 Good afternoon, everyone, and particularly to Stefan Turenko, who's our guest today, as you all know. He needs a little introduction. Currently, he's head of the European Commission's mission to his own native country in Brussels. But he's best known, I think, to everyone as being one of the leading people on the EU side during the Brexit negotiations. He has written a book, which many of you have already read, or will read shortly, have been brought in here today. He's going to speak to us today in a personal capacity rather than his official capacity, but it will be on the record. So without further ado, Stefan, we're very interested to hear about the book and about how things are going. Thank you. Well, thank you, Dan, and thank you to the IIEA for the kind invitation. Last time, I was here on December 7, 2022, I think, five years of the joint report. So I'm sure I'm speaking to an audience which is very well informed on the Brexit. As Dan said, I speak in a personal capacity as the author of this book on how the EU got Brexit done. I want to spend just a few minutes on explaining why I wrote this book, not so much for explaining my personal reason, but I think it has a general meaning and a general significance as well. I mean, there are a couple of motivations for, in fact, of why I wrote this book. And some of them maybe I thought about exposed, to be very honest, because sometimes you want to write the book because you see there is a book in a certain story. But I think it was very important that we put the historical record of how we as EU tackled this issue irrespective of which country decided to leave, which is that Article 50 which had never been used, an unprecedented challenge, especially because it was a big country I decided to leave, I would say, with all the ramifications that entailed for budget and economics and all the rest of it. So that in itself is an important motivation. But secondly, I wanted to put on the record what the EU did in the negotiations and why in view of the dominance, what I at least feel of British sources on Brexit, at least viewed from the continent in terms of the EU. In the stakes, that's probably normal. But these British sources are very much embedded in a British political discourse, obviously, that's just a natural phenomenon. But underlying that discourse was always that feeling of injustice being done, of the fact that our very simple motto that membership mattered and that therefore advantages of membership were reserved for members only, was constructed as a punishment by the EU. And my book refutes quite extensively why that was not the case. And quite a bit of misunderstandings that underlie the story in the book come from that attitude, I think, which was certainly present in the minds of some of the ministers in Theresa May's government, underestimating the basic fact that leaving the EU meant the loss of political influence and also meant losing the advantages in economic terms of membership. But the third reason I alluded to that when I said, to some extent it's also an ex-post kind of thing looking back, history is one thing, but the story, which is etymologically connected to history, the story was just there. I mean, I see a few old friends here, journalists from Brussels, who have covered this extensively in Brussels. It was a lot of political drama on the Westminster side, which then, of course, trickled down to the talks between the EU and the UK in Brussels. A lot of illusions or delusions, I would say, also on the Brexit side, which informed that political drama. Johnson's promise in the campaign that a better deal would come than Cameron's settlement. The fact that ministers of Theresa May's government said that in economic terms nothing had to change because of Brexit, because Brexit was not about economics, it was leaving the political project as if one could separate this. And of course, a much more political and emotional debate in Westminster and in Britain compared to the more surgical approach, I think, that we adopted in Brussels or something called managerial. And so the fact that there were two stories, one in London and one in Brussels underlies the construction of this book and how I constructed this book. Incidentally, David Frost wrote a review of the book in a magazine called The House, which is a magazine for parliament. And very interestingly, and as some other people in the UK, call it a rather dry account. And others have said that, British journalists. And then if you look at what the EU reviews or critiques say, they find it that it's full of fascinating detail. Lots of, and well, apart from the nice laugh that it provokes, I think that underlying is a very serious point about how the stories were very different in London and in Brussels and how there was a clash between politics and a much more dryer, rule-oriented, managerial, perhaps approach to some of the issues we were faced with. Of course, there were nuances and differences between capitals. And certainly in Dublin, the importance of Brexit was very different from other capitals in the EU, I could say generally speaking. But not in the basic understanding of the meaning of Brexit, and that was a basic misunderstanding between London and the EU or between London and Brussels, at least. And so the book is for me also, and that's the fourth motivation. And the main one, from the EU side, because I tell the story from the EU side, is to explain that extraordinary power of the United EU in these negotiations, which enabled also Ireland as a member to protect one of its vital national interests. And Michel Barnier was a French politician, often got a comment in smaller member states, I'm not referring to Ireland, how they appreciated how he stood up for the Irish interests in these negotiations. And that was watched very carefully by some other smaller member states of the EU. And so it's very nice to be able to say a few words on the book here in Dublin in that perspective. And so I want to give some considerations first on the unity of the EU. I want to say a few things on negotiations. I would like to say a few things on fast forward and to today and where we are and how a number of things affect the discussions today. And still very much underlying those two different perceptions, those two different stories are still present today in my view. And I want to conclude with Windsor and the TCA and where we are today and what we can expect going forward. So that's a bit the menu of what I want to offer to you. And so the first point is on the EU unity, which is a theme, of course, throughout the book. I don't explain this by looking at us in the first place in the commission. I don't explain this by saying, oh, this is an achievement of the commission or of Michel Barnier of Junker of underlying who succeeded Junker. It goes much deeper than a working method and then a certain negotiation approach. We have to think back about the year 2016, June 16, when the referendum happened, came after years of terrible divisions between member states on the Euro crisis and the sovereign debt management in some countries, including an island obviously, post financial crisis. With then the Greek referendum in the summer of 15, with a near Brexit, the word that gave birth to Brexit, I think, is Brexit. And then the migration crisis of 2015, the virshafindas of Merkel and the tensions between member states on solidarity for hosting Syrian refugees in the midst of that civil war back then. And so when Brexit happened, that shock, I think the leaders, the EU leaders, the political leaders, the members of the European Council took their political responsibility to say we cannot let ourselves be divided by Brexit and we cannot tolerate or permit the fact that Brexit would become an existential challenge for the European Union, which it could have become and which some observers back then said it would become. Of course, they committed to a renewed deeper integration, a roadmap, brought Islam at a time, we may have forgotten about that, but then sometimes the EU adopts roadmaps to reassure itself that it is going forward. But it's also, and what I wanted to say about that was this was very clear in Bani's first tour of capitals, that decision, political responsibility to say we have to stay united. When some prime ministers told us, I will set aside certain sectoral interests that I have in terms of my economy for the higher sake of staying united and unity. I think that was quite remarkable. The other factor was a fear of contagion, so it was a fear, was also a factor of unity, contagion of Brexit in other countries, wexit, italexit, Salvini said we should leave too, Le Pen said we need a referendum on the euro, so there was that kind of political mood back then. And an immediate reaffirmation to be quite tough on the single market integrity, the four freedoms, no cherry picking and all the things that you know very well. And that's, to some extent, a preservation of economic interests, which political scientists then use as an explanation for why the EU acts as it does, but Brigitte Leffen, Irish political scientist, has said that it goes much deeper than that and I agree with that. She published a book recently, a co-authored book on the Brexit story too, where she says that it is the political solidarity, and I quote her there, which is very important, not just the economic interests. And for me, that is indeed, was there from the beginning, whether it would hold as a different story, but from the beginning it was there. And indeed, it helped, and there's one thing that strikes me when I think back about that, and it concerns Ireland again, is when we came close to no deal with 2019 with Theresa May and the political drama, and then Johnson succeeding May, and the do or die, ditched the backstop, and all those things. That member state just kept firm in support for Ireland and what Ireland wanted out of the negotiations. And so even when he came close to no deal, which would have been economically more damaging, obviously, that political solidarity held and was very strong. I think that's important. So that political choice was there. And then a shared understanding, but then I come closer to what we did in Barney esteem, a shared understanding of how we would organize and tackle these negotiations through one voice and through a certain method that we can discuss, but a method that basically allowed a constant interaction between us and the member states. Now, all of that is not sufficient, in my view, to explain the unity. It explains why the unity emerged in the very beginning in this midst of this crisis feeling and fear of contagion, and we can't tolerate that this becomes an existential challenge. Sustaining the unity is something that has to be explained differently, in my view. These political choices stayed, political solidarity stayed, but I think on top of that, we in the commission then took some crucial decisions that helped solidify and sustain that unity. And the first one I want to mention is the unprecedented transparency that we practiced in these negotiations. There was part of my brief, in a way, in the task force. And just as one example or two examples, in May 17, this is one month before we started negotiations, we published a full position paper of citizens' rights, financial settlement. This is what the EU wants. This is our position, basically. And we published it, which is a bit unusual in negotiations, that you disclose your cards, so to say. And with Frost later on, March 2020, and we had a very bad first week of negotiations on the new relationship, we decided to put out a full text of an agreement, the way we saw it based on our mandated member states gave to us. Now, that transparency was part of what we said we need to feed the public debate, and it was all true and important, but equally important was that we wanted to avoid that information would be manipulated by certain people in the Brussels or the wider EU system or the UK system. And so we wanted to avoid, in terms of that unity of the 27, that prime ministers would say open a certain newspaper and discover what was happening in the negotiations or in Brussels or what Barnier was thinking. The second factor was our constant risk management on that unity. All in the interest of time, I won't elaborate on that, but we were constantly vigilant on possible risks to unity and acted accordingly. And the third factor is that we created, we, the Council, Parliament, the Commission, a very symbiotic way of working together, which I have rarely or perhaps never seen in terms of interinstitutional work between the Commission and the Council and also the Parliament, but in particular between the Commission and the Council. We had hundreds of meetings, so that's three or four every week, where we pre-briefed, debriefed, discussed with Brexit delegates as they were called, delegates from each perm rep, what was happening, what could happen. We also called such meetings at crucial moments where we anticipated what we thought the UK would propose to already start discussing with Member States how to react. So that symbiosis between Council and Commission was an important factor of unity. And the fact that we practiced that transparency and also on top of that shared all our communication material with Brexit delegates. But within Member States, these Brexit delegates played a very important role too, because they ensured the sectorial coordination within their ministries, within their governments rather, between the ministries to make sure that all ministries in national governments knew what the general Brexit approach was. And finally, I think the continued respect by Member States for what they had decided, which was never to circumvent Michel Barnier and his team and the Commission in the negotiations. Again, that was decided in December 16, it wasn't clear if that would hold in December 16, but it did. Of course, there are many talks between Berlin, London, Paris, London, Dublin, London, obviously. And those talks are very important, but we were always debriefed on what these talks contained, which is also quite unique at Member States, debriefed the Commission on what national governments among themselves are discussing, basically. That doesn't always happen in that way. And sometimes it went a bit beyond just talks, as when Leo Varadkar and Boris Johnson went for their famous walk in Liverpool, because that was a crucial moment to unlock the negotiations for what we then could call the Johnson Backstop. So in the interest of time, let me just conclude on that, interest method, but the political solidarity in Member States, I think, is much more important, sustained by a working method. Now, what also helped that unity was the confrontational approach that the UK practiced, and that galvanized the unity of the 27 in my view. Theresa May gave a speech five months before we started negotiations to say no deal is better than a bad deal. We will be a global Britain, as if Ireland can't be a global country and be a new member at the same time. So quite a bit of capitals were somewhat took an insult in that concept of global Britain back then. And you can see it in different, and I want, in the interest of time again, not to elaborate on that, obviously in the Northern Irish context. You can see a lot of that confrontational approach. I want to move to my second point, which is about lessons, maybe I shouldn't say lessons, but at least conclusions for negotiations, because I don't want to lecture anyone. And I'll be very brief on that, because I want to keep some time for the other points. There are two points I make in there. And at first point, building that confrontation, and I say that it was a mistake from the UK side, especially from the pro-Brexit UK side, to be so addicted to confrontation with the EU. It is not a way to negotiate productively, in my view, because by searching for confrontation, by threatening no deal, you don't search for common ground. And on top of that, we were often told that we were asking for the wrong things, that we were by asking for the level playing field for a trade agreement, that we were just asking for something which was not relevant for the UK. But this was a core ask on our side, as I say in the book when Vanier met Rutte on the 3rd of October 16, it was clear already for us there would never be a trade agreement, not even a minimal one, without level playing field guarantees. And so rather than resist that by Frost and his team in the 2020 negotiations, I think a more engaging approach would have been much more productive for the UK as well, but certainly also for the negotiations. And the key point to that is that in the negotiation, I think sometimes you have to be tough, and sometimes you have to confront the other party that's clear, but not all the time, and you have to engage with the core asks of the other party. And you have to create value for the other party if you want to have influence in the negotiation. And by not doing so, you deprive yourself of influence in the negotiation in my view. And related to that is then the whole issue of no deal and the no deal threats at my second kind of conclusion for negotiations, and we can discuss that. I won't elaborate that again in the interest of time, but clearly the fact that Boris Johnson threatened five times a no deal in 2019, 2020, but never took the conclusion or not even for the euphemistically called Australia model, which was actually the same as no deal in October 2020, which he had said he would do if the European Council would not give the UK what it asked for, at least if the European Council did not move. The European Council said, no Boris Johnson, it's time for you to move. They came back to the table every time. And there's a lot to be said about that, but in negotiation terms, the best available alternative to no agreement or basically what you do in case of no deal. But I don't think that was, that we were stronger on that front for sure, but also in terms of approach, I don't think it helps to threaten no deal and then not act upon that. Of course, we wanted to avoid no deal on our side, but we discussed often that we also wanted to avoid a no deal. And this is not in the book, but if I think a bit back about our discussions when we came close to no deal, we discussed ways to try to avoid that because we felt that if we would never give up the single market and its integrity, but we also felt that this would sour relationships too much, lead perhaps to a trade war, fisheries war, whatever you could call it. I want to exaggerate with metaphors, but still it would have been a very difficult situation for both parties for the UK in the first place, but also for the EU. We could never give in to no deal threats, but we wanted to avoid no deal as much as we could. And we would have never walked away from the negotiations. So if I fast forward to today's situation, I think it's important for me to stress that the story in the book is still relevant today for two main reasons. One is that the withdrawal agreement and TCA, which is what the book is about, are the two core agreements that structure our relationship and that will structure the EU-UK relationship for the years to come. And for the first time ever since the last weeks, we are in a situation where both parties are committed to implement both of these agreements. So that's a really new fact that we cannot underestimate in its importance. So these two agreements are the ones that will structure our relationship. The second point, I think, why this is still very relevant for today is that we are still, in my view, in a tale of two stories, or two different stories, one in London and one in the rest of the EU. And I say that based on very anecdotal evidence, but if I share my impression of presenting this book in Brussels or in The Hague or in EU circles or with EU citizens and different things I have done. So the discussion is always an interesting case of political history. And finally, it's done and we can move on. And with many questions on what happened, the role of the UK civil service, could no deal have happened. What about Boris Johnson? What about Theresa May? What are the differences? People are very curious about what happens, but not in the sense that with a general feeling of thank God that's done. And when I'm in London, where I was last week, it's a very different reaction. From the Brexiter's side, there is still a feeling that Brexit hasn't been done. Not enough divergence, not enough to summarize Singapore on Thames kind of policies. Characterize a bit, but you know what I mean. And from the remain side, from the people who are not maybe happy with the TCA, a general feeling of this hits us negatively, how can we change this? And so this is still a very different perception and reception in terms of when we talk about Brexit today and when I present the books and so the book and so the explaining why that is different is still a very important thing today. And I hope the book will somewhat contribute to explaining also to UK audience, the rationale, and things that will never change going forward, such as the single market integrity and the number of other principles that guided us. And of course, what fuels that discussion in London is something which is very different from the EU is the negative impact that the British economy is suffering in part from Brexit, whether you discuss productivity or the impact on trade, on GDP, on investment, on labor shortages, many problems that are not only Brexit related clearly, but that in many cases worsened by Brexit, as indeed had been predicted when the decision was taken. And Maria Sefkovic said last week on trade and barriers that the more the UK will diverge, the more barriers to trade to your risk to produce. And so that negative effect may still continue while on the EU side, I think all of that has by a large been absorbed in my view. Incidentally, it will be interesting, I'm not going to venture into that, but if you look back at the predictions for the UK and for Ireland in 2017, they were more or less similar in terms of a hit of Brexit on the Irish and the UK economy. Now, the Irish economy is doing quite well, not saying that this excludes a negative effect of Brexit, obviously both can be true. But clearly, there is something there that from an economic perspective merits an in-depth analysis which may well have been done and I'm just not aware of it, but it's a very interesting observation, I think. Now, the Doomsters and Gloomsters were clearly right for the UK. It's not just on the economy, on students. If you look at, there were 100,000 EU students in the UK in 2021. There were 50,000 in 2022. Ireland seemed to have gained a number of EU students, tripled from 2,000 to a bit more than 6,000 over the last six, seven years. Germany, Netherlands, Italy have also gained quite a bit of EU students, probably as a result of Brexit because of tuition fees and visa requirements for EU nationals in the UK. So, the perception, the reception of Brexit is still very different than the EU and the UK and I think it's a very important factor to think about that when we go forward. So, let me quickly run or quickly discuss my last point and which relates to that, which is where are we and what is our agenda for the next month, so to say, or for the next, for the recent, for the coming period ahead of us, basically. Again, I speak in a personal capacity, but this is also what you can hear from people like Maroshev Kovic and others and Ursula van der Leyen, no doubt, also in Brussels. First of all, the Windsor deal. Without going into the details of the deal itself, it clearly is a game changer. As I said earlier, now we are finally in a situation where both EU and UK are committed to implement the withdrawal agreement correctly. That was not the case before for the UK. And if I come back to what I said earlier on negotiations, it is very interesting to think about the difference in 21 early 22 with 21 with David Frost and what happened with Rishi Sunak and Ursula van der Leyen. With David Frost and Boris Johnson, it was all about confrontation, non-implementation, without giving any reassurance to the EU on how the integrity of the single market will be protected. Sunak and van der Leyen listened very carefully to each other. And van der Leyen and Sef Kovic took on board the unintended consequence of the protocol, the concerns of some communities in Northern Ireland, product availability, the impact on the real life situation, so to say, of communities in Northern Ireland. All that was important, but Sunak on his side also clearly took on board the single market integrity. And so that combination of flexibilities and safeguards that is in the Windsor deal comes out of that non-confrontational approach to negotiations, which seems to be much more productive than the confrontational approach that we had witnessed in the past. As basic motivations for the Windsor deal, I would say, is first of all a concern for Northern Ireland and for creating stability and uncertainty in Northern Ireland and improve the investment climate, but also the Ukraine war has, in my view, played a very important role in that. And not just in my view, I think Ursula van der Leyen has said that publicly as well. The alternative to go to a relationship based on litigation, non-compliance, at a time when there is a war on the European continent and a need for unity would certainly have been a very undesirable situation and the risk for deterioration of the relationship was simply there. And so avoid that deterioration also through the Windsor deal and to create a closer relationship is also geopolitically very important. And to some extent, the operational cooperation we had on sanctions immediately when the war happened has also created those diplomatic and communication channels that opened the door for that better relationship and also the Windsor deal. And so it also means that we can now exploit the TCA more to the full. The TCA, which has been by and large correctly implied by both parties so far over the last two years. But now we have the opportunity to construct a horizon agreement. We're currently in talks on that. UK has joined the North Sea Energy Platform at the Austin Summit by the Belgian government of recent with Leo Varadkar was there, Grant Shaps was there for the UK. So they're on board with that. The Commission and the Merit McGinnis responsibility proposed a number and among financial services or more regulatory cooperation, which is one of the issues also people in the UK propose in terms of going forward. The whole institutional framework of the TCA, all these committees, 50 meetings I think last year is now in place. Can discuss other technical issues on technical barriers to trade and all those issues. And other shocks who knows may lead to also more operational cooperation outside of that because on sanctions again we are in a strong relationship of cooperation of sanctions against Russia. On winter preparedness for energy we activated the security of supply dialogue under the TCA because of the war. There are colleagues in the external action service are preparing with UK Foreign Office the dialogues on cybersecurity counter-terrorism. I think also that is a direct effect of the Russian war in Ukraine. And so you get a closer relationship gradually emerging very step by step under the existing provisions of the TCA. And therefore I hope that we can now finally turn the page and come to a better and closer relationship between the EU and UK because I think we said enough that Brexit was a lose-lose situation. We now have to turn that page. We're in a very different situation. There's no longer a cliff edge. So there's a new balance of rights and obligations. And we can build on that step by step to create that closer relationship in a very different negotiation environment not just because of the political mood but also structurally because what I have described in the book in terms of all the drama, the EU wants to sabotage Brexit. The EU is not to be trusted. The EU wants to punish us. All these things clearly no longer have any validity. They didn't have validity back then, but they no longer have any legitimate validity to claim as credible claims today. And so again that also made an on the UK side lead to a different approach in terms of taking this relationship forward and deepening it. Thank you. That's it. Thank you.