 Bridget Laugham, as I mentioned as emeritus professor at the EUI in Florence, she was director there of the Robert Schumann Institute for Advanced Studies until she left upon retirement in August 2021. Before that she was professor of European Politics at UCD's School of Politics and in Cheshire Relations, and she was vice president of UCD and principal of the College of Social Sciences, Human Sciences and Law. Professor Laugham was the founding director of the Dublin European Institute in UCD from 1999 and in March 2004 she was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Paul Gillespie directs the Constitution Futures after Brexit projects as I mentioned in UCD's Centre for Peace and Conflict Research. He's also a columnist and former foreign policy editor with the Irish Times. He's published widely on British-Irish relations and European integration issues, Irish foreign policy, Europe-Asia relations, and he's co-editor of Britain and Europe, The End Again and Irish Perspective. Dr Gillespie is also a long-standing member of the IIEA's UK group, so a very warm welcome to you both here today. Bridget Laugham, I invite you to now show your thoughts. Thank you. Thank you for coming today and before I begin, I just want to recall Brendan Halligan, because Brendan would absolutely love to be here for this discussion today. And he was always preoccupied with the UK's attitude to Europe and the potential consequences for the island of Ireland. And he began with Poland, many of you in the audience, the UK group, which did trojan work that meant when Brexit began to appear on the horizon. In fact, this was where there was knowledge here about the UK and its relationship with the EU that served the country well as it confronted Brexit. And Ireland remains the member state most affected by the United Kingdom's departure from the EU. So the book, the EU's response to Brexit United and Effective. The whole argument of the book is on the front. It's there in the title United and Effective. And so why this book? I remember the evening of that referendum and knowing it was gone very early. And I also remember thinking they don't know what they're doing. And because they really hadn't prepared, I'd spoken a lot in London at various events and other parts of the UK during the referendum. And also, we had at the EUI an event in the October, which one of the lead EU negotiators who had just taken over his job in the task force, Stefan Durank came to Bobby McDonough, our ambassador in Rome came. And we had an engagement with the UK in a changing Europe group. And it was very obvious that they still didn't know what they were doing, and that they were much too complacent about just how difficult disentangling the ties of deep interdependence would be. So the book in a way I was carrying around this book in my head for a very long time as I was doing other things and running the Schuman Center. And I also want to pay tribute to my co-author Stefan Teller, who is an early career scholar. He was my postdoc at the EUI working on differentiated integration. And it was an absolute joy to work with a young, I shouldn't say young, an early career scholar, because he really, you know, we developed this book through argument and engagement, and really enjoyed it. It was a genuine collaborative endeavor. So the book, we need to think back to 2016, when the initial response to the outcome of the referendum was that the EU could be in a spiral of disintegration, domino effect, there might be other UK's lurking there. And I was very struck both by the response of political actors, media actors and also academics. They all took an extremely pessimistic view of what had happened in the sense of the EU's ability to deal with the shock. And this was a large significant member state that was opting for the exit door. So there was an expectation that the EU's crisis response would not be effective. The disintegrative potential was there. But there was also in EU institutions and particularly for UK civil servants in EU institutions. This was a very emotional experience. As someone said to me, there were lots of tears in the Berlin Wall on the 24th of June. Because I was determined from the very beginning to keep a very close eye on this and engage very actively with those responsible for the exercise, but also because it was important to ensure that we did something on Brexit. I kind of lived with it from June 16. And I still, I mean, I still follow it the consequences. But the book in a sense is the outcome of all of that. And we did interview very intensely, very intensive interviews with about 30 of those who negotiated this on the EU side. And we relied for the UK on the UK in a changing Europe archive for the British side. So, in thinking about how to do the research, we were determined to have an analytical framework that would help us organize this melange of material that we had. And the first part of the first part of the analytical framework was framing. How did the EU interpret Brexit, the problem frame, and then what was it going to do in order to respond to the actual frame, and how did it create the capacity internally to adjust and to cope with this. So, we looked very carefully at how the EU amassed resources to diffuse UK brinkmanship. And we shouldn't underestimate the extent to which the foreign office did think that it could divide and conquer. We had an internal exercise where it looked at every member state, so the strengths and weaknesses and relationships with the UK, and began to think where the soft spots or neurologic spots were where they could get support. So the EU was determined not to give the UK the opportunity for brinkmanship. And how they did this was extreme, they were extremely consistent in terms of objectives. It was, there was political ownership of the Brexit process from the beginning, and also at critical moments, in other words, the command ship was operating. And there was extraordinarily technical preparedness. So those were the, that was the, these were the ingredients. Let's talk, firstly, about framing on the morning on the Friday morning after the referendum in less than 24 hours, Donald Tusk issued a statement that afternoon there was a statement of the four presidents of the institutions, the EU institutions plus the presidency, Mark Rutte, the Netherlands was in the presidency. And there, there was an assertion that the EU would remain the dominant organization for for managing interdependence in Europe, that the EU would protect itself in this process, and that the EU would be united, and that not everything was going to be about Brexit for the next five, five years. Then this was endorsed by an informal summit of the 27 a week later. And by the end of that week, the EU had a problem frame, Brexit was a common, it was a common challenge for the EU, and they would stay united in order to, to respond to respond to it. And that was, at the time, it was rhetorical unity. There was an aspiration to unity. But then the EU went through an exercise collectively of transforming the rhetoric into a practice norm. In other words, they worked very hard at remaining united. And they did this by creating capacity. So within every institution, there was a node to manage Brexit in the council. There was the article 50 group. Did he always chaired it from beginning to end he was, he was a senior. He'd been in the Van Rompuy cabinet, very experienced. In the commission, there was Task Force 50. And of course, Junker decided that it needed a political heavyweight and he opted in July for Barney and Barney agreed to do it. In the European Parliament, the Bureau, the presidents decided that they would have a special representative on Brexit, etc, etc. So in every institution, they created the task forces that were going to manage this. And the reason was that they firstly wanted a one-stop shop, and they didn't want, in the words of one senior council official, they didn't want Brexit to pollute the entire EU system. So they created a cordon sonnetaire within the system around Brexit. Then they worked very hard on process. There was firstly no negotiation without notification. No one would speak to the British until they notified the following year. There was, Barney was determined to be transparent, all EU negotiating lines, mandates, even the, even the PowerPoints of their internal seminars on Brexit were put online. Everything was online. And the reason why Barney went for maximum transparency was he didn't want different member states to hear different things at different times, keep the capitals on board. But he also simply wanted to put it out there. This is what the EU wants and this is what we'll agree to, etc, etc. And then they built in, they built in protections for the EU in a process sense in that the divorce first, but even within the divorce first was the determination that there had to be the famous sufficient progress before the EU would talk about the future. And this was to put pressure on the British not to hold out on the big issues. And those three issues as we know were money, citizens and border on the island of Ireland. And that was the first crisis in the negotiations when Madame May went to lunch in the Berlin mall to sign off on the joint report in December 17 to be literally she had to leave the room because she hadn't told the DUP what she was signing up to and all hell broke loose in front of everyone. I mean, it literally happened as lunch was, as lunch was taken and then they went back into the negotiations. The EU, another technique the EU used was it published draft treaties, colour coded. This is what we've agreed. This is what's not. This is what's almost agreed. And this is what we're still negotiating on. So there were lots and lots of ways in which the EU in its determination to have an orderly Brexit, built in all of these, all of these protections. And then, of course, they then needed to once they went into the tunnel and there was a withdrawal agreement, we know that may could not get her withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons. And from that point on, as things politically deteriorated in the UK, the EU began to take a no deal Brexit very seriously and they began to do all the preparatory notes and all of the what would happen goods in the market if there's no deal. What would happen ABCD, it didn't matter. They had, they had looked at it. And of course may couldn't get it through the House of Commons. It was not possible. And then you had the off pitch checkers proposals on the future relationship, which again for some member states might have been the basis as a starting point for a future relationship which would be closer than we've ended up with. Well, there were lots of member states very worried about the so called cherry picking in checkers. So then we arrive at, we arrive there is. I think Boris Johnson would have gone for a no deal Brexit but he was, he hidebound by the House of Commons and couldn't. He had to agree with draw agreement, and he did had an election 80 seat majority and passed and then we went into the future relationship negotiations run by David Frost on the UK side which were an extraordinary set of negotiations. Nothing happened. They had no text agreed. Right, quite late up to October, November, there was no text agreed. There were texts available, but none agreed. And that was because Johnson constantly thought if the EU are going to give in, they don't want to know. He really did the brinksmanship. The other thing was that the EU also decided, okay, he doesn't want the Court of Justice won't live with it. He doesn't want dynamic alignment won't live with it. So the EU began to construct, four people began to construct an alternative to the level playing field via the Court of Justice. And they came up with a mechanism that in the end of the day, the British had to agree with. So as we know, it went right to the brink to Christmas Eve. I think there will never again be a core permitting on Christmas Day, but there was. And shortly after the treaty was agreed, it was the content of the TCA is as thin as it could possibly be between entities that were really interdependent. It's a very thin agreement, but it was the pathway to an agreement was so narrow, given the red lines on both sides. The EU was never going to concede on level playing field. It was never going to con it was going to have to be assured in that treaty. Then as we know the implementation of the withdrawal agreement was extremely challenging and it required the Windsor framework. So we're now in the non ideological phase of EU-UK relations, but we're still left with a set of two pillars of an agreement that are thin. And that certainly there are winners from Brexit, but they're not the UK. And the one Brexit dividend the EU collectively got was the RRF. I do not think that they're in fact, I think the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the EU could never ever ever have agreed to the recovery and resilience fund with the UK as a member state. It simply would not have happened. They'd have forced the EU to non to extra treaty an extra treaty route. So again, we're left with the geopolitical shifts and shocks Ukraine relationships on dealing with sanctions and Ukraine are close. But it's still an extraordinarily thin arrangement for given the geography of the United Kingdom and the EU. So the Brexit story will continue. But that's my contribution to it for now. Thank you very much, British, for that wonderful opening account of the argument of your new book, the EU's response to Brexit. And I'll invite Paul Glesby now to offer some reflections on it. Thank you very much. And this is the most interesting and enjoyable book. I want to raise several issues arising and which highlight the approach of the book and the contribution that it can make to further discussion and argument. The first major point that struck struck me is the geopolitics lying behind the the EU's conduct of this and preparation and the detailed work that it put in. There was a very clear awareness of existential challenge that Brexit posed to the EU in the political setting of the time. And what's very striking is how aware the political leadership in the EU aware of that and how they organize orchestrated the preparations around that. The book identifies clearly how rapidly, as Bridget explained, the major decisions were put in place, how rapidly the decision was taken to organize the task forces, the politics of choice that were involved, and this close cooperation between the institutions, between Junker and Tusk and Hofstad from the parliament really come through very strongly and this makes, excuse me. This adds to Bridget's argument about the development within the EU of what you call the collective power Europe, which contributes then to the subsequent activity of the EU around COVID, around Ukraine, around the issues of the rule of law, about forthcoming enlargement. And I raise the question at the end of how it contributes or not to the current arguments about the Middle East. Secondly, the theoretical approach that's taken is elegant and very challenging and interesting. Bridget and Stéphane tell a go beyond the normal or often used liberal intergovernmental approach to this with rational actors and economic interests and member states playing the major role. They say that this underestimates the leadership and politics and institutions, and then they develop this model of issue framing agenda setting, the question of what is the problem, what is to be done, how you develop capacity to do this. And the very useful framework of this organizes the argument through the book in a way that's engaging, particularly the way they understand the question of framing, the framing in the sense that you highlight perceptions of an issue and organize, I just found the quote, organize the issue framing refers to selectively highlighting and masking interpretations to shape a message in communicative interaction. And what's striking in the book is the way they organize the highlighting issue the selective highlighting of issues and approaches, and also the masking of them. You're doing something selectively, you're highlighting some things, and in a way disguising others, and this is an empowering activity, and that's a strong, gives a strong framework as I say itself to the book, which carries through to the end. The personalities and leadership and politics matter very largely in these set of decisions. We've heard Bridget talk about the personalities and policies on the British side, and when you compare and contrast the two approaches, it's quite extraordinary. And it's not at all surprising that the UK was outwitted in negotiation in the way it was. But what really strikes me is Yonkers political wisdom and skill in those few initial months, a capacity to work with Tusk, and with the other institutional players, and the appointment of Barlier, an identification of Barlier were really skillful important decision making. Now that cuts across the major several issues that Bridget raised again about the British cherry picking approach, the divide and rule approach. And they had, as Bridget said, insulated the problem from such a policy from the British side in a way that actually worked and effectively worked right through. It's interesting Bridget takes up, and Stefan, in the conclusion, criticisms by Ivan, Ivor Roberts and Jonathan Fall, two of the major British personalities, Ivor Roberts negotiating on behalf of Britain, Jonathan Fall, one of the leading the leading British officer in the commission, but they developed a criticism that the commission on the EU had taken too much of a process orientation towards this. Of course, notoriously, in a way, the EU is good at process. But Ivor Roberts and Jonathan Fall said they put too much process in and not enough strategy on the decision to use Article 50 in the way they did, meant that there weren't able, from the EU side to imagine a bigger deal for such a large member state with such a distinctive set of interests. And Bridget simply counteracts that by saying, look, it was up to the British to strategize their approach, compared to the EU's stratification of that approach and strategization of that approach within that geopolitical setting. And it is extraordinary as you go through the successive chapters to see the preparedness of the British compared to the exceedingly detailed and open preparedness of the EU side. That contributes, fifthly, to the collective power Europe argument the book makes, which has been developing over the last several years, where the capacity, the framing, the ability to bring together the different elements of the EU add to its power in subsequent events with the COVID, with Ukraine, as you mentioned with the budgetary and fiscal issues that arose, and whether these indeed were more effectively carried out without the British presence. And that's a major contribution to the decision making capacity of the EU in subsequent years. And one, you know, there's a, there are tools here, including analytical tools, which to evaluate that performance, and I come to that in a moment. As for the British outcomes, it's striking how the most sober judgments in Britain about the outcomes of Brexit are showing that it's lost control of events that it's lost. It's been set back economically in regulatory terms and in many other ways. They're ending up with a weaker economy, a weaker politics on territorial issues arising in Scotland and Ireland, arising from the, from the decisions. The terms that come over to me and thinking about this is dysfunctionality within the UK state on a loss of statecraft, statecraft that used to characterize the, the British approach, but now seems to be absent externally and internally and they're seeking to repair that. That's another talking point about the, about that raised by the book. And in the conclusion on the concluding point, it seems to me, and I put this back to Bridget and perhaps for discussion is the current difficulties the EU is facing on the Middle East crisis as to how they bring them bring the, bring their positions together. There are urgent meetings going on today as we speak. We've been following the differences between von der Leyen and Charles Michel and other major players. I wonder, you know, what that collective, where is that collective power Europe in this setting, and how do you apply the techniques of analysis that are developed in this book to that, perhaps indeed. It's a major, major geopolitical crisis, but perhaps indeed the methods that Bridget identified may be applied, but they certainly need to be because this is a very visible crisis for the EU, and it will lead to disenchantment publicly unless they get their acts together. But they did get their acts together on the, on the Brexit issue. And that's a standing compliment to them. So thank you very much.