 Welcome to our latest Facebook Live chat in the hashtag Just Society Seals. I'm Simon Lee, Director of Citizenship and Governance Research here at the Open University. And I'm delighted to welcome a new colleague, Professor Eduardo Ongoro, who is Professor of Public Management, has just joined us as an expert in the European Union, amongst other things. And so the question I guess Eduardo to start with is if I'm a student doesn't matter which way I've voted, but I know Brexit's happening, what if I say, well, thank goodness, because I never understood the European Union anyway, why do I have to bother about it? Thank you, thank you. This is a very big and very important question actually. Just before, let me immediately make my thoughts to all those who were affected yesterday by the London Bridge attack. But here we are with this so important question. I think it is important because not just because we are going to have two years of very tough and crucial negotiations for Britain, but because we are going to redefine a relationship for the decades to come between Britain and the European Union. And with a partner you need to know the partner in order to make the most of any relationship. And this happens in interpersonal life, it happens also between political systems. So in Britain do we see the European Union in a different way to say people in Italy, France, Germany? Yes, I think we see it in a fundamentally different way. I think the EU in Britain is seen mostly as an economic affair and a set of trade arrangements. In Italy, in France, in Germany, it is really a political project, a peace project, and it has an ideational, even ideal dimension, which is probably not really a coat and grasp here in the British debate. Okay, so we're going to have to deal with our friends across Europe anyway over the coming decades and as you rightly said, in the wake of the terrorist attacks, we know those happen on the continent, we want to cooperate in security and so on. So how can we best understand the European Union at its noblest? I think we need to look at history and go back to a very fundamental fact that divided Europe at the end of World War II. Britain was the winner and they would say all the other countries on the continent, broadly speaking, were the losers. Of course, there are some qualifications here, the role of France and the goal, the role of Italy and the anti-fascist movement, but it's crucial to understand that the European Union was born as a project to overcome a major failure. And what was the key lesson that those countries learned just after the devastating failures of the World War II? They learned the lesson that borders may not be the solution to many problems, may not be a source of protection, of certainty, of identity, which is very much still a British perception, but rather they may be a source of conflict and drama. If I may on a more personal issue, I myself am the son of a refugee, my grandparents and my dad had to flee a part of Italy which then was annexed to Yugoslavia and so the problem is people who get on the wrong side of the border. That's terrible, that's a drama. And what's the best solution to overcome this drama? Make the border meaningless, free circulation of people. But that's very moving as well. However, couldn't a robust British response to that be to say, well, but we're different then, we've got different historical roots. You kindly said we were in some sense the winners. But if you go back over the centuries, we somehow see ourselves differently? This is true at the same time incomplete. It is true because it is so that in some key battles which marked landmarks, actually landmark key moments of European history, Britain was the winner and other countries on the continent were the losers. But let's take the very bold picture. The Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, the Industrial Revolution of course, which came just before, and the modern age, it's all really the same civilization. I love painting, I often go to the National Gallery and what you see there is just painters English or Scottish or Welsh with French, Flemish, Italian, German painters, one next to the other. So what we have in common is really so much that any partnership must be based on mutual and reciprocal understanding. OK, so that's the history. Are there other ways in which it looks different to European Union depending on which side you are of the channel? I used to work in Northern Ireland and the issues there look different depending on which side of the RHD you are. First of all, I think in this schematic relationship we must not forget our Irish friends. Absolutely crucial. And again, there is a border issue here. Those Irish friends, I will not use the word trapped. But yes, somehow, on the one or the other side of a border that is going to be rebuilt. But beyond that, of course, there are other enduring and lingering differences. And one, I think, is the very conception of law. And I'm really grateful to have such a prominent scholar and colleague in the field of the philosophical foundations of law and legal studies here. Because really common law and continental law are different in some fundamental senses. And this shapes the way in which organisations work. Even public organisations deliver in public services. And this is probably also another reason why at times there is this sense of relative estrangement between people on the continent, filling out forms for complying with the legal system and requirements, and people having more straightforward relations with public organisations here in Britain. You touched on a very important point of difference, I think, speaking as a lawyer, that the British public have their reservations about European judges, Eurocrats. And anybody who's unelected and, therefore, they think out of their control. Although, actually, we seem to love the history of unelected judges making decisions for us here. Are we wrong? Oh, that's a fundamental question. Actually, I think this goes back again to this perception. If the EU were just a trade arrangement, you cannot have unelected people somehow to regulate in such a pervasive way your life. But if the EU is a peace project, you accept that you need non-elected institutions for securing and maintaining peace. So, there again, probably this initial 45 years of EU partnership have not been enough to understand each other. But let's hope to make the most of Brexit, at least in this sense, to really understand in depth each other. I think this will be in itself such a great achievement. Thank you for that, Edward. You certainly have a beautiful perspective over time. Is that part of your explanation of why there's a difference? Oh, absolutely. I do think so. I think it's not just history, so looking at the past. But it's also looking at the future. If we listen to the debate nowadays with the elections, and I'm sure also just in the aftermath of the election with the new government, whichever it will be, it's all about the short term here in Britain. It's about negotiating Brexit. It's about getting a deal, a good deal, the best deal, whatever kind of deal. If you just speak to normal German people, he or she will assume that not just himself or herself, but his or her children and grandchildren will be in the European Union, will vote for the European Parliament, will be regulated by the European Court of Justice. So the temporal perspective is completely different. You is something for the short term in Britain. It is something for the long term on the continent. Let me then conclude by asking you a short term and a long term question. In the short term, are we going to be able to see things that you've written that are coming out about the European Union? Yes. And then I'll come to my long term question. Oh, thank you. I think actually it's for the short term because in August it is for coming a major handbook with just 63 chapters going in depth into any aspect of European, of public management and public governance, across Europe, UK and continental Europe. And so I hope that the Open University is contributing also in this way to a sound and grounded debate about what Europe and public governance in Europe is. Okay, and my long term or principle question is, speaking as a Catholic, I've always been taught, I guess, that Catholic social teaching has its expression in the European Union in terms of subsidiarity, solidarity, the common good. Are those the kind of noble ideals that are there, whether people are Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish or other things? I think this is absolutely a crucial question because we have like two ways of seeing a political system. One way is that somehow this political system is able to produce good for its members in itself. And this is actually the vision of the EU in most continental, of continental Europe. And then we have a more contractual vision whereby a member joins a union or a political system if it considers it good, usually more in the short term, for its development. And this is probably more the British approach to this, at least it's been so far. Actually this is why I'm going to publish another book on the philosophical foundation of public administration which will delve exactly into these two conceptions and how they may appear so abstract but they are so concrete. They really give us some key coordinates, some key concepts and ideas for understanding our present. Eduardo, thank you very much. It's been really a great pleasure. Thank you very much.