 Yes. So I'm Ann Marie Slaughter and I'm thrilled to welcome you to bridge builders, modern bridge builders in a digital tech driven global economy. This is a particular treat for us to be able to do this and co-host it with Nordic West and particularly Nordic West CEO, Risto Pantila, who is a particular friend of mine. I've known him for many years because he also organizes the Northern Lights Conference in Europe, which is a wonderful conference in Finland at the time of the White Nights. The sun really doesn't go down and brings together business people from all over Europe and also Russia, a very important set of relationships. So we're particularly happy to have Risto here today and honored to have Tumas Ilvis, who is the former president of Estonia. Risto will introduce our panel, but again, Tumas and I have known each other for some time and I think I can just say he is certainly the most innovative leader in Europe and arguably the world when it comes to digital advances. Estonia is really in another place when it comes to being a truly digital state. So I also, I will welcome our other panelists and Risto will introduce us all. I do want to just reflect for a moment on this conversation at this particular moment, where we have many questions about the liberal international order in general and the European order, the Western order in particular. Not only Brexit, but what's been happening in Eastern and Central Europe and the fear actually in the Baltics that history looks like it could, if not repeat itself, resurface in many ways. And populism across Europe and in the United States and indeed in many other parts of the world. This is a moment when societies that have managed globalization, a balance between globalization and egalitarianism or as much equality as they can achieve, it's a rare achievement and one that we need in countries around the world. So it's a particularly good time to hear about the new Nordics, the idea of the five Nordic countries as well as Estonia and conceivably other Baltic countries. I will say as a half Belgian I actually like the idea of the new lowlands. I was thinking maybe we could start colonizing various countries right there. But in particular, there are the substantive issues of how do you take advantage of open trade, open borders, innovation, at the same time that you ensure that there are not a few winners and many, many losers. So they're the substantive questions that we're going to talk about, but they're also the questions of form. And one of the things that I have long loved about the Nordic countries is that they operate by network. And indeed the paper on the new Nordics has this wonderful phrase, Nordic style cooperation calls for networks at all levels and between all parties, companies, foundations and private individuals instead of only government bureaucracies. So if you'll indulge me for one more minute as someone who's written a book called the chess board and the web, Strategies of Connection in a Networked World, this kind of networking, not just the networking among the Nordic governments, which has been going on for a long time, but recognition that diplomacy requires many different actors, government actors, but also global actors, CEOs, NGOs, heads of universities, philanthropists, faith groups, that those leaders are global leaders and they need to network to solve our global problems. And when you look at actually gatherings on climate change, you'd never get there if there were only governments. You have to have the CEOs, the NGOs and others. So I'm particularly excited to have this conversation, as I said, both about the substantive issues, but also about how we can think about what I would call webcraft, statecraft among global leaders to solve problems that affect us all. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Risto and take my place on the panel. Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Anne-Marie. It's a delight to be here. The new Nordics at the New America, I think we can do great things together. It's really a pleasure to be here. And you've always been the leading voice of understanding global affairs at our conference, so I hope you keep coming back. It almost came last three years as well, so there. It's my pleasure to now introduce the panel, but before I do so, I just sort of framed the question that we are addressing today. The question is simply, should the new Nordics play a bigger role in international affairs going forward? And if so, what should this role look like? And when we speak about the new Nordics, then I suppose I define the old Nordics and new Nordics, and you already indicated that in the past Nordic cooperation was driven by politics and politicians, and now today it's driven by business. If you look at the force behind Nordic cooperation, now it's been for years Nordic businesses doing more, and that leads to different sorts of networks of politicians, civil society and businesses, and that's one aspect that's new. And the other aspect is Estonia, which de facto has become the Nordic country and is one of the leaders in the digital agenda and what that should look like in the future. So welcoming Estonia as a sort of de facto Nordic country is the first step, and we see that like-minded countries are likely to cooperate with us in the future. So Thomas Hendrik Ilves, we all know as the former president of Estonia, currently in California, and has been chairman of the Steering Group for this report that we launched today. Then to my left we have Geir Westkord with Equino and the former diplomat and is looking very much at the global affairs from the point of view of A, leading not only Nordic or European but global company based here in Washington D.C. And then we have Michael Anderson who is heading up global affairs at SA. So that's the team and my first question goes to Thomas. If you were to analyze the contribution that the new Nordics could make to global conversation and international affairs, what would that consist of? Well there are three areas which I'll get to. First, just why this should be interesting to the United States, not simply for political reasons, but I mean I'm in where I sit these days. Within a 12-mile radius are the headquarters of Tesla, Apple, Google, Facebook, Palatine and who knows what else. On the other hand, if I want to get a driver's license I have to spend three days in the DMV. So I'm in the Mecca of I.T., the world Mecca, everyone comes there except these days you may not get an HV1 visa, H1D visa because for some reason the United States doesn't like smart people from the Indian subcontinent or something but anyway leave that aside. Even though one heads Microsoft, the other one heads Google these days but we'll leave all that aside. The point is that in this world, if you look at the world, the I.T. approaches that are, which is basically, it's going to take everything over anyway. But you see three broad approaches. One is the American laissez-faire free-for-all in which wonderful products are designed but life goes on otherwise as if in the 1950s. I can vouch for that. It's really like the 1950s in California. Then there is the sort of Chinese surveillance hyper state model in which, well there's nothing laissez-faire free-for-all about it but it really offers great services, amazing services that you can only dream of. Then there's this kind of middle ground which I would say is standard European which guarantees a privacy, strong concern for privacy issues yet at the same time some kind of regulation but not much. In this field probably the number one country, I have to say, is Estonia. This is an internal debate whether it's Finland or Estonia. We get Estonia. Well I'm only citing the European Commission. But we are also number one in cybersecurity yet we're number one in the freedom house net freedom ranking. So this means that you can in fact have very high security and have freedom. I mean so this is the thing that maybe doesn't. The point is that what we have done in my country and together with Finland which has adopted our platform, we can do things when we're just thinking of services that if a Finn comes to Estonia and gets sick and he loses his medicine he can get his finished prescription with his ID card in any pharmacy in Estonia. I mean because we, it took a long time to get there but in any case because the platforms are interoperable services are, I don't know the extent of services in Finland but in my country there are only three interactions with the state that you cannot do online. The first one is getting married. You have to show up. You also have to show up when you get divorced. That's number two. And three which I think is of vital importance for this country is that you cannot have a sale of real estate of any form by a shell company. You have to have a representative of the company come and participate in the transfer of property. Now we did this like 25 years ago for fairly obvious reasons because we didn't want our country bought up by sort of anonymous shell companies from the same country that buys apartments in Trump Tower by anonymous shell companies. But in any case, so one area where I see a huge, I mean a real area of great cooperation using even this example I gave of the Finnish Estonian which you call it prescription. I'm sort of switching languages here and I'm also jet lag coming from Beijing. So is one thing that I think that really you can do in the United States. I would suggest in the United States if you want to start digitizing services and offer the kind of service that we have in the Nordic countries then we should do it at the state level because the federal government it will never do it. But most services in the United States are at the state level. So that's one area. A related area which is should be a foreign policy interest for the United States as well is what I've been doing in the past year with a sort of with the around the corner here somewhere the Inter-American Development Bank is they keep sending me down to different countries in Latin America saying look guys you have to digitize if you want to get anywhere and I would not recommend the sort of the main actor here which is coming from Beijing saying oh we'll do it all for you and they're looking for some kind of model and certainly Panama and Mexico have already, Panama has adopted the Estonian platform for data exchange and Mexico because it's a federal government they have they are adapting the system so because they have different competences at different levels and so this is I mean since we already see this kind of model is being adopted and adapted by different countries around the world but especially in Latin America these days which is suffering from chronic sort of corruption and other issues that you can deal with. Now this is a second area where I would see broader cooperation in terms of both the interests of the United States and our interests and then the third area where we have been just somewhat different but ultimately related to tech but more the social media side is that Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Lithuania I should point out have been remarkably resilient and effective in dealing with all of the social media ills of fake news and basically if you look at who's done the best in Europe the consensus is that those countries are the ones who are dealing effectively with this onslaught of disruptive behavior designed to subvert the democratic process and certainly we have seen the democratic process subverted in a number of countries and it's I mean if you read the US press you think it's only the United States but since I study this I'll say the the only country in Europe where I have not been able to find any any study of Russian influence operations at whatever level from bots to inflammatory Facebook pages the only one that there is no evidence of it's Portugal everywhere else there has been something I mean more most obviously in Europe in the French election with the with the hacking and doxing of Emmanuel Macron's server before the election now as it's becoming clear though I suspected it two years ago is the strong role Russia played in the Brexit referendum in countries where the effort failed you see governments do something about it in countries where the efforts succeeded as I would say Brexit in the US you see that there's more NGOs that do the work that is necessary to but even in Europe basically there's an especially the Nordic case we all have a strong NGO component to dealing with fake news because this is something that well governments either don't have any experience with secondly it's kind of a touchy subject you don't want to get into censorship NGOs have played a huge role in this regard so those three broad areas I see as a sort of key links between the Nordic countries and and the United States both in sort of domestic reforms as well as foreign policy objectives and I would say in many ways defense the placement of the hybrid EU NATO joint hybrid Center in Helsinki last year I think is also a fundamental step forward which actually provides another bridge between between the United States and the region especially since Finland is not in NATO so that sort of which is the treaty-based relationship that the US has with Europe but certainly via this center again we can do a lot of things together and finally I would say 20 years ago almost to the day I published an article called a stoning as a Nordic country which which I mean it was on December 24th 1998 which earned me the you were hoping you would get this no no it just it turned out that was when the magazine published the article but but in any case that has earned me two decades of enmity from Latvians and Lithuanians who still raised that this this this essay but it didn't make a lot of people happy in my own country either at the time but but over the 20 years it didn't make the Nordics happy but in fact I'm proud that my country is achieved so much that 20 years later the concept is actually being accepted at least to the north and to the west not in the south thank you thank you Thomas actually we can sympathize Finland was still seen in the 1930s as a Baltic country as we know from the Molotov-Rippendorf fact but anyway I wanted to go continue with you and Madislota with perhaps a question on the transatlantic relationship President Obama as we all remember invited all the Nordic heads of state together not Estonia yet and that was sort of a move towards dealing with the North Nordic countries together this has not been happening of late but do you see that there's any value in the Nordics the new Nordics as a group taking a sort of a bigger profile both in Europe and in transatlantic relations or are you in the sort of the other camp which basically says that it's best to concentrate everything in Brussels although as a again as a half Belgian there's nothing wrong with Brussels and but I do I think I think this kind of regional cooperation is where we have to go as a as a if you look around the globe but it's impossible to actually do diplomacy with 194 countries and even with the EU you would get when I was in the State Department the EU ambassador and members of the Commission would come to visit but so with the 28 countries so you were actually just getting 29 visits rather than than actually the value of pooling various assets and as the new Nordics paper makes clear and it's quite striking together these five six countries are 28 million people 28 million people in the EU is right under the big four and then Poland then there you would have these these countries together that is a sizable population and then economically it's a real force when you look at the where the different countries rank as well as in terms of innovation in terms and as I said a kind of different social balance the and happiness too so the idea of being able to deal with the five Nordics the new Nordics and maybe others as a group and as a group that are simultaneously separate and together because this is really I think the the 21st century innovation the 20th century innovation of the EU that in the 18th century you had to have you had federal states it was the only way to have large democracies you had federal states the United States Australia Germany and others now you have these groupings that are separate culturally linguistically and and maintain their borders but come together for specific purposes so I think it's it's exactly the direction we need to go this administration wants no part of any cooperation but it's not surprising because if you're one country if you're Finland versus the United States or Estonia versus the United States you've got much less clout than if you are this 28 million people with that size economy so this administration wants to go back to purely bilateral dealings around the world and that means the great powers will have great power and others as well do what they must this kind of grouping you could imagine it in the Nordics you can imagine the Mediterranean countries again and you the visa grad four is a little bit like that in East India so I'm all for it the interesting interesting point as you pointed out about the new Nordics is that they are yes but countries they all yes we are Nordics but not everyone belongs to NATO yes not everyone belongs to the EU or the euro but still there's cooperation so I think that actually is one of the key points about being able to cooperate even if you are on different sides of a border which may be relevant for post Brexit Europe as well and indeed England was Nordic long before it was Anglo-Saxon so perhaps they will soon rejoin Denmark they may Scotland has already applied for members of the Nordic countries anyway shall we go to the business side for a moment so gay you look at the world very much from energy security energy point of view but also trade so in terms of trade and energy is there anything that the new Nordics can bring to the table it's a good question I as you know I'm a bit hesitant about sitting here as a representative of business and being emphatic about what the new Nordics can do to save the world I think there is a bit too much messianism perhaps in the part of the Nordic countries on this front so so I shall refrain from that but there were a couple of passages in the report that I found particularly compelling and it's the ones that deal with the centrality and importance of transatlantic relations for the Nordics also going forward and you even included Britain in there let me just refresh everybody's memories it's important to us that the US UK and the EU remain on the same team absolutely we should seek to reinforce the transatlantic bridge both in trade and in security absolutely European companies my own included have invested a lot in the US over the last decade and a half and European and the American companies have similarly invested a lot in the in the in Europe and in the EU over the last few decades and this means that we have a relationship that makes business concerned when you see signs of transatlantic drift sand signs of the EU and the US Europe and then and the US not quite seeing eye to eye and today I think we find ourselves in a situation where we from a business perspective see increased transatlantic divergence we see increased transatlantic divergence over issues such as tariffs and trade over sanctions and over the issue of climate change and I think this divergence creates uncertainty on the part of business and this uncertainty is not particularly good for us as we see it longer term so we are all in favor of transatlantic convergence reinforcing the transatlantic bridge we get concerned when we see that that bridge is not as solid as it once was there is one area where I do think that the prospect of stronger and increased transatlantic cooperation is particularly prospective and that's in the area of energy and that has to do with what has happened in the United States over the last decade it's remarkable only been a decade since the shale revolution in the US really took off but as a result of that the US is now in a position where it can offer exports of LNG to Europe and this has translated or transformed rather the market psychology in Europe quite significantly even before much LNG has made it to Europe from the United States we see that the psychology of the market has changed and that European energy security is probably viewed is certainly viewed differently than it was when I was in Brussels for example back in January of 2009 and we had the Russia Ukraine gas crisis so we now find ourselves in a situation where thanks to what has happened in the United States the Europe and the Europeans are looking at the prospect of diverse supply sources of energy and diversified supply routes of energy this is all good and it leads in my view to the rather peculiar situation right now that you do have a deep geopolitical crisis between Russia and the West but it is not a crisis that has translated into a deep energy security crisis in Europe and I think that is partly because of the prospects and the promise of American energy exports and the psychological impact on merely having the knowledge that you can't draw upon American supplies when needed is important in and of itself because we shouldn't kid ourselves American supplies will never replace or fully this place neither Russian nor North African nor Norwegian supplies but at the margins it can play a very important role and we already see how European energy security has been in part transformed because of this so this is a strong example of how we can still build bridges and strengthen the relationship even under conditions where we may have some disagreements on other issues and that was intentional certainly the Obama administration support for fracking which was very controversial in other ways it was exactly for these reasons and interesting enough one of the objects of Russian propaganda is anti-fracking I mean obviously well well known in Romania but also within the United States you can see anti-fracking propaganda is coming from the internet research agency in Peterburg make one thing one more question before we go to Michael and on energy security and Europe so do you see you don't see fundamental changes even if if the situation with Russia becomes worse so you see this sort of energy cooperation between the US and Europe continuing or is that your wish that it will continue I think the fundamentals of supply and demand play into this so if you have a if you have an abundance of natural gas available it impacts the players the Russians have to think very carefully about how they want to behave in such a situation it to a certain extent reduces their market power and their ability to play politics with gas supplies so from that perspective I I think that that it's the market fundamentals that will basically determine how much power how much leverage energy producers be it Russia or others have over the energy consumers and that will be the case no matter what as to what happens next anybody's guess we have we have been surprised many times over the last few years but I should also say that the Europeans themselves the European Union deserves a lot of credit for what they have done since the gas crisis of 2009 because they have strengthened their internal market so it's now now possible to send gas from one part of the EU to another to a greater extent than used to be the case the EU has invested a lot in infrastructure in interconnecting pipelines in reverse flow capacity in pipelines in gas storages and in addition to that you see some investments in LNG so it's the combination of the shale revolution in the US and what the Europeans themselves have done that has significantly improved energy security the energy security situation but we know that debates about energy security will always intensify again when prices go up or and when supplies are scarce Michael let's go to security and defense matters now Finland and Sweden are not members of NATO still there are some people who make an argument that they can play an important role in the fence Atlantic security equation what's your take on this is a little less question yeah well it's first of all it's probably the most common question I've received here in Washington DC since I came eight years ago is why isn't Sweden part of NATO isn't isn't it time and I wish I could answer that question that's a very much a domestic political question but I'll get to your question here in a minute first a little bit of a caveat I'm not a natural security expert by any means but I'm happy to provide some reflection and they're based on basically three three perspectives one being a business leader having developed our business here at footprint in the US which gives you a seat at the table so you understand the thoughts on the other side the other one having been very engaged in the Atlantic Council which is sort of transatlantic think tank who kind of works with these matters that's front and center and thirdly being a part of the Swedish-American Seymour commerce which I've been for the last eight years so my reflection is sort of a blend of those three perspectives if you like so the transatlantic link is something we talk about a lot and and you've seen I would say in later years particularly with the latest administration in Sweden the Minister of Defense has been very outspoken if you've seen language that we've never seen before historically there's always been strong transatlantic ties not necessarily discussed as much in public as we see now and we see it in other countries too in a different way and of course the resurgence of Russia is driving all this but I would say the center of the transatlantic link is of course trade national securities and very much values as I see it that's the sort of recurring things when we look at it and and we work in our business even though very much today it's not driven by by politics or government involvement it's really a a business-to-business industry industry project which I don't think many people realize they think that the defense corporation when it comes to capabilities development new material is so forth is very much sort of a government-to-government relationship it's really not if you look at our our business model and what we've done here in the u.s. last eight ten years it's a partnership model we partner with with us industry we build local footprints in communities etc and just give you a few examples we just want to contract with the u.s. of course new training this is something that was unheard of I think on both sides that we would do only five six years ago so that's a trend in itself I think it is an important foundation and but it's two areas that communicates so you you establish these relationships on the industry side and business side and they become part of the transatlantic link the security cooperation because they're interlinked so they're not installed pipes but the one side doesn't necessarily drive the other so I just want to say that initially but there is obviously a very very strong foundation in national security going back to the part I know the best the Swedish side already back in 1950s there was a strong foundation and an agreement between Sweden and the u.s. where Sweden got access to defense technology very early and and if you look at some of our flagship products that are a group and fighter about 50% of the technology in this aircraft comes from the u.s. that's not very well known but that that's a fact so these ties are very very strong they go back to the 50s we had defense cooperation MOU in place in the 80s that sort of further just made these more formal I would say and then recently underlying with the statement of the attempt between Sweden and the u.s. in 2016 and also the trilateral agreement between Sweden and the u.s. actually this year so the foundation is clearly there all Nordic countries I would say what when I look from my side enjoys a very very good standing especially with the u.s. defense and the national security domain the question is how can we take the next step so but it's important to understand that there is a foundation I think it's more of a question how can we get more mileage out of these relationships so back to you a more specific question some countries are part of NATO some aren't I would say first of all if you look at the evolution of the other less five to ten years most of the Nordic countries or NATO partners which means that we have we are interoperable we exercise together we share intelligence etc etc it's all visible in these statement of intense and we participate in various missions as well so I think the foundation is there the the the mode of operation is in place when it comes to the next steps I think first of all the Nordic countries should embrace the diversity that we have in the national security domain we come up to the table with different perspectives history capabilities and outlooks and by combining these these capabilities these outlooks that's when you really start to make an impact this region really is really critically important for the US national security it's its location and you know all know why and but we also it's also a matter of priorities at the end of the Obama administration we all heard about people to Asia and that's still very much valid even though it's not sort of not front and center the way it used to be but it's still very much valid and that means that with other priorities that the US needs to make priorities and clearly want a strong national security Parker in the Nordic region there we all know that so I think by combining our strategies capabilities and come jointly to the US with an offering which now is more of a transition or I'm looking for the word transactional than in the past and we're all concerned about the transactional nature of the relationship but maybe there could be something good behind that as well because I think it will force the Nordic countries to come together and look at what is you is looking for what exactly can we offer what's our offering in this relationship how can we offload some of the responsibilities that we traditionally looked for from the US so I think there's a great opportunity for the Nordic reading to come together and really consolidate their offering the relationships etc but again it needs to be a campus dough pipe industries and key part of this business trade etc it's not it's not an isolation so in conclusion I have sort of three messages I think again the Nordic reading is of high strategic importance for the US we all enjoy a great relationship the US and and and we have very high regard I think in these relationships so foundation is there if we can get maybe a little parental push from our main partner to come much more clear in our vision in our strategies I think there there's an enormous opportunity there and again I think key that we tend to forget but it's really also very much a value-driven relationship even though we come at it with different strategies different approaches the values are the foundation but I also want to add a little bit of word of caution here as well if you look at the numbers in the report it's fantastic we're the happiest people with the most innovative people you know it's heaven on earth and and I think we are all guilty a little bit within the Nordic reading to transmit our model because we're so proud of it and we think it's so effective I don't think that's the key selling points when we go to our US counterparts let's be proud of what we have we're not selling the model we're selling our credibility Michael I think you're right we may think that we are the happiest people but I think that simply simply we don't know anything better that's one of two things on the security side number one just it's important to keep in mind the Trident Juncture which is a massive exercise the largest post Cold War exercise of NATO which involved Finland and Sweden as well 45,000 NATO troops in Norway or around Norway shows a certain I mean it's so something that has not happened in 27 years so it's yeah and the other thing I say but on the other hand I would say that with the exception of Estonia which does 2.1% of GDP yeah the Nordic countries are like between 0.9 and 0.1% of GDP for defense spending which I think makes it more difficult I mean even even Norway's I think like around 1% of GDP that is like a consistent of defense spending which is a consistent sort of demand on the part of the United States threw out I mean the Obama administration Bush administration the Clinton administration they I mean basically everyone took the line about the peace dividend kind of seriously but some more seriously than others and have not adjusted to the new reality that's also that's very good point and it tends to become the sort of political domain where that that's where the conversation is all about if you look at the daily life and you look at those who defends us they look at how can we join capabilities and if you look at Norway Denmark Finland etc. Nordic countries we have capabilities there are very very important going forward to defend this so if you focus on the capabilities and what's actually in place rather on the financial end of it I think you see a lot of a lot of good things. Good night just ask a question so as I from the point of view of an American policymakers I think about how would you make this translate from report to reality I would think it would be very valuable if the new Nordics came together as business and government and had some kind of proposition for the United States but I then hear Michael saying you know it would be very valuable for us to make this a reality if the United States would give us a push so I wonder how you know and again I don't think much will happen with this administration but if you are thinking ahead to the 2020s there's a push me pull you quality here where you're waiting for us to do something and we really it would be easier for us to think about the new Nordics if you came to us with a proposition so I just love to hear reflections on how you get out of that catch 22. Yeah well let me just add one practical aspect of this so we all cherish the bilateral relationship that we have with the US it's important it's key but at some point it just becomes a bandwidth issue there's so many that wants a piece of the US get on the agenda and you simply have to coordinate to get enough air time with the administration that's to me that's the starting point and you can certainly create that offering but just by joining our effort to get more impact more time more visibility that in itself is I think major I think there are key I mean you have to look at areas where you can do something I mean I certainly would say that when it comes to like what is you know on the headlines every day here in terms of the impact of social media on truth the political process free and fair elections that that well much of it in our countries is driven by NGOs that NGOs should actually be from here should be like contacting more or in I mean I say the problem with the Nordic NGOs which are considered the most successful in dealing with these issues they're so overloaded that they're not gonna they're not gonna do any outreach frankly they're like worried about what's coming in I mean and sort of batting it back but certainly that's a that's something I think US NGOs should be looking at much more I know there is strong cooperation between say Ben Nimo and those people at the Atlantic Council with the ones in the Nordic countries but anyway that's I think sectorally that's something and then again when I talk about digitization I think that can that will be done at the US state level because just because of the organization of the United States but then there should be outreach I would argue toward states that are amenable towards digitization of government services on the part of the Nordic countries and I'll be meeting with the governor elect Gavin Newsom next month so we'll see but I mean I think it's one way to go. I think this push and pull question is behind this before we think that there's been too little doing together as a Nordic rule in both Europe and in the transatlantic relations and part of the reason I think has been the European Union I mean we think that is the most important instrument for us and it's it's great but there's been this tendency to think that you can't have blocks within and that has prevented the Nordic governments from coming together with proposals to do this or that and now there's a bit of a push from the business side but now we have to step up nobody else is doing this so I think we are in the beginning of sort of pushing governments to do more and come up with proposals perhaps regarding that. I'd love to bring in digital agendas as a theme and also open it to everyone else if there are questions but Michelle you have been looking at the digital agenda and Google has been part of this project so Michelle Lynch would you care to say a couple of words about what the new Nordics could do in that regard. Thank you yeah so I'm Michelle Lynch from Google here in Washington DC part of the public policy team and thank you for this forum this afternoon we're very supportive and kind of reiterate a lot of the points on the business side about sharing values. Google's been doing a lot of work with what we call the digital front runners of Northern Europe we have had a series of reports one with BCG on kind of looking at what are the commonalities among these countries what makes them so dependent on technology and so innovative and having ecosystems that are really fostering growth in new new tech companies. We also had a project with McKinsey on looking at the future of work with the digital front runners and show that they're really poised to kind of take advantage of the technology and digitization of their economies and really benefit from automation and digitization if they do it right. So for example the McKinsey report found that by 2030 the digital part of the economy will count for 19 percent of jobs in the digital front runner countries which is up from 8 percent in 2017 and so we expect to see a major shift in the type of skills needed especially with the rise of artificial intelligence so technological cognitive and interpersonal skills and to the point of the culture of the Nordics we see there's such a strong cooperation a culture of cooperation and dialogue between governments businesses and trade unions which is really what is necessary if they're going to affect change and so we see them very well placed to lead and cooperate with similar digital front runners the Benelux countries as well that have robust social models and and digital skills because if you think about kind of the future of work we know that this you know the typical social welfare system is not going to work it's going to have to adapt to but we're seeing some of the Nordic countries already experiment with ways to adapt and be forward thinking so we are fully behind the Nordics kind of looking forward to the next EU digital agenda especially with Finland taking over the EU presidency later in 2019 would just encourage Finland to think about a plan for digital powered jobs in Europe refocusing the conversation around the DSM back to one that is progressive and really will foster technology and innovation across the EU and then really having a focus on rescaling workers and an ambitious trade agenda and that would I think help just kind of reinforce the transatlantic relationship as well as we come together with these common values and thinking about international governance of AI and things that we need to come together on because if we don't there are many other countries who don't have similar models and values that are also taking the lead on these technologies yeah unfortunately the DSM has kind of fallen off the map but Estonia introduced it and during our presidency and my the chip off my block who did the the Brussels side of the digital single market is now meeting regularly with Finns to conspire on how to take the digital single market forward because this was a brand new idea in the European Union and then when our presidency ended of course then it's about we're doing the legislation still but there's no new new ideas so we're counting very much on Finland to again pick it up and carry the ball for us I think that's a case of point in point that that sort of one easy way to be more effective is to coordinate these presidents and make sure that there's continuation and I do think that that's that's taking place but any questions from the floor at this point please go ahead hi my name is Ian Wallace and I run the cybersecurity initiative here at New America no one has mentioned China but we do quite a lot of work here on China's role in technology particularly around their private sectors role in for example 5G networks and the implications that has for artificial intelligence I would have thought that was one of the Nordic countries sort of significant value propositions here with Nokia, Ericsson others can you talk a little bit more about how that that might play into the the future relationship and the sort of hardware side of the digital agenda that's brilliant because actually there only are three 5G companies Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei and so I mean in fact I should have mentioned if I actually see where it is that the this if you talk about business I mean if you're go this is this should be this evolving geopolitical situation should be like a gold mine for two Nordic companies that the only two that are doing this aside from I mean they're the only two companies and they happen to be finishing Swedish so I would say this is like one area that should really be like a highway of cooperation. Any other comments? Lots of nods from the Finn and the Swedish. Can only agree. I would just mention one point and that is that we do think it is important that again going back to the centrality of transatlantic relations that we in the West going beyond transatlantic area as well are able to come up with some common rules of the road for example how to deal with the screening of foreign investments in strategic sectors our economy there's no doubt that the Europeans have been lagging behind the Americans in this regard they're catching up I know that Norway is certainly catching up to have a new bill passed in Congress the so-called firm a bill Sifias reform last year I think more transatlantic coordination and development of common practices also with regard to the export of technology is important in this respect and it's particularly important for businesses so that we have a level playing field across the Atlantic when we're dealing with third countries in particular we had a question back there Henry Hedger retired government someone at the Chamber of Commerce a woman told me that in this country we need maybe perhaps 180,000 people in coding for the new economy that's projected over maybe the next 10 years they wonder where they're going to get all these people from I wondered about in your own nation as a Nordic nation's is are the young people in the way of their studies learning how to handle a computer programs etc etc to help build this kind of workforce the projected growth of a lady from Google doubling that seem where we were in over a number of years from now how are they going to obtain all these people that are needed what are your own thoughts on this so are we efficient how do you compare to what we're doing we start teaching optionally but we start teaching coding in grade one I think we are the rest of the Nordics are a little behind but we are trying to catch up now we've had strong programs in Sweden and but I think there's a challenge domestically in each country how do we keep up with the demand so it's it's in our wheel house obviously we have a strong professional side but I think it's it's a demand is tough on everyone can you make your question very short please and we are approaching our end but please have a floor okay then in that case let's let's continue then after we finish and then and we are happy to do that my final question to all of you is whether we need a new vision or transatlantic relationship or whether we need to go back to the old and if so either one of these when is this likely to take place and we already indicated that right now may not be the time for great new visions but what's the sort of time people that you would see in seeing where this relationship is going next well so let's imagine brexit goes through which I I think is no better than a 5050 proposition right now but if it does and even if it doesn't as you say you've got members of NATO some countries not members of NATO this other not members of the EU but brexit goes through I can really see a new vision in two ways one overlapping through a lateral relationship so exactly as you you can you can imagine the new Nordics plus Britain who are now in in a relationship with the United States but that overlaps an EU relationship with the United States and the same would probably you could imagine be true with some of the Mediterranean countries and Morocco or Morocco and Tunisia if you if you see the way the Mediterranean will evolve so on the one hand I can I can see a different vision that says it's not just NATO US EU US it is both those things but those relationships are overlapped by plural lateral ways and the other is just as you said I think the when we think of the transatlantic relationship we thought primarily of governments and we simply cannot we have to think about the business and the NGO and again the universities faith groups there there many a philanthropist we we need to think of those networks as being just as important as the government well I mean I think we'll be building rebuilding sometimes our transatlantic relationship but I think we can also bring new elements into it I mean if anything if the digital sort of era has done anything it is reordered power or not power relations but certainly the weights of my country would be just a dismal little backwater of Europe and with no attention paid to it whatsoever had it not spent 25 years digitizing and then an example the kind of things that you can do we caught by this shortage of supply for people dealing with cyber security started a National Guard unit made up of basically techies who volunteered and the Maryland National Guard and some other National Guards found this idea so interesting that they have adopted the same model and that's how what we have we can't we'll I mean we all have the same problem we'll never be able to pay the people that we need the kind of money that they're paid by Google and Microsoft and everyone else but this kind of model a National Guard model seems to work so I think there are like all kinds of things that we can actually do together that once the sort of climate gets a little warmer or maybe it cools that whatever the case is that I think that when there is a greater receptivity towards international cooperation in on the part of this administration we will be able to do much more Michael yes I think vision would be fantastic vision is usually something out there in the future I think maybe and I'm coming back to my earlier statement we're in a transactional environment not only in the US and I think maybe a little bit sense of urgency focus on what we can do short term to find your goals come up with a plan that's executable low-hanging fruit yes so I think we have to realize that we are back in the new normal in terms of world politics and the last 25 years following the collapse of the Soviet Union may have been the abnormal period and business this means for business that there will still be plenty of opportunities out there but they will come with greater risks and we were used to in the past and we need to manage those risks and an important component of helping business manage those risks is transatlantic harmony well I I think with those words we are ready to conclude this fascinating discussion thank you very much everyone and I think our main conclusion is that the new Nordics and New America