 Good morning. Thank you very much, first of all, for joining us this morning for this opening ceremony of the Barcelona Center for European Studies at the UPF, the Council of Luxembourg here in Barcelona, the Amith Vivian Reddy, Ferran, Professor Aregi, Professor Girau, Vice-Rector of the International Office of Internationalization, Professor Isabel Valverde. Before I introduce the ceremony, let me apologize on behalf of the President of the University, Professor Jaume MacAzals, wanted to join us this morning, but due to an emergency meeting, he has been unable to be with us this morning, so I'm here to fill in his shoes as well as I can. Hopefully, he might be able to join us later this morning, but let me express, and I don't think I can overemphasize this enough, how happy I am as a Vice-Rector and also as a Professor in International Relations to be part of this opening ceremony of the Barcelona Center for European Studies. We've been very lucky. I promise that the Director will join us later today, he's here. So it's been much faster than I thought. So today, I believe we have to congratulate us all. It is indeed an honor for the UPF to receive such a distinguished guest. We may have abused a little bit of her because she was here yesterday as well. She honored us with her presence not only today but also yesterday, and the UPF has surely, all of you know already, it's 30 years old. In the past 30 years, like the European Union, the UPF has undergone some bums along the road. There have been some difficulties along the road, but like the European Union, it has survived quite successfully to these bums along the road. And I think it goes without saying, but Europe has been at the very heart of the UPF from the very beginning. Due to the hard work of the International Relations Service, we've sent thousands of students throughout the Erasmus program. We've received, we've welcomed to this university a larger number of students from other European universities. We've been part to at least five Erasmus Mundus programs in the past few years, and we've been honored to have three professors that have received Jean Monnetche, Professor Fernando Vidao, Professor Alejandro Sainz-Arnauth, and Professor Javier Areghi as well. So Europe is at the very heart of our university, not only because of these three examples that I just used, but also in our teaching, in our spirit, and in everything we do, Europe is a very integral part of the DNA of the university, Pompeo Fabra. I promise that I would be brief, because I have to fill in the shoes of the of the president. So let me just finish by thanking once again Miss Viviane Redding for her presence. We will be lucky to hear from her in a few minutes. And let me also thank Professors Giraud and Professor Areghi for pushing this center, for pushing this initiative. Let me also thank Vice-Rector Isabel Valverde and the Unit of International Relations for all the hard job and all the hard work they've put into this as well. You know it all. It's impossible for a university to launch such an ambitious initiative without the support of faculty and administrative units. So I think we all have to be very proud and very thankful for all their work. And without further ado, let me just yield the floor to Professor Areghi that will much better than I do introduce you to the work of the Barcelona Center for European Studies, what they intend to do and where it comes from. But thank you very much again for being here and for joining us for such an important day. I haven't mentioned that of course this is a historical day, not only for the UPF but also for the European Union. I'm sure we all have mixed fillings, if not sat fillings today. But probably because of that or precisely because of that there's no better day than this to talk and to dream about the European Union. So thank you very much again for being here and Professor Areghi, the floor is all yours. Thanks, many thanks Paolo for the presentation and introduction. I will be also very brief because the main, our main guess I think is much more interesting what whatever I could say but in any case I really would like to to explain a little bit what is the basis and what is the basis for and what I think is going to be the added value of buses not just for the UPF but also in Barcelona and Catalonia. Okay, so first of all thank you very much for everyone for being here. I think even if we have these kind of mixed fillings I think it's a good day for at least for European Union studies at UPF today. I think actually it's a historical day because I think European Union is a really important actor, political actor in our lives. I think I have the perception we are not very aware of this oftentimes. So actually one of the main roles of this institute is actually to be able to think a little bit more about the European Union, to think a little bit more about what is happening in Europe. I think my perception is that average citizen, even average academic is far away of what is going on in Europe and I think this is a problem. So actually one of the main goals of this centre is going to be to bring closer the European Union to people, to citizens, to scholars, to policymakers and to civil society in general. Okay, this is one of the main goals we have and we will see how well we would actually do this job in the coming years. Okay, so in September 2019 the European Commission recognised the UPF as a centre of excellence for European studies. I think this is a consequence of the work made in the last years by some people at the UPF. I would like to mention particularly Fernando Guirau and other colleagues as well. Okay, and this is very important for us because we are going to be able to make some activities with some funding also to create some kind of organisation and infrastructure at UPF in order to give one step further into this direction. Okay, I would like also to thank little bit first to the rector and all his team because from the very beginning they were very supporting on this institute and of course this is very important for us. Of course also the campus manager Madan Oliva who is also here. Thank you for the support from the very beginning has been also quite important for us and of course the international relations team of the university which has been always very supportive and very professional helping us with all these applications and other issues as well. Okay, and of course I mean I cannot forget Ferran Taradellas the support from the European Commission in Barcelona has been key to celebrate this ceremony. Okay, so many thanks for the support from the very beginning to this project. Okay, yes, very briefly I would like to say a few things. The main goals of the buses basically are going into four different directions. Okay, the first one is going to be basically to improve teaching on European Union issues and in order to do that basically what we are going to do is to include some kind of a multidisciplinary interdisciplinary approach. I think the education in the 21st century is clearly is not narrow to narrow disciplines it is much more a wide perspective and we are actually offering we are going to offer two new courses with this perspective and this is very important for us. Okay, because particularly complex issues cannot be understood only through one discipline. Okay, so if we can understand how I change for example or whatever we need of course I mean to understand the economic consequence but also the political consequence the political processes which are taking place of course law is important and important discipline as well and history as well. Okay, so basically the idea is to gradually to integrate different approaches for important issues and this is what we are going to introduce actually in some courses already. Okay, we are going to create two new courses for this. Also we are going to make stronger what we have we already have is the annual lectures on Europe and Union. This is made on the basis on yearly basis and we invite policy makers and also academics with academics basically to make a lecture. I think it's quite successful so far so we are going to continue with this. That is the first line we are going to work. The second line would be more related to research activities. The idea is basically to introduce the design of buses is going to be more or less pretty much like a thin tank and the goal is basically to attract talent to buses from coming from students but also from policy makers, also from researchers, other kind of scholars and the idea is basically to create this kind of intergenerational community who are working from different perspectives and different disciplines on European issues. At the moment we have only three people working there but I'm pretty sure that in the coming months this is going to be growing in terms of scholars coming from we have already applications actually from some European countries who want to come to work with us. So I think this is a good sign and the idea is to make this or to make this center to grow in talent. This is very important for us to produce good scientific outputs and social outputs as well in the coming months, coming years. Also we are working to get some kind of a scholarship for young students, young undergraduate and post-graduate. Well now we have some talks with some organizations and I think we have some chances so we are working also in this direction and this is of course pretty much related to the idea of bringing talent. It is very hard to bring talent without resources so we are working pretty much also in this line. The third line would be also to be useful and to contribute to what is then in I would say media in the media because not only the media also in more social terms because I think the contribution of academics on the European Union to the media I think is pretty poor in terms of the inputs we could find in most of the times in the media. I think that the European Union is not well understood on average. Well we have plenty of information and surveys that actually claim that basically citizens know nothing about the European Union which is also I think is pretty bad news and we have a responsibility and we are trying to well basically to make one seminar per term open seminar for everyone not just not only for students but also for civil society actors or anyone who is interested in knowing what is going on in Europe. Europe is a machine of making decisions is continuously making decisions and I think it's important to let know people what is going on in Europe because otherwise things or decisions which are made in Europe sometimes are not the best precisely because of that. Also we have we are going to introduce these kind of buses working paper series. We want to allow and to show what we are doing and I think the dissemination of our research and also the research and important topics for social terms. I think it's important that we have some kind of visibility. So this is what we are going to do as well and there is the last line of our working for the coming years is going to be more related to meetings between policymakers and also experts, academic experts. This is something which is made oftentimes in British universities. I don't think it is very useful, very common in local universities and it's a pity because I think both we can learn quite a lot from each other. So the idea, I know quite well the urban center of a university called London because I have a good colleague working there and sometimes I go there and they made these meetings regularly and I think it's a brilliant idea because actually I think politicians who are able and willing to learn from academic they can learn a lot and at the end of the day they can see the inputs and the outputs of these discussions and some kind of policies they make. So this is something we are planning to do in the coming years. And well to conclude because I don't want to I wanted to be brief. So thank you everyone to be here. Many other people who are not here because we couldn't invite to everyone. Everything has been very fast. I hope they are willing to cooperate with us because this is a collective project. This is clear and the more people who want to join us the best. That is for sure. And of course I would like to thank also to Madame Redin for coming to open ceremony of the center because I think she's one of the few persons in the European history that has introduced so many nice hallmarks I would say in terms of policy that we are actually enjoying this because I'm also the coordinator of Erasmus Moon program here in Barcelona and she introduced the Erasmus Moon program when she was a commissioner. And many other issues that maybe Pablo now is going to explain with more detail. But many thanks Madame Redin for coming here. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Javier. Now we're going to move to the central moment of this opening ceremony which is the speech that Miss Redin is going to share with us that is going to deal with a Europe fit for the next decade. But before I yield the floor to her, let me say a few words about about how happy we are for her princess today. I asked for let me share with you an anecdote. I asked for a summary version of her CV and the first summary they gave me was 12 pages long for the introduction. So I said could you please give me a shorter version and the shorter version was three pages three very long pages. So I thought that instead of explaining everything Miss Redin has done because I would do a very poor job. There's no way I can fake in five minutes all her her achievements you all know she's been a very prominent politician in Luxembourg but also in the European Union both at the European Parliament for several years and then later on in the European Commission where she's held different areas and also she's been the Vice President to the European Commission. So she's basically held a large range of very significant roles in the in the European Union. But what I would like to emphasize and hopefully I won't do a misrepresentation of her long experience I want to focus on five hallmarks like have you always saying that I believe show both her very significant contribution to the construction of the European Union as a collective project. But also her commitment to improving the rights and the situation of European citizens. And I think that's particularly remarkable. Her contribution has not only been to the collective construction of structures and institutions and general laws but also to the specific rights and improving the situation of individuals across the European Union. One has been mentioned by by Javier which is her significant role in improving the Erasmus program. She was behind the expansion of the Erasmus program and she promoted the Erasmus Mundus as I mentioned before the UPF is honored to host five Mundus program. So this is something that not only as European citizens but also as an institution we're very thankful for. This has significantly made a change. For us as you know the Erasmus Mundus program has not only allowed for for European universities to enhance our cooperation but has also favored the attraction of non-European students to Europe and also the mobility of European students across Europe. The second hallmark I want to emphasize and I'm sure you're all familiar with it because every time we go to the cinemas here in in Barcelona we see at the beginning of every movie which is the promotion of the EU media program that has again strengthen European cultures and culture in Europe and I think that's crucial again not only as European citizens but also as a university culture is an integral part or should be an integral part of what we do as universities. It's part of our public contribution. Third and this I'm particularly speaking to the younger crowd to our students she's behind the promotion of the European tariffs of roaming and I'm sure you'll be very very thankful about that. This is something that we've seen more recently but has been I believe one of the aspects that she's devoted a significant time to and I'm sure that that was not an easy victory but one that we all celebrate and we're also again very thankful for that and the fourth element I want to to highlight and here I want to to stop a bit is not only that she has contributed to improving the situation of European citizens but particularly the situation of European women and that I cannot even imagine how hard it has been for the past 40 years in and forgive me for being politically incorrect in a European Union that has not been extremely extremely open to the active contribution of women like every other state or institution here I'm not pointing at the European Union alone. It must have been difficult for the past four years. She launched the legal proposal on women on boards which was passed by the European Parliament and it there's special recognition because it was adopted with the support of all European parties within the Parliament which is again not an easy task but a very difficult one. So I think we have to thank her also for her contribution to to the equality of citizens in Europe. And finally just to choose one more because again the list is very very very very long. She played a key role in improving the rights of individuals, the rights of European citizens regarding consumption and also digital rights as well as criminal procedural law which might seem something a little bit more distant to us but for those of us who do research on the European construction they sometimes not so visible hall marks are essential for the strong construction of the European Union. So I think we have to be very thankful. I cannot overemphasize how honoured we are and how happy we are for having Ms. Redding here with us. So I'm not going to punish you with my words so I'm going to build the floor to her and again she's going to talk to us about the very fitting topic, a Europe fit for the next decade and hopefully for the next few decades. Thank you very much Ms. Redding. Very many more and thanks you most of all for inviting me to the opening ceremony. It has always been at the forefront of my political action not to do things for now but to have an input into things for tomorrow. And Erasmus is one of those elements. How to expand it so that the next generation can strive. How to give rights to people so that the next generation can go ahead. Well thinking about Erasmus. Okay Erasmus mundus and then they are international couples who get married and who make one million Erasmus babies and well as life goes they are divorced or somebody dies and there are succession questions very complicated for international couples. So when I became commissioner for justice I was the first one to make a transnational family law. Thinking about the future of the Erasmus babies you see not only of the Erasmus students and I think it is very important as a political leader you not only think about today and my election campaign tomorrow but you think about the future. What do I leave so that the next generation can take independent sovereign decisions in a sovereign European Union. But let me start from the beginning. There are years where not so much happens and then there are days in which history is made. One of these days was the 25th of March 57 where the basis was laid for the building up of what we know today our European Union. A project in modern history which is sui generis had never been done before no other model worldwide bring together independent nations which voluntarily agree on sharing sovereignty in order to become stronger together. It was done at that moment of course in the remembrance very fresh about the horrors of the world wars. And maybe the founding fathers took serious what Victor Hugo had said once bullets are replaced by votes and battlefields by European Brotherhood Victor Hugo. Long time before we created the European Union. You see there are people who have dreams and sometimes it needs sometime a dream to become reality. But let's look at the man who did this. Sorry there were no women at that time yet. Things have changed dramatically. Good. But let's look at the man who did this. Joseph Bash from Luxembourg. Small countries surrounded by borders. Conrad Adenauer from the Rhineland at the borders also. Horish Park from Brussels. Small country borders. I'll see the digasbury from Trentino at the borders of Italy. Johan Wilhelm by him from Utrecht. Robert Schumann born in Luxembourg and died as a French minister. So it was by people who had experienced in their life the border problem. How borders could become walls. How borders could bring wars about. And they decided no more borders. No more wars for the borders. And that was an historically important step. Easy to say but not so easy to do. If you look at history of mankind and if you look at even what happens today where some in our world are proud to build walls. We Europeans are proud to build bridges. And how what was the methodology of the founding fathers. Not to say OK now we have the European Union and no. They were very realistic politicians. They knew you couldn't impose it top down from one moment to the other. You had to do it step by step. So they were advancing in a very realistic way. Starting with a big problem at that moment. And the big problem was that France and Germany start a new war. So at that time in order to conduct a war you needed. Still and coal that were the main elements. So they said OK let's take away still and coal from the national power. And let's communicate it so that they cannot that we can control what they do with it with steel and coal. And to make a long story short after that the market was established. The free movement of workers workers because not yet citizens. They're very realistic. In this market we needed workers to go from one place to another. So free movement of workers. This developed step by step with a very strong moment coming with Maastricht. The Treaty of Maastricht 1992. Where the community of before became a union. Where afterwards the Schengen zone was built. Where we created a common currency unfortunately without a fiscal union. Which was a very big mistake which we saw later on. The next big step was the Treaty of Lisbon 1999. Where we really went into making out of this continent a country like system. With the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Which is not a constitution but which has the same rights as a treaty. And which is considered by the European Court of Justice. As a constitution. As our Bill of Rights. Because in many judgments of the European Court of Justice. They reflect on what is written in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. So at that moment citizenship. European citizenship. In the specificity of the double citizenship. I am Luxembourg and European. You have even a triple citizenship. You are Catalonia. You are Spain and European. It's like the puppets. You know those Russian puppets. One goes into the other. And it makes a unity without making division. So citizenship rule of law. And then justice. I have already said that we started with justice. Before Lisbon justice was a complete national competence. With Lisbon justice became partly a European competence. And I started also. Because I had this in my hand with a very down to earth. Problem solving. Circulation of documents. On justice. Who is going to be the court. If there is a rush to the court by different nationalities. Which court has. Which national court has the first priority. And then the family law. For the Erasmus couples. In divorce and in succession. You might think that it's not important. It is very important. Because if you have a Luxembourg. Who marries. What can I. A German. And lives in Spain. Can you understand what fight there will be. Between the three countries. On what law applies. In the different systems. So there again I did not eliminate Luxembourg. Juridical law. I didn't eliminate the Spanish. And I didn't eliminate. The German. But I built bridges. Between the legislative system. So that they can function. Together. And I dreamt. I said okay. We have. The whole system of a state now. We have the parliament. We have. The senate. The council of ministers. And we have the European court of justice. But we do not have a prosecutor. Prosecutor that goes really. To the national competence. And I said well I dream to have a prosecutor. The European prosecutor's office will open at the end of this year. In Luxembourg. I made it. But also starting. Softly. It will not be responsible for everything. It will be in a first step. Responsible for the criminality against the European money against the European budget. The step. The second step will be cross border crime. And terrorism. Which is per se always cross border. So you see. You can have a dream. But you must not put the whole thing in practice. You can. Put your dream. By making the institution. But giving. Limited power to the institution. Knowing that step by step by step. This power is going to be. Augmented. Now. During all this time. Things didn't go smoothly. Always. We had a lot of crisis. Coming. Up. You still remember the financial crisis. Which was an import from the banking crisis in the United States. Which went on our banks. And then our national budgets had to pay for the banks. And then it became a crisis of the national budgets. And we didn't have the instruments to solve the problem. Because remember I told you. When we created the euro. We didn't create a European. Economic minister and finance minister. So this was really. This fiscal union was missing. And we had to find very quickly solutions in order to save the euro. To save the members of the euro. And whatever has been said and be written. Greece is not out of the euro. Greece is in the euro. It was painful. It was not easy. But we made it. The refugee crisis. Which is not over. It will continue. Because from Africa we will have a lot of pushing from poor people. From people who are oppressed. So it will continue. We have not yet found the real solutions for this. Because the solidarity mechanism in the European Union doesn't function as it will. But we have managed already to bring the huge numbers down a little. But even this these numbers which are left over. And which can grow at any moment again. When there is a crisis. When there is a war. When whatever happens. Well there we have to work on it. And then of course Brexit. Everybody said. Europe will break down. Did it break down. It didn't. On the contrary. We saw in the polls. That because things were working. And when things working people don't worry anymore. So do we need a European Union in the polls. The polls went down and down and down and down. And then came Brexit. And Trump. And the polls went up and up and up and up. Everybody had understood. Yes, yes, we need European Union. Because we cannot cope with that alone. Everybody had understood. We cannot rely anymore on on the security cover from the United States. We have to build our own security in Europe. And that is what going to happen in the next day. My voice counts in the world because of the EU in the last Euro barometer. In average 70 percent of people of the 500,000. Yes, my word. My voice counts because of the EU. In Spain, it's even higher. It's 76 percent. And then what is important for the people? Free movement. 59 percent think that this is the most important. Well, this is all Europe is about. Peace 55 percent. This is all Europe is about. That was in the head of our founding fathers. And you see Euro, the Erasmus and all these kinds of things. 25 percent. So people say it's nice to have. But what we need to have is a free movement and the peace. Now, if we ask them, and that was a Bertelsmann stifter, which made it the first was a Euro barometer. What you expect of the new commission? First, environment. Second economy. So people have really understood that this generation has to fix the environment problem. If the next generation is supposed to have a normal life. When you ask the problem, what is your personal concern? You as a citizen. Rising living costs. 51 percent. Health problems. 28 percent. Job insecurity. 25 percent. And what do you think will be important for your children for the next generation? EU opinions. Paul. 54 percent. Deepening of the EU. Which shows what. That people have understood. In general. And that all the doomsday sayers, mostly in the media and on the social media, they are wrong. And that yes, we can do it. If we cling together. And I give you an example of one, I think, of the most emblematic legal texts which has been decided by the European Union in the last coming in the last in the past years. When I became commissioner for justice, that was just the moment when the Treaty of Lisbon and the Charter of Fundamental Rights entered into force. In this there is a sentence which says the personal data belongs to the person. Not to a company and not to a government. It is written both in the treaty and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. And I saw that this right of the citizen was simply not applied. Because of a balkanization of legislations. Very often contradicting themselves. So in a nutshell what I did. I eliminated 28 laws. I replaced them by one law for one continent, applying to all citizens and to all companies operating on this continent. That was in January 2012 when I put the text on the table. I wouldn't have thought at that moment that this GDPR, these data protection rules would so quickly become a world standard. They have become a world standard. Where all over the world countries, states apply similar rules or even copy what we have presented. So what does this show? This shows that if we have a clear idea which brings together rights of the individual and economic benefit. And if we make a strong rule out of this all together, Europeans, this rule has an importance worldwide. And why do I speak about this? Because we are on the edge now from passing to a new world. To a data economy. So this GDPR will be the basis for very important initiatives we will have to take in the next coming years on artificial intelligence which is important for our health or the future of our health systems of mobility or self-driving cars of our new industry and real capacities. So we have already the standards. We have a chance to make the next standards if we do it under the same prerogatives and with the same system. But where are we coming from? In a nutshell just to explain you where we are standing in the 21st century. Now the beginning of the 21st century was a decade of Europe in communication technology. It was 2G, 3G, 4G and the best standard worldwide, the GSM standard for telephony and the Nokia's of this world, the best telephones which you could imagine. So that was when person to person communication was important. And then we lost it to the Americans in the next decade. The iPhone came out and that was not only person to person communication, it was linking a group of persons. By a pocket computer it became, together with the social media platforms, the decade of the American dominance. And today we are at a new crossroad. Data economy is on the brink of building up and that is linking objects to objects. Linking information to information and creating big information networks with a huge amount of data. Are we already out of the platform period? No, but it has changed. Because the platforms, the social media platforms were created to do good to the human beings. Positive, nice. Now we have seen that they are doing bad to the European, to the human beings. They have become wicked and vulnerable in their reputation. Not only because they are monopolies, I give you one number, the Google market force in the EU is 97%. Not only because they have taken all the revenue of advertisement. You know that the platforms, the social media platforms, in 2019 they had an advertisement revenue of 200 billion euros. That is much more than all the newspapers, radios, televisions and films together. Really dominating. But vulnerable in reputation, why? Because it has gone to their head and they have exaggerated. They developed their systems into perversity, intervening into elections by targeted advertisement, enhancing the vulnerable, influencing the vulnerable groups of people by psychological warfare. And by the amplification based algorithms, using a vast amount of public available data and personal data which has simply illegally been bought or stolen. And this leads to voter suppression, disinformation, push up negative news in the news. Now I give you two examples. First one was Brexit. The Brexit referendum. And what I tell you now is not a secret that has been subjudice. There have been hearings in the parliaments everywhere and judges have clearly made it that this was criminal. Now, Brexit referendum. SLC group together with Cambridge Analytica, Great Britain and US. Organized by Bannon, the councillor of Trump. Financed by the family Mercer, the big American financiers. They intervened. This is targeted advertising on the vulnerable groups of people in order to tell them all the fake news. They needed to know in order to vote Brexit. Now it worked so well that Bannon took the experience of Cambridge Analytica and of the Brexit referendum experience and implemented it during the first Trump election. And do you know that in 2020 Facebook just has allowed political ads for the new US elections this year. So you see what's going on. This has many negative implications because it's not only the elections here which have been falsified. Cambridge Analytica went bust in Great Britain because of all the legal case. But it is working full in Central and South America and in Africa. Helping most of all not so clean leaders to continue their work. It's working now. It's working in 68 countries. Okay. Do you know what is in the United States the profession which has the highest growth of income? Data brokers. Those who collect data, those who steal data, those who buy data and then hand it over to Cambridge Analytica of this world. So we have a real problem here and we have a real problem with social media because they are giving millions of data to those companies. So the trust in platforms is going down but the need for data and the availability for data is going up. Today we utilize, we collectively utilize only 97, no, only 3% of the data available. 97% goes, ID is not utilized. And tomorrow with the IoT, with the internet of things where objects are communicating which is other, we are going to have an enormous amount of data. By 2025 there will be 500 billion connected devices. All of them producing data. And that is why the war the global competition about data is at the core of the trade wars today. And the trade war on this subject has been launched by Trump, very clearly so. Who likes to stop the Europeans to invest into 5G and to go for the applications which will be made possible by 5G. This is cars, mobility, health, distant health for instance, connected hospitals, self-driving cars, the new manufacturing systems in our industry. So behind all the security vibe there are the questions, who is going to have this in its hands? And who is going to be the data driven society of tomorrow? And who to whom belong those data? Now we Europeans sit on a mine of non-personal data. The commission has pledged to create a trusted pool of non-personal data to fuel European innovation for our companies. And the commission has also said, well, there is enormous amount of European data on the social media platforms which, and I quote Thierry Breton, the commissioner responsible for this, sometimes obtained in questionable circumstances, diplomatically saying sometimes stolen. This is worse 4% of European GDP. And that is why the commission said very clear, we have to implement our rules and all those who utilize our data have to adapt to our rules and not the other way around very strict terms of compliance will be applied. Because, and I quote again Thierry Breton, by 2025 the vast majority of data will not be created by humans but by objects and machines, internet of things, and industry. These objects will create nearly 90% of humanity's data. It is a huge potential source of growth for Europe because we have the largest industrial market in the world and it is linked to industry with leading players particularly in the 4.0 industry who have already developed performing digital twins. Thierry Breton says, my objective is there for clear to make Europe a global data hub for data both personal and industrial benefiting to all European economic players as a means start up large group and of course to the European citizens. And that brings me then to one of the major problem how to analyze all this data which comes out. Today already we create 2.5 quintillion bytes per day and I have explained to you what we create tomorrow. So the human brain is not capable anymore to analyze this. We need machines to analyze it. To gather, to select and to analyze it. These machines are programmed by algorithms and the algorithms are created by human beings. So all the nonsense of artificial intelligence forget it. There is no artificial intelligence. Intelligence is human and it cannot be copied. AI cannot replace human intelligence. A machine does not invent anything. It reproduces what it has been told to do. Responsibility of the universities to create the programmers which are we can to whom we can entrust to build artificial intelligence which I cannot change the name anymore. It is wrong artificial intelligence. It should be called augmented intelligence. Because it will help us with our limited capacity of our minds. It will help us to analyze a normal amount of money but of data of money yes. An enormous amount of data and it will be our responsibility as professionals, as doctors, as politicians, as lawyers, as judges to take our own decisions. It will not be the machine but it will be the human beings. Now in order this to happen we have to regulate and here we have a problem. I don't know how to solve it. Because the speed of technology is rushing in from. The speed of politics is rather slow. So the problem is the pace of regulation is not the pace of innovation and that might create in the mind of the people distrust because the politicians are not capable to help them and trust is key. If we want to, no we don't have a choice, we will build this data economy or it will build us. That is the alternative. Do we build it or does it build us? Are we standard makers or standard takers? So big data require big rights, artificial intelligence requires policy intelligence. Competition should be by the rules and not for the rules. It should focus on activities and not on entities. We have managed to do it with GDPR. We should be capable to do it also with AI and we are working on it. The expert group of the European commission in AI has presented 23 recommendations in June 2019. We are going to focus on mandatory screening processes for high risk AI. You do not need to regulate everything but you need to regulate the high risk AI. And vice president Vestager has proposed to bar AI enabled must scale scoring of individual. Face recognition and company. That can be a breaker of democracies completely if you put it into the wrong hands. Very, very dangerous indeed. So we don't want to kill innovation but we want to build a trustworthy AI with high ethical standards. It was so interesting in Davos now that CEOs, also American ones started to warn the audiences about possible deviations of AI and even the chief executive of Alphabet and Google Sundar said we must regulate artificial intelligence. Why they were saying that in Davos the American government said please don't regulate the artificial intelligence. Well we are going to regulate it. Full stop. And you will hear in the very near future of Vestager and Breton on this subject. Mr. Ferrand will inform you about this because we want to be standard makers and not standard takers. We want to keep our sovereignty in technological terms. Speaking about sovereignty. What we did when Trump started to tear down the international agreements the first one he teared down was the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership which has been built between the United States and the Asian Rim. And also the agreements with Central and South America. What did we do? The moment he was doing that we filled the void. Because we want to be global standard makers. Because we want to build a network of friends. Because we will need to have relations with other parts of the world for the future generation. And because we know that in today's global value chain trade wars are easy to lose. Even in a continent, no continent can operate today in self-sufficiency. And no manufacturer can. How much Germany do you think is in a German car? How much America is in the iPhone? Well I tell you for the iPhone 90% of the iPhone is not American. And that is not a critic. That is only seeing how it works. Global value chains, if you interrupt them, that is very negative for your industry. And just to debunk a few myths. Because nobody thinks about that. Do you know that the EU invests more in the United States that the United States invest in the EU? Do you know that the EU buys more US services than the US buys European services? And do you know that the EU employs more American workers than the Americans employ workers from Europe? Do we trust in ourselves? Do we want to utilize the force we have? We are the biggest trade power in the world. The biggest organized trade power in the world. We are that. One fourth of the worldwide exports comes from Europe. We are the biggest worldwide foreign investor. The euro is a second currency in the world. It has one fourth of the world reserves. And one third of the transactions worldwide. So let's behave accordingly. Instead of making us small when we are big. I would wish that we become a real player. And that is the reason also why the commission thinks the same. Not because I wish the commission thinks the same. And we have made trade agreements with ASEAN, with Canada, with Colombia, with Mexico, Peru, South Korea, Japan, Japan. The latest one is the largest bilateral agreement worldwide. 640 million consumers amongst the richest in the world. So this is a question of credibility. This is a question of making a ring of friends. This is a question of soft power in geopolitics. And we are a world rule maker in this because all these agreements we make we put in European standard. Anti-dumping rules. Our new trade defense instruments. Social and environmental standards. GDPR. If you do not apply the GDPR rules basically no trade agreements. Independent trade courts which we created with Canada, if Trump actually manages to destroy the WTO trade courts. And just to quote our input on food safety. Geographical indications. Precautionary principle. No hormones, no chlorification. And don't forget in 10 years 90% of the world will be outside the European Union. If you know that well then you prepare today and you don't wait 10 years before you don't have any power anymore. And that brings me to Brexit. Well you have understood on trade actions where K, data driven society, we go to the right direction. You know that Madame von der Leyen has made the green deal one of her major element in order to go ahead and to try to solve the problems which are still possible to be solved. On these questions we have a choice. But what about Brexit? Doesn't it break up Europe? Well it seems for the time being that it doesn't. But I tell you very frankly nobody can be happy about that because a divorce is never a happy story. It's always a loose, loose situation. But this is a loose, loose situation which we could have seen coming. Great Britain in the European Union was never felt at ease. It always tried to get exceptions on the budget, on the Euro, on justice, on the European Union, you name it, you get it. It always was putting the food on the break. It stopped 12% of the proposals even on the internal market because it simply didn't want Europe to go ahead. And then it had a very unwise Prime Minister David Cameron whose first unwise move was to go out of the EPP. The European People's Party group, the biggest in the European Parliament you never leave the table of the deciding guys. I mean to put yourself in a corner. How stupid you must be. Now, Luxemburgers have understood that since ever and ever we are always sitting on the table and we even don't go to the wall, to the Lulu. You see, because we sit in the meantime they could do something. You sit there. It's only when you sit at the table that you have the power. Even if you are small. And then the referendum well I have already told you the story about Cambridge Analytica, which was leading the referendum, referendum should have been left by the political parties. And there I mean the conservative parties, I mean the socialist party, I mean the liberal party. And then the illegally operating Brexit parties. So what is the situation now? Some figures. The use trade with Great Britain is 9% of the total of the European trade. Great Britain's trade with Europe is 43% of imports. I leave you reflect on these numbers. The Great Britain is part of all the trade agreements and treaties which the European Union has signed 600 roughly. 600. Out of which next year, Great Britain will not be part anymore. That goes from the trade agreements I was speaking about to open skies the authorizations to utilize the sky for landing of the airplanes research agriculture 600 agreements Great Britain has to see how to make new ones. When you have heard the facts and figures I would very much like to see how you negotiate with somebody who considers you are small as compared to the European Union and with whom if you are somebody you are going to make a favorable trade agreement and to whom are you going to make some suites. Another example. Do you know that in between Calais and Dover there are per day 400 trains 1 million parcels 5,000 trucks and 75,000 travelers per day. They have to handle it. Now we have first the withdrawal agreement which you know is enforced from today on that the negotiation started in March 2017 the agreement will apply as from the 31st of January this year and will continue until the end of this year. During this year the UK will be part of everything of the single market of the customs union but it will not be part in the decision making. If I did something like this I would never have been re-elected in Luxembourg frankly. Very frankly. So during 11 months it has to and it pays of course because the the budget agreements continue to go. In these 11 months the Prime Minister of Great Britain has promised to conclude a new big deal. If it is a failure then the transition period will end definitely on this year and they will be a third country. Now what is written in this agreement? This agreement has 600 pages by the way. The European Parliament insisted that the first point must be the protection of the citizens. We speak about this 5 million 3.5 million Europeans in the UK and 1.5 million UK citizens in Europe many here in Spain as you know financing of the whole budget the European Court is responsible for financial settlements Ireland in order to avoid a hard border and to have the collapse of the Good Friday agreement the border is not made between the two Ireland but in the sea between Ireland and Great Britain customs and regulatory checks done there protocol on Gibraltar it's an administrative cooperation between UK and Spain police and judicial cooperation continue but we don't know what will happen afterwards and the breaches of EU law are in front of the European Court of Justice and not only even if they go out next year completely the procedures the infringement procedures continue even with a complete Brexit the four years after the exit so that is now the situation what are the future relationships we want it to be free and fair as contained in the political declaration 36 pages and I quote Michel Barnier the political declaration is easy to read 36 pages very concise covering all aspects of future relationships where once we have agreed together if we want to agree on each and every point of this political declaration says Barnier it will take more than 11 months so we are ready to do our best to the maximum to secure a basic agreement but we will need more time to agree on the details what we cannot negotiate is the integrity of the single market and you know in the single market there are the four freedoms free movement of capital, of goods of services and of people they are indivisible and the single market is much more than a free trading zone it is an ecosystem with laws common standard on the environment rights for the workers and consumers common supervision and a common jurisdiction the European Court of Justice we will not touch on the integrity of the single market point and then I just quote some questions which will be so easy to solve fishing rights well I am speaking here in Spain so Kodin can you imagine that Spain will sign any definite agreement if the fishing rights of the Spanish fishermen are not preserved I can't financial services now there is no negotiation possible on this because our treaties say very clearly that our equivalence rules only apply according to European law so we can even not negotiate we give them or we don't give them no negotiation possible so the greater the divergences will be the more distance post Brexit relationship and the larger the barriers and there are no existing models there which can be copied because for the same thing Norway accepts a single market and the for freedoms the Ukraine accepts the Court of Justice Turkey is in the customs union Switzerland accepts a free movement and the regulation of European Union Canada Japan trade agreement but wait a moment Canada Canada you know how much many years it took us to negotiate and to put in place the bilateral agreement between European Union and Canada ten years not ten months the substantive provisions are five hundred and fifty pages the total text two thousand pages alone the text on the rules of origin of our agricultural products are one hundred pages now good luck it is easier to tear down a wall rather than to build a new wall and let me before I close read you a text it has been written by the British government before the Brexit referendum I quote the UK is part of the EU a group of 28 countries which exist to promote economic security peace and stability the EU operates as a single free trading market without taxes between borders the UK has secured a special status in the EU the EU has kept the pound will not join the euro has kept control over UK borders we have ensured that no UK powers can be transferred to the EU in the future without a referendum the UK will keep full access to the single market with a say on its rule for every pound paid in tax a little over one pence goes to the EU the government judges that what the EU gets back in opportunities to promote economic security from the EU membership far outweighs the cost and it continues like this interesting to quote this text so we have to do with divorce it's going to be very negative very difficult I have just quoted you some of the difficulties but we are lucky that we have Michel Barnier at the helm of doing this this man has made a song for it really gorgeously clinging together the 27 the 27 were unanimous in order to go ahead for this and I tell you if we have an agreement it will not be the 27 alone it will be also 40 4.0 national and regional parliaments have to vote for such an agreement and that's why I said I would like to see the Spanish parliament voting for losing all the fishery rights of the Spanish Armada it will not happen so there are 100,000 of fishery problems at the equal level into this and we need to have 40 parliaments who vote the final outcome we will not going to be done in 11 months I'm afraid very often in Europe we speak about decision making input what does the European Union do or about policies what does the European Union do for me and do we always speak about together we are stronger Brussels is not a city Brussels it's us it's all of us all of us have also to agree and to speak and to be in citizens dialogues when we start now to discuss about the future of Europe and we you have to know each of us that each country even the big ones are too small to do it alone in a globalised world where China is not going to go a step back but it's going to go a step forward just look at the numbers of highly trained engineers they are producing every year and compare that with our numbers of engineers our European numbers of engineers very important let me quote Barack Obama when he was in his speech in Berlin European unity was a dream of a few a hope for many today it is a necessity for all of us your accomplishment more than 500 million people speaking 24 languages in 28 countries 19 was a common currency in one European Union remains one of the greatest political and economic achievements of modern times I would hope Obama still be there but that's not the case the answers we give today shape the world we have in our hands and what will be the world which our kids will have in their hands very simple by 2050 Europe will represent 7% of the world's population down from 20% in 100 years before 1950 7% by 2050 Europe will represent 15% of the world's GDP down from 40% beginning of the 20th century by 2050 Europe will be neither the largest economy nor the largest trading bloc in the world by 2050 it will be too late it's the responsibility of our generation to build a basis strong enough so that your generation can take over decide by itself what is won in full sovereignty Europe is beautiful let's keep it beautiful Thank you very much now we have to proceed to the flag ceremony who is the head of the European Commission in Barcelona I will give him the chance to say a few words if you don't mind when you make the Laudatio of Mrs. Reading of course you could not mention everything otherwise we will still be there but there is one achievement they would like to mention particularly in 1990 when Mrs. Reading approved as president of the committee of petitions the famous reading report that created basically the representation of the European Commission in Barcelona because the parliament asked us to communicate with European citizens so following your mandate Mrs. Reading I would like to offer this European flag in the name of the European Commission so that you have a bicycle and defend everything what this flag means of peace, unity, democracy defense of fundamental rights and diversity in the community representing Europe as the director of the office of the flag thank you all for joining us this morning for the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Centre for European Studies thanks once again for a very inspiring talk and thank you all now you are all invited to a glass of cava I believe it's outside so if you are free and want to join us we will be very thankful thank you very much again