well over a decade I mean I don't really I don't really understand why other member states and indeed commission officials continually talk about tax rates and taxing companies when clearly it's not an EU competence and this is kind of back to the point about subsidiarity I mean tax competition first is fundamentally important to the economic survival of peripheral member states like ours if we want to create a European Union and particularly a monetary union which is just about transfers from the wealthy core member states to the peripherals like us well fine let's have that debate in Germany for example I don't think it will go down too well in build or indeed with the AFD and others I think we have to understand that we have to there's no scope to there's no room for manoeuvre with interest rates in a currency union as we are so there has to be flexibility in other ways and tax competition is fundamental and it's clearly prescribed in the treaties I just don't know why we continually have this debate over and over because until there is a new treaty which decides that we have all given up our right to set and decide on our own tax rates and our own tax systems then it's a completely moot argument I mean a lot of it is show boating I mean I recall in 2011 when we came into government we were in the middle of an IMF bailout and it was the one thing that I think really left a bad taste in my mouth was how we were treated by the French government at the time Monsieur Sarkozy who was a member of the French government Fersie and Kenny went to his very first European summit it was the day after the government was formed and there was an attempt to publicly humiliate him and demand that Ireland if we want to be supported by our European partners in a time of absolute crisis in this country that's raised it that we had to somehow give up our right to set our own tax rate that was the demand and I recall my first visit to Paris maybe about a month later as Minister for European Affairs we had a very nice time and it was all lovely and then we went to a meeting and my counterpart the European Affairs Minister launched into this attack about Ireland's tax rates and I told him it was none of his business which it wasn't and this is going to flare up again and again and again and at the end of the day it's completely moot point because unless there is change to it's not going to happen and how many other countries want to give up their right to set their own tax rates Do you mean without the beautiful federal idea this tax standardisation will not happen because of your common budget but I mean you have federal models all over Europe and all over the world where there are local taxes and there are local tax rates and they're not set at the federal level so you can have the European tax and it effectively funds the EU budget and and there's an argument that there should be other ways to raise revenues to contribute to a European budget the EU budget or to Eurozone funds that's a debate I think we definitely can have but the idea that we would have tax rates set centrally for the whole of the European Union could be completely bananas A tax basis in the same way it's the same issue it's the same issue it's coming at it from a different angle effectively but the objective but I'm just thinking digital like a lot of what came out of the digital summit was that now with the way you can manipulate sales digitally you could basically have it that all your sales are in one country and that doesn't seem fair from an economic point of view I think there is there is some merit in that debate but again I think that there are issues that I mean what happens if you if you address that that specific tax concern tax evasion tax avoidance concern shall we say simply in the European Union just go to Singapore whatever go back to Donald Trump's low corporate tax utopia that's in the pipeline you know I mean it's like FTT the financial transactions tax it's great Oxfam everybody's campaign for it it sounds so lovely and fuzzy and wonderful great and obviously countries like Ireland and the UK said well we don't want to be part of it because we have a very large financial services industry here and we don't want to disadvantage it vis-a-vis you know New York and elsewhere and as it evolved it's a number of member states under provisions in the Lisbon Treaty decided okay we're going to go and do it through enhanced cooperation great and off they go and then they find well actually few of them start having second thoughts not so sure about this we actually have quite a few financial services and funds and so on in our country and I'm not sure this is going to work if Ireland and the UK and others aren't doing it so suddenly they start backing out and eventually the whole thing is abandoned and that's that's what's going to happen I mean you know the French can continue going on about CCCTB or corporate tax reformisation etc but you know the idea that it would actually happen is just complete fantasy I mean the idea that Estonia or Latvia or Cyprus or Malta or Ireland or Poland or a whole range even the Netherlands even Luxembourg I mean you know if you look to the funds industry in Luxembourg I mean no chance whatever John Claude Younger he's part of the architect of the system and the incentives that are in place in Luxembourg that have developed the funds industry there so I think a lot of this stuff again you know it's show-building and I mean you know while we talk on the one hand and we complain about politicians blaming Europe for stuff and we've certainly seen a lot of that there's also the risk that others start to kind of try and make examples of or you know create this narrative about others and you know it's it's in order to generate positive publicity and try and score political points and that's just as negative and corrosive as blaming Brussels you know so I think you know back to the point about solidarity which you mentioned solidarity has to be about understanding that we all need a model that will work for all of us and it has to be one that allows for different systems different economic models because a homogenous one just absolutely won't work it simply won't work and anyway nobody's going to agree to it so let's move on move on to a debate where we can actually change things because tax harmonisation is just not going to happen I'd like to ask you mentioned how basically the attitude around like what was the problem EU countries in terms of their population and their experience with European Union and when that seems to kind of contrast against the example you gave of the TDS not having any kind of clue and some of them anyway about European Union works or perhaps the fact that Irish people did not know to at least find this one referendum on the first time round and they're going to that big of disconnect as well from the institutions in Europe why is it that when these surveys are carried out that there is a problem you've said that does it simply down to this idea that when the cap is the one or the agricultural industry that didn't have the European Union is it as basic as a money kind of thing I think it's largely about a sense of prosperity that we have experienced since we joined and obviously that was challenged during the financial crisis but overall Irish people are remarkably better off than when we joined and I think it's also the nature of our economy, it's an export economy we know that US firms are not just in Ireland to service the Irish market clearly we know that they're here because they want access to the rest of the European Union likewise with our financial services and so on we know that our membership of the Eurozone gives us an advantage it gives us a lot of challenges as well but it's an advantage in that we are the only English speaking member of the Eurozone we are perceived to be a gateway to the European Union and all of that so I think people have just a sense that prosperity is linked somehow to our European membership and also that our dependency on the UK historically began to come to an end when we joined the European Union I think that's I mean I don't have monopoly on wisdom on this that's just my sense but I don't really have all the answers I think on the one hand we're very peripheral we're very cut off from Europe on the other hand and physically cut off but on the other hand Irish people like to travel and look outwards and I think the benefit for young people mobility all of that I think is something that we like so I think there's some of the factors but I mean definitely I think one thing that's quite hard to explain is how sentiment has remained consistently so strong notwithstanding how things unfolded during financial crisis and most particularly are treated by the ECB which people obviously are very acutely aware of here the behaviour of Trichet and the way in which Ireland was mistreated I would say during that period not so much by our European colleagues in the council and in the institutions but certainly by the ECB but for some reason we seem to have gotten over that which I think is a good thing because it might not have been the case and also obviously the other point is the political consensus and the political parties so Finifolff and the Gay Labour all of them have campaigned for and there is just this acceptance that EU membership is a good thing there might not know a whole lot about it necessarily there might not engage proactively in it but it's an accepted fact and also our trade bodies and our NGOs and so on are very mobilised and actually you could say that organisations like Ibech and the IFA are very very engaged and do a lot of work in Brussels and with their counterparts in other European countries and I think that has an impact because obviously they're communicating constantly with their members and probably the final point I know I'm going on a bit I was really really struck so I was involved a bit in the European campaign in the UK for the Brexit referendum last year and I went to CBI, the Ibech equivalent in London, I went to their big annual dinner and I just was completely aghast by the fact that they didn't campaign you know 85% of their members obviously were in favour of remaining in the EU there's nothing about it it was a huge dinner a month before the referendum and they had two speakers pro and anti it was just unbelievable they had Michael Harrison and Alistair Darling and actually Michael Harrison was way better he was very good he really gave a great speech it was like a parallel, can you imagine going to an Ibech event before the fiscal compact treaty referendum or the Lisbon referendum or whatever and bringing in a speaker for the no side it was extraordinary so we're very lucky I think that the civil society and trade bodies and everybody mobilise in Ireland and I think the fact that we have had all these referendums we might not engage on a continual basis with the European debate but thankfully when you're in politics you curse having to run these referendum campaigns but we only had to run one and I'm pleased to say when it's 6040 but they are a chore but you have to engage with people and it does educate people and I think it is a contributing fact because the fact that Irish people are pro-European is holding all those referendums even though we lost a few I wonder if the reason the pro-European views survived the crisis was actually a lack of information and understanding of the system do you think it could be people who thought the Troika was a separate thing to the EU and I don't think so I mean there was constant there was a constant barrage of a negativity about the European Union and actually there was a pretty successful campaign to conflate the ECB with the European institutions and I don't think it really worked actually I think people saw the difference and the big engagement for me during that period was obviously the referendum in 2012 on the fiscal compact treaty and people were really clear I mean they were angry they were angry there was an attempt also to just blame as usual to just blame Brussels and kind of absolve the administration or the number the series of administrations that had domestically that had led us to that point and some of that was reasonably successful but ultimately people people knew that it was a huge mismanagement domestically and they understood that but they also understood that we needed solidarity from our European neighbours and we got it the ESM I won't have a debate about Angela Merkel but I'm a very big fan of hers I think she is a remarkable politician and I mean she was faced with the equivalent of the Daily Mail the Telegraph you name it on a daily basis saying lazy Irish lazy Greeks drinking his own bleeding us hard working Germans dry I mean that was the narrative in Germany every day of the week and she stood up to it and she got a lot of flack here but she really stood up to it and she proved herself to be a great European leader in my opinion and actually a very important friend of Ireland and of the whole European project and you know whether I don't know I think quite a lot of Irish people actually recognise that they certainly do now and you know so there was some sophistication I think in the understanding of how much of a challenge it was to to build an understanding and other member states about what was going on here No question How sincere do you think that the European Union and the negotiators are in terms of placing Northern Ireland and the border issue relatively near the top of the negotiations and if we don't get a workable solution out of the negotiations we'd be facing into more of the kind of disintent towards Brussels and towards the European Union that we've seen in other countries recently Yeah I mean I think that they're very sincere and actually it's not just a negotiating team in the commission but across all the member states it's the issue that they get and understand and are concerned about people are concerned about the peace process they're concerned about the border issue not so much about the east-west trade relationship because they all have their own exposures whether it's German cars whatever but I think it's very sincere and I think the problem is that they don't really understand it I don't think that they have a solution I don't think that there is a workable solution and I don't think that they understand the Unionist mindset in Northern Ireland so the question I'm constantly asked in Brussels from colleagues is so is this going to lead to United Ireland like they really think that what's going to happen is that everybody will have this sort of dawning in the six counties of Northern Ireland that they will say we can't have a border so we'll just vote to join the rest of Ireland and it'll be as simple as that and clearly it's not going to be that simple it's not going to happen at all so yeah there's a naivety I think in how they're approaching it but I think it's absolutely sincere but it's very hard to square a circle and if the UK leaves the customs union which I believe they will and there's no alternative but to have customs checks on the border may not be that visible but there will be a border and we can pretend it's an invisible border we can call it whatever we want but I think there will be a border and it's going to be very tricky sorry for bringing it back to tax but I just wanted to ask when you were discussing it with your French counterpart on the Irish tax system did you ever mention the German companies used with Luxembourg and do you have any ideas of why it is that the tax chat is always about Ireland when I would say we are greatly equipped by what Luxembourg does in terms of tax I think you've probably answered the question in your first remark I mean yes is the answer I mean we very robustly defended the Irish model obviously and I also launched a few scuds but you have to remember that there was a real lack of confidence in the Irish administration at that time I mean it was a bizarre it was a bizarre time to be there because the strategy and I didn't friend the strategy and I disagreed to some extent the strategy was to go to Paris and Berlin and look for possessions on that situation so that was the approach because obviously it became very inter-governmental the commission became quite peripheral to most of these discussions it was all done at the European Council so Paris and Berlin were really important so there was a very deliberate I would say decision in Dublin not to antagonise and so a lot of that was skirted around and the reason there's very little focus on Luxembourg is precisely for the reason that you have suggested I think because there's a huge exposure a huge interest in France and other countries and so there hasn't been a whole lot of focus on it and I would say I would imagine that the Irish government would still be very reluctant to start sort of throwing mud I think there's probably a bit of a sense of well you start showing a spotlight too much on Luxembourg and it just comes back and you actually attract it to focus on you again so let's just keep quiet about I assume that that's kind of part of that that may not continue though because I think it's going to get very very techy and heated now between Ireland and the Christian it already is relations were at a really really low level when the apple decision, when Vesger's decision was was first announced very very very poor relations they've kind of been rebuilt because there's been a diplomatic offensive around Brexit so it's kind of the apple thing was put to one side but now that it's back on the table again I really worry about it and I think this will impact on all sorts of all sorts of things from Ireland's point of view in terms of Brexit negotiations in terms of goodwill I just think there's a really risk around it because we are being portrayed as petulant and difficult and so on and as I said earlier I think it's really unfair but there is reputational damage definitely you mentioned the CBI earlier the fact that you were surprised in how they didn't campaign harder or maybe it seems like one of the reasons why that might be it's just because the city and London is a little bit different from Ireland a lot in the sense that international networks are a bit stronger whereas European based the other thing then being that with the friend in the UK leaving and we've lost a friend in terms of lobbying for minimising regulatory burden and so on to what extent can the fact that they are leaving give them the chance to be able to minimise regulatory burden further sort of set them up nicely because preparing for those while the fact that they are gone means that regulatory burden in that can be stronger because they will come in so essentially to what extent will that hurt the Irish economy do you think? Yeah I mean I I get your point about about the city and about their sort of maybe not being quite so concerned about Europe and Brussels as much as we are but I don't know I mean I spent a lot of time in London and I think I think that the city has really missed a trick by being so reticent on Brexit I mean I think that they rode in far too quickly behind the government position accepting leaving the single market all the rest of it and I think they are really going to live to regret that I mean international financial services in London and the UK is going to pay the price you know there will be tens and tens and tens of thousands of jobs leaving the city of London I mean it is still going to be a financial hub it is already happening though I mean I am working for someone they are getting out of town like they are they will still have a presence in London but they are definitely going to change their structures quite fundamentally and then the issue of regulatory divergence is never made to be seen you know there is a massive amount of business done from London throughout the rest of the year and you know they are going to want passporting rights they are going to want to be able to delegate they are going to want to try and have as little disruption as possible because it is going to be very difficult particularly if they go off on a kind of you know I know the threat has been that they are going to do a sort of a Hong Kong or Singapore or whatever I tend to think that that is going to be very difficult and I think if they start to do that they will lose even more business to Frankfurt to Dublin to Luxembourg to Brussels which is a point that nobody was really expecting on the insurance front so I think on balance I mean unless there is a complete change in direction in the UK government which is not impossible I think that they are going to really try to minimise regulatory divergence I think they are going to try and have equivalents in most respects and they are going to plead for mercy I mean this is a one sided negotiation you know all the cards are on the EU side and that has not dawned on Boris Johnson yet but if you talk to officials in treasury if you talk to officials in the foreign office they get it and they are really worried and they are right to be because they are completely unprepared for all of this and it is very sad and it is going to be disastrous but I think it is going to have profound implications in the UK economy and I think that ultimately they are going to try and keep their regulatory parameters very much in line with the EU and that is not just in FFAS across the board because otherwise more and more firms are just going to leave Can you talk about one more question or comment to anybody I have a question in and around just around an aspect of the UK State of the Union speech when he talked about the proposal his idea that eventually the Christian Council Christian president and the character president could be merged which is an interesting theoretical idea I think that in your background in your European youth politics and the different decisions and iterations of debates around getting to the lead Canada process for the European Parliament elections which is only going to happen once successfully where do you think that might go in the next 20 years I think the European project is going to go in one direction and I think it will be close to cooperation and I think that the institutions I don't think that there should be a mad drive to put the institutional reform first because we tried that and it didn't work and it kind of it doesn't excite people it can be manipulated in a sort of a negative way by opponents of the European project full stop and I just think given everything that we've been through in recent times what's the point in opening up those debates again until you have sort of tangible cooperation and progress there's a lot of things that just haven't happened that we can do under the Lisbon Treaty in security and defence which I mentioned earlier but in other areas as well digital single market all this stuff is doable within the existing framework so I'm not afraid of treaty change but I just think there's no point in trying to put the cart before the horse but ultimately I'm absolutely convinced that that type of arrangement has to be the case I want to see directly elected president of the commission and that person chairing the council I think would be fantastic the day that that the member states would agree to that I think is probably more than 20 years off but hopefully it'll happen in my lifetime and I think we have to move towards that we have to toss around these ideas and they're important I'd like to see panels of MEPs elected across the EU as well all this stuff is in the convention in future Europe and they're all still as well today as those ideas are still as well today as they were then but I think obsessing with institutional changes probably a waste of time frankly and I think getting on with the substance first that we have the capacity to do and then reopen those debates maybe a little bit down the road or have them but really seriously reopen them a little bit down the road