 Judith is certainly known over the years to all of you as a distinguished foreign correspondent with the international harrull tribune, the Financial Times, the Irish times and the Economist, and she's currently the non-resident senior associate at Carnegie Europe, an editor-in-chief with the strategic Europe blog. She's also the author of the book, The Merkel Phenomenon, and she's going to talk to us now about Angela Merkel's unfinished business. Yn y gallwn amser o'n ddweud. Rwy'n ddweud, mae Merclew Ffordd yn Ysgol yn Dysgwyr. Mae'n arfer oeddaeth oedd rôl o'r cyfnodau o'r Ysgol. Mae'n ddweud â'r ddweud o'r cwmwysol, mae'n ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud oherwydd mae'n ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r Gwmpeditor. o'r cyhoffaeth, rhaid o'n ddweud a'n gweld, yn ystod yn ymwybod'r gwahaniaeth bwysig sy'n gweld y maen nhw'n ei ffurio. Ond yw'n bod yn fwy o'r gwahaniaeth ymddangos o ddwyllgor ac rwy'n ddweud o'n gweithio, rwy'n gweithio'n ddwyllgor a'i dweud a'r ddweud a'r gwahaniaeth o gyfo'r ddwyllgor ac yn ffwrdd oedd o'r gweithio'n gwahaniaeth ac yn gweithio'n gwahaniaeth, a'w ddweud o'r Brexit. Myrkel's entry is very, very full. The biggest one she has, if there's anyone to compare, the major one still is the refugee crisis. Yes, the numbers are under control now because Myrkel, rather than the EU, she actually told Donald Tusk to do it and Jean-Claude Younger did the deal with Turkey. It's quite fragile to deal with Turkey, and President Erdogan hasn't helped matters, given what he's doing to the judiciary, to the media, and it's creating quite a backlash in Germany. In Myrkel's party, they want to win the next elections so they need stability on the frontiers. So that means they want this deal to go through. At the same time, they have to have the integrity to defend European values of democracy. So it's quite tough for Myrkel to balance this, but so far Erdogan is sticking to the deal. I think he's sticking to it because he does want something from the EU. Despite his bravado and his relations with Iran, his relations with Putin now, they've suddenly got better, for many reasons, certainly not political, but certainly economic. But at the end of the day, despite all the problems in Europe, the attraction of the EU is still very, very strong, and I don't think we should forget this. It's perhaps off the front burner, so to speak, at the moment, but it's out there. Secondly, Erdogan knows very well that Myrkel is the most powerful leader in Europe. She carries great sway in the council, in the commission, that's another story, but you don't cross swords with Myrkel. It hasn't been a very easy relationship, but I think there's a mutual respect there and Turkey's delivering, and the EU, surprise, surprise, is delivering the money as well. This money is not going to Erdogan, and it's not going to his party. It's going out to schools, it's going out to hospitals, it's going out to refugee centres, it's going out to helping children. It's really important that the European public sees this and that the Germans see it. So there's fingers crossed on all sides that this will work. Having said this, the refugee crisis is far from over. We have seen, and it's not really discussed in any way, Italy is now being undated with more refugees, migrants more than refugees actually, economic migrants coming up from Africa. They're using Libya as a conduit, and since there's no proper security apparatuses in Libya, they're finding their way up, crossing the Mediterranean again, and the problem is out there. A very interesting aspect of how Myrkel is dealing with this issue of refugees now coming from Egypt, from Ghana, coming from Mali, coming from Asia, she went there. This is French territory. This is ex-colonial France, and Myrkel, for the first time, I wouldn't call a centre, it's a hell trip. Six weeks ago she went to Niger. Niger is important not just because of the climate change, it's having huge impact on migration flows. And Niger is important for uranium. For the whole nuclear industry, it has to be very careful, it's relations with Iran on this, and indeed North Korea. It's a very fragile state, and it's approaching a failing state, largely because of climate change and also because of the huge political vacuum left by the collapse of the Gaddafi regime. This caused enormous havoc, especially in Mali. She went to Mali as well. Very warmly welcomed there. Oland didn't have to welcome what America got, and then she went on to Ethiopia, which was very tricky. Ethiopia is being financed very heavily by the Chinese now, but it's an important country. It's the headquarters of the Africa Union, and actually Myrkel, and the EU is waking up to the fact that the Africa Union has to play a much bigger role. So it's the regionalisation of power structures and influence, and empowerment as well, and that's a very interesting aspect of how Germany is seeing this as well. So just briefly, one more point on the refugee crisis. Myrkel is hoping that by the time of the march when the Bratislava Declaration is supposed to be fulfilled that Europe may finally have a common asylum and refugee policy. I'm not so sure it'll happen because of Hungary, because of Poland, because of the Central Europeans, and Britain is still in the EU after all, but she has to do something. I actually think it's possible, but we can discuss this later. I think it's possible. I don't think it's the ideal intellectual solution, but there will have to be some kind of flexible solidarity to deal with this. Otherwise, Europe will never pull together. I think there has to be a bit of give and take, and the reasons why the Central Europeans treat migrants and refugees as they do is partly because of their past. It's partly because of a populist cult of the personality taking place, especially in Poland and Hungary, but we can touch on this later. So that's the first issue of the refugees. The second issue, and I think this is terribly worrying for the German economy, but also for Europe as a whole. The eurozone is in very bad shape, and there's a strong school of opinion inside Germany that the European Central Bank's policies of practically negative growth rates is actually going to hit a stone wall very early on. I will give you an example, leaving aside that the German saver, and the Germans used to have a very high percentage of disposable income that they used to put into savings. They're not saving anymore. They can't. There's very little return. But the negative effect of this is that for health insurance, for instance, because pension funds and health insurance are not making any gains from interest rates, they are actually being forced to put up their premiums from next year. And this will have a knock-on effect on the public. There will be complaints. It will lead to inflation. Actually, some in Germany think that inflation is probably the right answer for this. This obsession with inflation by Germany may actually be quite negative. But this is a big issue now, the weakness of the eurozone. And as long as the economies of the eurozone countries remain weak, populists can make hay. I think populists, eurosceptics, right-wing movements, it doesn't matter, left-wing movements, strong economies take the breath out of these movements. But at the moment we don't see a turnaround, although I see Ireland is doing quite well recently with unemployment falling, which is good news. So eurozone Portugal is asking for a bit of a reprieve. The Greek crisis is far from over. Spain seems to be doing okay. Finally, he's Prime Minister after about 200 days of Spain without Prime Minister. But the Germans and the northern European countries do still feel vindicators, despite the anti-German sentiments in Greece, but less on Spain and Portugal, which is interesting. Does the eurozone issue that Merkel has really given over to Wolfgang Schor will look after? The third issue is a very complicated one, the relations with Russia on the one hand and the relations with the United States on the other. Very briefly, Merkel has made the decision that Putin is not going to go away in a hurry. It doesn't mean to say she has to get on with him, but she needs him to implement the Minsk Accords. And the Minsk Accords are not working. They're not working because Russia will not withdraw to the borders of Ukraine. Russia will not allow the OSC monitors to actually monitor the border, and if they're not allowed, which is in the Minsk Accord by the way, and if they're not allowed to monitor the border, what stops weapons and other ammunition and military hardware coming through. But, above all, it's the state of the Donbas region. And Merkel has tried to persuade the Ukrainians, listen, you'll have to hold elections there sooner or later, and the Ukrainians say, why should we? How can we, if there's no safety and security there? I have to tell you that there are some Germans in the foreign ministry, but also in some of the research institutes that believe that the Donbas is lost and Ukraine washed its hands of it. But if you do that, then you actually legitimate, you legitimate what Putin has done. It's a priestess for other things, and they can't be seen to be doing this. So Merkel is holding firm to the Minsk Accords and giving Putin quite a hard time. When he was in Berlin two, three weeks, with the first time for three or four years, there was no red carpet treatment for him. She was very, very tough. Six hours of intense discussions on not only Ukraine but Syria. An important point to remember about this foreign policy perception in Berlin. Part of the social democrats who are coalition partners, as you know, want to do a pro-call, lift the sanctions off Ukraine if Putin lifts the siege off Aleppo. I'm sorry, there are completely different issues, and if you mix them all up, you lose any kind of integrity and you lose any kind of leverage. You have to keep focused on the Minsk Accord and don't conflate with the Syrian crisis. Secondly, Merkel now realizes that Putin will not deliver over Syria. He is not going to see regime change under the present conditions. Regime change will come eventually but under Putin's terms. Maybe some kind of interim government, which will be very difficult to see after the terrible suffering and dislocation and the radicalization and different groups. But he's not willing to ditch Assad yet and in the meantime the fighting will continue and the EU will be completely helpless and Germany will continue to arm the Peshmerga as they now approach Mosul. This was a big change for the German foreign policy. So this is the interplay between the Ukraine crisis and the Syrian crisis and then there's the issue of Merkel's own coalition dealing with Putin. Merkel has come to the belief that Ostpolitik, the Eastern policy of engagement with Russia, is over. She has come to this belief that the Ostpolitik was supposed to deliver that Russia, through Germany reaching out to it economically, politically, socially, culturally, Russia would become like us. It would get closer to the West. Despite all the modernization programmes, Steinmeier, the foreign minister, launched a huge one in southern Russia in 2007 when he was foreign minister. This has got no pair. In fact any kind of impuls of reform is now not on the agenda. It's a special elite, not of oligarchs anymore. It's a special elite of loyalists around Putin who seem to have little intention of actually ceding power and more importantly having little attention of doing anything with the economy. Economic reform means eventually political liberalisation. One other point about the failure of the Ostpolitik. In Germany there is called the Russian Fristair, the Russian people, those Germans who support, how would I explain this? Some of them are very nice though. But they believe no, give Putin a chance. The problem is that these very interesting people see Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, through the lens of Moscow. They're not seeing these countries now as genuine independent states. So they're second guessing how this would affect Russia, so the reflexes are immediately to see through the lens of Russia. And this Ostpolitik has a paralysing effect in some ways. Merkel refuses to see this and she's taken Ukraine in its own right. She's bought problems with Georgia and potential member of NATO, but she didn't have to make that leap. She now sees these countries wanting to go their own way and choosing their own direction. So this feeds into a complicating factor, and this is my last foreign policy issue before I touched the United States, and it's the Nord Stream pipeline. The first pipeline, this is a pipeline, a fantastic idea at the time. Ukraine was stealing our gas, highly corrupt. The whole infrastructure of the energy sector in Ukraine was totally run by the oligarchs. So in 2005, Putin came up with an idea with Schroeder, who was Chancellor of the Sun. Let's build a pipeline under the Baltic. The gas will come from just to the top north of Petersburg, wrap under the Baltic Sea, and you'll get your energy. So as soon as Schroeder lost the election, he joined the gas board, the subsidiary of the Nord Stream. Nord Stream 1 has been built to huge opposition of the Baltics and Poland, quite rightly so. It's not just about transit fees, it's about energy security, about energy dependence, it's about diversification. Nord Stream 1 negates that. Nord Stream 2 is about to get, the pipes are about to be rolled out in the Baltic Sea, and the Poles are petitioning the EU and the Commission, and guess what Schroeder has been appointed to that board as well. And Sigmar Gabriel said to Putin, don't worry about the European Commission, I can fix that, we don't need the Commission, Germany can deal with it, we can go our role mate, thank you very much. But I'm not so sure they will, actually. I think the EU may take a very strong stand if they believe that there will not be third party access to the pipelines, essentially honouring the third energy package, which allows essentially access to the pipelines. This has yet to be played out, there's an awful lot at stake, and the big question is, will Merkel move? She has always said it was an economic business project, which it's not, it's highly political, she has stuck to it so far, it doesn't win her any friends in Eastern Europe, but she holds the key and the former Chancellor. Schroeder holds the key, he keeps it, he keeps the German SPD on board to support Putin and Gazprom. Merkel holds the ultimate key to ending Nord Stream, and I wonder will she take that big risk. If she takes the risk, she alienates the German companies, but I think she will be under pressure to make a decision. The last issue on the foreign policy is the transatlantic agenda, and this is unbelievably complicated. Merkel now is the interlocutor for Barack Obama. It's not Brussels, it's not any of the leaders in the EU institutions. It's not Olawn, it's not the Poles, it's not the Dutch, it's Merkel. He phones her regularly, he's done very, very good terms after a very shaky start in Obama's first term. He's delegated Ukraine crisis to her, he's done very little to help her with the refugee crisis, he's lectured her on the Euro crisis, but leaving all the differences and the difficulties, she has delivered in many ways for him, the stability of Europe, she's delivered on Ukraine, people haven't been killed, and more importantly she's delivered on the sanctions, getting the EU sanctions in Russia, whether you support them or not. She brought a very disunited 28 countries together, the sanctions on Russia, and Obama is very grateful on that. Just as he's about to leave, he's coming in 10 days time to see Merkel. He's not going to Brussels, and he's not going to stop at NATO either, said something about the views of NATO, but he's done enough NATO meetings and I think he sees not particular value in them. So the Washington Berlin axis is just so important, the big issue is whoever enters the White House in January will that axis continue. It is no point in speculating, one thing is certain that Merkel's role in Europe at the moment is quite indispensable, and she is the undisputed leader at the moment, and she's respected by the Americans, maybe not by Trump, who by the way took a long time to admit that he had German dissent. He said he was Norwegian or Swedish or something, but he had to admit he was a daughter and he's had to bite his tongue on this. So it is rather interesting, his own hang-ups about having a migration background, who hasn't in the United States. Just to caveat about NATO, during her first term Merkel was more interested in bringing unity back to NATO, which had been severely damaged after the Iraq crisis, and actually bringing the unity also to the EU. Then she really doesn't care about it, she doesn't really care about defence, but she's changed a great deal over the past six or seven months, back eight months, largely because of the refugee crisis. She has seen that EU has taken years to put front-ex on the borders. She has seen that the EU will not do a proper collective defence or even marginal defence to protect the borders. So she rang up again in Stoltenberg in NATO, and Stoltenberg as the Secretary General always wanted to put the refugee issue on the table, but the NAC, that's represented every Wednesday by the ambassadors, they didn't want to. It wasn't their niche, it was a political issue, it was civilian, no, no, no, and he was very frustrated, but a call from Athens and a call from Berlin, and a couple of days later the ships were in the Aegean Sea, certain rescue, helping out, psychological, political, and Merkel has seen the value of shape in this. Parallel, we can discuss this later, the EU is beginning to think what kind of defence role it should have, Brexit is triggering this. We cannot underestimate the damage Brexit is doing, but the potential twist it may have on European foreign and security policy. I will leave it at that. We have only one thing to look forward to, if you want to call it to look forward to. It's how we're going to, somebody called it commemorate, how we're going to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaty in March. So I think Merkel is something I perceive. Thank you very much.