1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:07,940 Okay. Just to to welcome you all to this discussion we're calling the discussion rather than a debate. 2 00:00:08,130 --> 00:00:12,270 But we hope that you will manufacture a debate with lots of difficult questions. 3 00:00:12,690 --> 00:00:18,929 I'm simply going to welcome you on behalf of the three supporters of the program, 4 00:00:18,930 --> 00:00:26,340 the James Madison Trust, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the European, which I represent here in Oxford. 5 00:00:27,060 --> 00:00:30,750 And I want to introduce two special people. 6 00:00:31,230 --> 00:00:35,190 The first special person is Sir Ronald Grierson, who has joined us. 7 00:00:35,610 --> 00:00:40,440 We didn't mention his name at the beginning of our conference as a founder, father of the Europe. 8 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:46,170 I'm delighted that Ronnie, you could be with us and see, I hope, 9 00:00:46,590 --> 00:00:56,550 the successful fruits of that little idea you had in the early 1990s to bring people together to discuss issues of of concern and importance, 10 00:00:56,790 --> 00:01:01,470 and also to bring young scholars together with some of the wise heads that are in the room. 11 00:01:01,980 --> 00:01:08,010 The second introduction is simply to introduce our chairman, who will then take over the proceedings, 12 00:01:08,430 --> 00:01:13,410 Peter Luff, who's a very distinguished European ist, if I can call him that, 13 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:20,010 chairman of the European Movement and very active over a lifetime in many different 14 00:01:20,310 --> 00:01:27,960 guises with a particular interest in environmental and climate change issues. 15 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:32,280 Peter will take us forward. Thank you. Welcome. 16 00:01:33,420 --> 00:01:41,820 This is an open discussion and it forms part of the of the wider conference on federalism and east and west. 17 00:01:42,270 --> 00:01:48,600 But tonight, the discussion will be open. It will indeed be filmed so people can take away what they want from it. 18 00:01:48,930 --> 00:01:50,820 I hope they get very many questions coming. 19 00:01:51,360 --> 00:02:00,450 We do have probably the two most distinguished speakers we can possibly have on this issue in the Solomons. 20 00:02:01,050 --> 00:02:12,390 David Hurley I've had the opportunity to introduce Peter Sutherland before, but it's pretty hard to imagine one person so many things on their CV. 21 00:02:12,390 --> 00:02:13,730 It sounds like five different. 22 00:02:15,110 --> 00:02:25,650 For those of you who didn't know, Peter was a chairman of Irish Banks, he was director general of Gas and then in the World Trade Organisation. 23 00:02:26,340 --> 00:02:31,379 He was a former Attorney General of Ireland and a former European commissioner 24 00:02:31,380 --> 00:02:37,500 responsible for Commission policy and a former chairman of Goldman Sachs International, 25 00:02:37,500 --> 00:02:42,110 former chairman of BP in slightly less dangerous times. 26 00:02:43,090 --> 00:02:50,850 And I know he is the current chairman of the London School of Economics and is the UN Special Representative for Migration and Development. 27 00:02:51,540 --> 00:02:57,480 So to open the discussion on common ground and federalism in Europe today, I have great pleasure to meet you. 28 00:02:58,290 --> 00:03:06,780 Thank you. And I'm certainly rather pleased that this has been described as a discussion or a debate because it's certainly not a lecture. 29 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:16,920 But I would like to say by way of preface and that really Grierson, whose interest has been over many years, 30 00:03:17,220 --> 00:03:24,450 will no doubt be massively pleased with such a large Eurocentric list as myself, 31 00:03:24,870 --> 00:03:32,730 as a presenter presenter on this particular topic, because I am going to admit I have an issue that I believe in federalism. 32 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:43,320 I believe in European federalism. I believe that we have gone too slow, that we haven't gone deep enough in the development of the European Union. 33 00:03:43,890 --> 00:03:50,820 And I'm worried, rather than gratified by the developments which have taken place through the Lisbon Treaty. 34 00:03:52,080 --> 00:04:01,620 But let me start by trying to explain why, even though I imagine that many of you are already converted on the subject, 35 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,899 the issue of values has been linked to the issue of federalism. 36 00:04:06,900 --> 00:04:15,630 In the topic which we're addressing here this evening that I believe is as it should be, because from the very outset, 37 00:04:16,410 --> 00:04:24,000 the European integration movement has been rooted in the concept of value values, European values. 38 00:04:25,500 --> 00:04:37,079 I remember reading once something which was written by Jack Maritime, who was a philosopher who had influence not merely in the European context, 39 00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:41,190 but also in the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 40 00:04:42,090 --> 00:04:50,010 And he wrote in Commonwealth in Washington in 1940 that when the world was ultimately one, 41 00:04:51,030 --> 00:04:59,370 that Europe could only be a stable place if there was a federal Germany rooted in the federal Europe. 42 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:01,700 And I agree with him. 43 00:05:03,070 --> 00:05:14,200 He went on with other philosophers such as Emanuel Munir, to influence the thinking of the founding fathers, as we call them, of the European Union. 44 00:05:15,320 --> 00:05:20,810 And Schumann de Gaspari Mama in particular. 45 00:05:21,410 --> 00:05:28,910 And I don't know when people who always saw European integration as a moral cause, 46 00:05:30,410 --> 00:05:41,660 they met under the aegis of the Geneva circle in 1951, and some correspondence and notes remain of their meeting. 47 00:05:42,590 --> 00:05:50,570 And at that time, the point was made, particularly subsequently in a letter to Schumann by A.A. 48 00:05:52,580 --> 00:06:02,600 That he was that they were penetrated by the will to develop and realise the new construction of Europe built on foundations related to values. 49 00:06:04,350 --> 00:06:09,780 And those values have been fundamental to the development of Europe. 50 00:06:11,130 --> 00:06:17,459 It's no harm to remind ourselves that the fundamental point that drove them in the first 51 00:06:17,460 --> 00:06:28,050 instance was an attack on what they jointly considered to be the evil of national sovereignty. 52 00:06:30,140 --> 00:06:42,050 And I think using a word as strong as evil and associating us with national sovereignty is really what they were talking about and what drove them. 53 00:06:43,460 --> 00:06:56,000 They had, of course, seen evidence of the excessive individualism of liberalism leading to all sorts of aberrations, 54 00:06:56,810 --> 00:07:03,290 the excessive collectivism of communal communism, leading also to all sorts of evils. 55 00:07:04,070 --> 00:07:07,670 They have seen, above all, the rise of fascism. 56 00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:15,530 And they brought it to the debate as it was created in the early days, 57 00:07:16,610 --> 00:07:24,200 a thinking which was based upon what I would describe as Judeo-Christian principles. 58 00:07:25,640 --> 00:07:31,760 Principles which were rooted in the dignity of man and the equality of man, 59 00:07:32,750 --> 00:07:39,410 which are principles which are at the very core of our civilisation here in Europe. 60 00:07:41,290 --> 00:07:48,249 And I think there was a Dr. Zhivago that Pasternak wrote, putting it in the words of Zhivago himself, 61 00:07:48,250 --> 00:07:54,100 that what the Gospels tell us is that the Kingdom of God has no nations, only persons. 62 00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:07,190 And this aspect of persons and indeed the concept which was developed in the early days of personal ism. 63 00:08:08,740 --> 00:08:13,500 Was an essential part of what these pioneers were seeking to found. 64 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:24,630 Jack. Mary Jo, who I referred to earlier, had a role to play also in the putting together of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 65 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:39,080 And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had also an effect which was related to that concept of absolute national sovereignty, 66 00:08:39,890 --> 00:08:43,970 something that goes back to the 16th century and its origins. 67 00:08:45,560 --> 00:08:58,400 And the concept that grew out of this was that national states and their powers would be limited in a number of different ways. 68 00:08:59,330 --> 00:09:03,020 They would be limited by a degree of supranational government. 69 00:09:04,120 --> 00:09:13,660 Which of course, was part of the coal and steel treaty and was the beginning of what was to become the Treaty of Rome, economic governance and so on. 70 00:09:14,230 --> 00:09:19,180 And in between we had the fail of defence community, but all were moving in the same direction. 71 00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:26,740 Certainly wasn't intended to stage and intend at least to found a, quote, common market. 72 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:34,380 Their ambition was a great deal deeper than simply commerce. 73 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:41,590 And indeed, commerce, as I've indicated, came some distance down the path. 74 00:09:42,770 --> 00:09:49,670 After the failure of Defence and the success of the Cold and Steel Community. 75 00:09:52,200 --> 00:10:02,070 What they were talking about. And the other constraint apart from supra nationalism, was the concept of law and universal human rights. 76 00:10:03,290 --> 00:10:07,460 Again interfering with the extremes of national sovereignty. 77 00:10:08,740 --> 00:10:17,350 And the concept, which came from Catholic teaching of subsidiarity, which was to push down closer to the people, 78 00:10:17,800 --> 00:10:27,970 such decision making as could be taken closer to the individual, the individual or the community in which the individual resided. 79 00:10:29,050 --> 00:10:38,770 So to me, this, at least in logic, was the answer to go down Stella Republic, 80 00:10:39,580 --> 00:10:49,540 which really was the foundation of the concept and intellectually presented at least of national and national sovereignty in 1583. 81 00:10:51,350 --> 00:10:57,620 And it was really a community of values that we were seeking to develop. 82 00:10:59,150 --> 00:11:02,690 Now we're told today that there is a democratic deficit. 83 00:11:03,810 --> 00:11:12,220 That there is no belief. Profound belief in the European project that young people are not inspired by it. 84 00:11:13,230 --> 00:11:16,320 But it is not developing as it should develop. 85 00:11:17,620 --> 00:11:24,250 Well, the reason is clear. All of this has been forgotten, certainly by our politicians. 86 00:11:25,830 --> 00:11:31,200 Forgotten probably as being generous to them. I don't think any of them ever knew it in the first place. 87 00:11:32,370 --> 00:11:35,280 I don't think it's understood. I don't think it's realised. 88 00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:47,170 And with some honourable exceptions present in this room, it's particularly evident that it has not been discussed or understood in this country. 89 00:11:48,590 --> 00:11:52,190 And it is highly regrettable that that should be the case. 90 00:11:53,570 --> 00:12:04,310 It certainly has not been the case in the instance of all the leaders of European institutions since. 91 00:12:06,110 --> 00:12:18,680 There were probably two great presidents of the commission, Holstein and the law and both of them in their own way had a very clear view of values. 92 00:12:19,790 --> 00:12:28,100 I served in the first of all commission and fought vigorously with them on a lot of things that he stood for that I didn't, 93 00:12:28,250 --> 00:12:30,770 including interventionism and economic matters. 94 00:12:31,310 --> 00:12:40,160 But I never had any doubts about his belief in the idea of values and the association of values with what Europe was about. 95 00:12:42,640 --> 00:12:49,270 And coming up to the current time, the players present time jumping through the decades. 96 00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:57,080 We find ourselves arriving at the convention, which produced the constitutional treaty. 97 00:12:58,370 --> 00:13:01,720 Much lamented. And they. 98 00:13:03,220 --> 00:13:11,580 Convention statement, its position. As far as the people have joined the integration process based on their free 99 00:13:11,580 --> 00:13:18,540 decision to declare their intention to create a close and federal European Union. 100 00:13:21,300 --> 00:13:26,070 Already the states have lost their ability individually to secure peace, 101 00:13:26,550 --> 00:13:33,240 internal or external security, prosperity and growth in a globalised world by acting alone. 102 00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:39,120 Sovereignty can only be exercised on a larger scale. 103 00:13:41,190 --> 00:13:47,820 And. I think that. This is something which is clear. 104 00:13:49,160 --> 00:13:59,750 It's clearly true. Professor Christopher Brown has written and practical judgement in international political theory that 105 00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:08,150 Europe was clearly inspired by the political thoughts of those those early founders related to values. 106 00:14:09,850 --> 00:14:14,290 And he included with those values the issue of solidarity. 107 00:14:15,560 --> 00:14:20,240 A sense of solidarity, constantly attacked, I should say, 108 00:14:20,990 --> 00:14:30,800 on good grounds and bad good grounds on the basis that money paid to European institutions has been wasted. 109 00:14:32,290 --> 00:14:38,500 Through policies that have not been properly administered and perhaps not properly designed in the first instance. 110 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:45,270 Bad reasons where the argument is solely an argument about use structure. 111 00:14:46,660 --> 00:14:55,810 What I put in, I want to get out. That is a complete denigration of the whole concept of solidarity. 112 00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:03,810 It's back to the nation state. My money is mine and will only be spent on what? 113 00:15:04,740 --> 00:15:09,180 My constituents. Can see, touch and feel. 114 00:15:10,620 --> 00:15:16,050 Whereas it was meant to be more than that. It was meant, at least in a small way. 115 00:15:16,170 --> 00:15:19,350 We've never been talking about much in terms of the budget. 116 00:15:19,860 --> 00:15:30,270 It was meant to be much more than that in terms of demonstration of a will to support others and to support their development. 117 00:15:31,020 --> 00:15:35,940 But equally, they have their own obligations, obligations not fulfilled, 118 00:15:36,660 --> 00:15:47,010 as we've seen in recent times in some of the countries that are under particular difficulties in managing their own affairs, 119 00:15:47,190 --> 00:15:50,670 including, I regret to say, my own my own country. 120 00:15:52,910 --> 00:16:02,730 But I think that one can also, if I may yet again referred to it to a religious source. 121 00:16:02,750 --> 00:16:10,790 John Paul The second on the 2nd of May 2004 said that if the soul of Europe is still united in any way today. 122 00:16:11,910 --> 00:16:16,200 The reason is that it refers to common human values. 123 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:23,600 If we didn't share values, how could we possibly be where we are today? 124 00:16:24,890 --> 00:16:28,910 How could we stand together if we didn't actually agree? 125 00:16:28,910 --> 00:16:32,720 The basic values that are set out, incidentally, 126 00:16:33,140 --> 00:16:45,170 in Article two of the Treaty on the European Union as follows The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy. 127 00:16:45,710 --> 00:16:50,830 Equality. The rule of law and respect for human rights. 128 00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:55,660 Including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. 129 00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:02,720 These values are common to the member states in a society in which. 130 00:17:02,780 --> 00:17:14,480 Pluralism, non-discrimination. Tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail. 131 00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:20,190 What a profoundly magnificent expression that is. 132 00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:23,270 I once said, and I've never regretted it, 133 00:17:23,990 --> 00:17:33,680 that the European integration process is the most noble political endeavour in a thousand years of European European history. 134 00:17:34,340 --> 00:17:37,910 And that's what it is. But very few people see it. 135 00:17:39,190 --> 00:17:46,030 And very few people have explained to them. But the nobility is in the sharing of sovereignty. 136 00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:51,639 And the sharing of sovereignty is the key to the distinction between the European 137 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:57,760 Union as an entity and anything that has preceded it or anything that has followed it. 138 00:17:59,090 --> 00:18:11,870 So it is an enormous achievement and serious breaches of those fundamental values now can lead to sanctions. 139 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:21,180 Whether they will or whether we're talking here of. Platitudes, which Europe is also pretty good at, remains to be seen. 140 00:18:22,380 --> 00:18:32,580 But the mechanism at least is in the treaties to give voice to and deal with some of the issues 141 00:18:32,580 --> 00:18:39,060 that would arise if there were a breach in the fundamental obligations undertaken by membership. 142 00:18:40,710 --> 00:18:51,330 So to me, the issue of values is a key to any prospect that we have for further integration. 143 00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:58,400 And I think the fact that we have maintained these values in all of the European states 144 00:18:59,120 --> 00:19:07,430 and enhanced and deepened them is not solely attributable to European integration. 145 00:19:08,750 --> 00:19:14,060 But it is a significant effect nonetheless of European integration, because I, 146 00:19:14,390 --> 00:19:19,910 I can't but feel having regard to the lamentable history of our continent. 147 00:19:21,570 --> 00:19:29,580 That somebody would have breached some of these fundamental norms if they were not within the discipline 148 00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:38,730 and the peer pressure and the identifiable legal obligation of being members of the European Union. 149 00:19:41,020 --> 00:19:48,100 So we are where we are today. And the question then, I suppose, that I have to answer is. 150 00:19:49,370 --> 00:20:01,580 What has the Lisbon Treaty done to improve the situation of those such as I, who believe that European integration is a cause that is worth pursuing? 151 00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:09,800 And I must start by saying in regard to this more practical, the more practical issues. 152 00:20:11,370 --> 00:20:24,700 That I am not happy. Although I fought hard, even in a state of some debility for the Lisbon Treaty in my own country. 153 00:20:26,530 --> 00:20:32,630 But I'm not happy with what we have got. I'm not happy with what we have got politically. 154 00:20:34,460 --> 00:20:39,530 I believe that the idea of a European president was a bad one. 155 00:20:40,900 --> 00:20:50,420 It was not thought out. I think it's confusing and I think it creates significant confusion in terms of leadership dynamics. 156 00:20:50,960 --> 00:21:00,410 And it is already evident that the tensions that it gives rise to are not conducive to the best possible presentation of Europe. 157 00:21:02,310 --> 00:21:09,960 I think I can say that notwithstanding the fact that we have the best possible man as far as I can see in the presidency of the council. 158 00:21:11,690 --> 00:21:16,090 He's a person who. Is not likely to. 159 00:21:17,150 --> 00:21:26,930 Forget or ignore the important aspects of the institutional privileges of the Commission. 160 00:21:28,330 --> 00:21:31,810 And he is somebody who is not likely to try to undermine him deliberately. 161 00:21:33,100 --> 00:21:40,090 But I think that that was probably not something it was not thought through, I think, as well as it might have been the presidency. 162 00:21:41,580 --> 00:21:57,130 I think that we have. At least today's less than convincing evidence that the workings of our foreign policy mechanism intergovernmental though it is, 163 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:05,980 and I understand the reasons why it is and for the foreseeable future would in any event have remained purely intergovernmental. 164 00:22:06,670 --> 00:22:13,210 But it's not working. I'm not going to comment on the capacity of the High Representative. 165 00:22:14,050 --> 00:22:17,440 I just don't know her well enough to judge. 166 00:22:18,590 --> 00:22:26,930 I would have preferred, I must admit, a more prominent personality playing the role and imbuing the position with an 167 00:22:26,930 --> 00:22:32,540 authority by virtue of the identity and history of the individual concerned. 168 00:22:33,610 --> 00:22:40,510 I think it would have created a status on the world stage that would have been helpful to a rather difficult position, 169 00:22:40,870 --> 00:22:48,040 which requires a great deal of prior agreement, obviously with the Member States before the positions are taken and so on. 170 00:22:48,460 --> 00:22:55,600 But I'm not content with it. The current situation, of course, the Lisbon Treaty did bring in some. 171 00:22:56,520 --> 00:23:02,940 Advances. Not substantial in terms of wealth, justice and home affairs. 172 00:23:02,970 --> 00:23:08,910 I think one can say the abolition of the pillar principle has been a good thing. 173 00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:13,470 I think the majority of voting that has been increased is a good thing. 174 00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:23,640 I think that we have, as we had before us, a partially federal entity which is neither intergovernmental nor federal. 175 00:23:25,350 --> 00:23:32,730 We have still the external trade and competition areas which could be considered to be part of a federal structure. 176 00:23:33,810 --> 00:23:38,130 We have other areas which remain intergovernmental. 177 00:23:39,610 --> 00:23:47,299 I think one can say. Then it may go a little too far, but not much further than is necessary to say, 178 00:23:47,300 --> 00:23:55,220 as one eminent writer has, that the Lisbon Treaty marks a halt to the ambition of the Federalists. 179 00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:00,200 But it hasn't altered the ambition of my ambition. 180 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,950 Many of them I know and we will try to go on. 181 00:24:04,790 --> 00:24:12,139 But it certainly created a pause, and perhaps more than that not helped, of course, 182 00:24:12,140 --> 00:24:19,370 by the history of the referenda in France and the Netherlands and later in Ireland. 183 00:24:20,060 --> 00:24:29,360 But the French and the Dutch ones in particular, neither of which produced evidence of antipathy per se against the European Union, 184 00:24:29,360 --> 00:24:38,089 although of course some of those who voted no were voting no because of their perception of an increased deepening of the European Union. 185 00:24:38,090 --> 00:24:43,380 But most of them were voting against Turkish migrants or against Chirac or whatever. 186 00:24:44,090 --> 00:24:47,300 And migration policy in the Netherlands and so on. 187 00:24:48,380 --> 00:24:50,330 So but whatever about that, 188 00:24:50,900 --> 00:25:04,190 the loss of the original constitutional treaty and the changes that were introduced by the Lisbon Treaty certainly significantly reduced. 189 00:25:05,490 --> 00:25:15,210 The power and the dynamic for integration is as it should have developed, in my view. 190 00:25:16,380 --> 00:25:25,530 And. Let me say a word, however, about the real issue of European integration today. 191 00:25:27,210 --> 00:25:34,080 It seems to me that the future of the whole European project, as Mrs. Merkel said last May, 192 00:25:35,130 --> 00:25:42,300 is dependent now on the successful resolution of the eurozone problems. 193 00:25:44,360 --> 00:25:49,460 This now goes to the very heart of the European endeavour. 194 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:57,680 And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say, as she did, that we're playing here with the future of the union itself. 195 00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:07,750 And the difficulties are already self-evident in regard to this particular issue. 196 00:26:09,790 --> 00:26:16,420 For reasons related to the original negotiation of the Growth and Stability Pact. 197 00:26:18,360 --> 00:26:27,120 And indeed issues related to national sovereignty and the retention of national sovereignty in those negotiations. 198 00:26:28,490 --> 00:26:34,850 We have ended up with a treaty which is less than adequate in terms of maintaining 199 00:26:34,850 --> 00:26:40,640 discipline as between the budgetary strategies and implementation of the member states. 200 00:26:44,180 --> 00:26:47,840 The fact that disciplines were not put in in the first place. 201 00:26:48,530 --> 00:26:55,400 Mechanisms for discipline, oversight, transparency and ultimately sanction were not included. 202 00:26:56,510 --> 00:27:05,760 Has left. The European Union in a feeble situation in the context of addressing the challenges 203 00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:10,350 which it now faces in regard to the countries which are in substantial deficit. 204 00:27:13,580 --> 00:27:21,170 The course of events that has led to these deficits, of course, includes the fact the first overt breach. 205 00:27:22,410 --> 00:27:32,640 Of the budget deficit figures. And the big claim of right in doing so came from Germany and from France. 206 00:27:35,460 --> 00:27:44,760 But those of us who find ourselves in a far more invidious position today because of more egregious breaches of those disciplines, 207 00:27:45,180 --> 00:27:49,350 can hardly claim justification for this. And certainly I don't. 208 00:27:52,100 --> 00:28:03,990 But we now have a situation where. The insecurities of the market and the capacity to take out individual states by market pressures. 209 00:28:05,260 --> 00:28:11,860 Can lead to instability of a dire kind within the member states. 210 00:28:12,860 --> 00:28:23,120 And sometimes in instances when the particular state of economic debility is capable of remedy without external intervention. 211 00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:30,230 Now, this, to my mind, is an extremely serious situation. 212 00:28:32,620 --> 00:28:40,570 And in particular, I would say that we have a situation where the means available, notwithstanding the substantial. 213 00:28:41,790 --> 00:28:48,570 The support of the European Financial Stability Fund can. 214 00:28:49,660 --> 00:29:02,080 And the availability of 750 billion to support in one way or another, the member states who are in difficulty has not been adequately put together. 215 00:29:03,220 --> 00:29:11,170 The actual interest charges that are payable in respect of any recourse to it are such that nobody to date has sought 216 00:29:11,380 --> 00:29:17,590 to use it as a mechanism for shoring up the difficulty that they have in raising money through the bond market. 217 00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,370 What we need to do, therefore, is to create. 218 00:29:26,550 --> 00:29:29,760 Or to amend the capacity of the. 219 00:29:31,660 --> 00:29:38,560 Fund in a way which allows for the recourse of reasonable rates of interest. 220 00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:46,160 To that fund. Of borrowers. Sovereign borrowers which will provide stability in markets. 221 00:29:46,670 --> 00:29:53,030 Sovereign borrowers who are strictly held to a clearly defined obligation in terms of 222 00:29:53,030 --> 00:29:57,710 reduction of budget deficit and the maintenance of stability in their national accounts. 223 00:29:59,740 --> 00:30:06,850 I think that that will come. I think it will come sooner rather than later, and that we will have a means, 224 00:30:07,330 --> 00:30:13,420 hopefully without another crisis ensuing in the interval beforehand that enables this to happen. 225 00:30:15,580 --> 00:30:18,790 I think, too, that the task force which will be reporting. 226 00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:27,530 Under President Van Rompuy. On the discipline issue into the future. 227 00:30:28,100 --> 00:30:32,030 I think that it will come in with a report and I think it will have implications. 228 00:30:33,270 --> 00:30:42,120 For the member states. But implications which will not go so far as to require them to have a referendum in such countries as. 229 00:30:43,420 --> 00:30:49,980 Which demand referenda in respect of constitutional change relating to the European Union. 230 00:30:51,180 --> 00:30:56,700 I think that there's a sort of a weariness with referendum, which is understandable. 231 00:30:58,230 --> 00:31:06,420 And we've gone far enough in the first instance and not been paralysed by the issue of national sovereignty, with which I started this discussion. 232 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:14,730 We wouldn't have the problem that we have today is would have been passed in the original truth and true to the original treaty. 233 00:31:16,350 --> 00:31:25,710 So to me. Values, as I said from the beginning, are the core of what the European Union is about. 234 00:31:27,270 --> 00:31:30,690 But today. Hopefully tomorrow. 235 00:31:31,740 --> 00:31:35,310 They are not challenged in substance by any member state. 236 00:31:37,390 --> 00:31:46,270 They are part of a debate to be had about the accession of Turkey into the European Union. 237 00:31:48,550 --> 00:31:50,890 Because Europe will have to be satisfied. 238 00:31:52,470 --> 00:32:01,740 That those fundamental values that I've enumerated and discussed, including all the aspects of equality which are part of it. 239 00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:08,510 But those issues are properly dealt with. I would hope that they are. 240 00:32:09,170 --> 00:32:16,220 Personally, I have no objection and see a lot of advantages to Turkish membership of the European Union, 241 00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:24,650 but only if there is a clear understanding of compliance with basic principles. 242 00:32:25,490 --> 00:32:33,200 And I must say that I get a little bit sick of listening to lectures about letting Turkey in from the 243 00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:40,310 United States when one doesn't seem to feel quite the same momentum in their dialogue with Mexico. 244 00:32:41,870 --> 00:32:50,569 Free movement of people is an important issue. So is a constitutional status which we are trying to hold on to in Europe. 245 00:32:50,570 --> 00:32:57,020 I also find it rather offputting that if I may be negative to my hosts in Great Britain. 246 00:32:57,940 --> 00:33:04,150 But we are told that we are going to have referenda about any changes that may occur in Britain in the future. 247 00:33:05,140 --> 00:33:10,390 But we will not have referenda apparently about any accession treaty. 248 00:33:13,310 --> 00:33:20,870 It might well lead a more cynical observer than myself to the conclusion that the reason for this is that some, 249 00:33:20,870 --> 00:33:30,710 at least in the political firmament, are automatically in favour of any accession, any enlargement on the basis that it dilutes the European idea. 250 00:33:31,710 --> 00:33:39,780 So we don't have a referendum on that, even though one can hardly say that the accession of 71 million people is an irrelevance. 251 00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:45,630 From a constitutional point of view or the representation in the Parliament or anywhere else in the European Union. 252 00:33:48,370 --> 00:33:54,760 But that's the only conclusion I can come to. Apparently, that is not an issue for a referendum. 253 00:33:56,590 --> 00:33:59,620 So we're back to where I started. 254 00:34:00,610 --> 00:34:07,450 This is all about values. And if the real challenge, as I see it, is the challenge of the single currency, 255 00:34:08,650 --> 00:34:16,660 the issue of solidarity, the issue of the nobility of the aim of European integration. 256 00:34:18,090 --> 00:34:28,170 Remains the key. Either we believe in it and live up to it, or this challenge will not be one that we will overcome. 257 00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:36,430 I hope that we can be optimistic, but the challenge is very real. 258 00:34:37,150 --> 00:34:40,540 And it's by no means certain as to how it will conclude. 259 00:34:40,990 --> 00:34:51,120 Thank you very much. These are speaking as a federalist in a country where the very word is more taboo than common obscenities. 260 00:34:51,130 --> 00:34:54,760 Very often it's been an inspiration to have you on our side. 261 00:34:55,120 --> 00:35:00,639 I must say that your service has been very useful at times and is trotted out when people are 262 00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:06,760 going to accuse federalists of being impractical idealists without any reality in the real world. 263 00:35:06,850 --> 00:35:16,980 So they claim to be chairman of BP and be an idealist. The first night at the club David party leader discussant. 264 00:35:17,650 --> 00:35:21,430 David as well as as the most distinguished former diplomat, 265 00:35:21,790 --> 00:35:30,490 previously UK ambassador to the U.S. and to the UN as a member of the House of Lords and the European Union Subcommittee on Home Affairs, 266 00:35:31,270 --> 00:35:39,880 and indeed very much an analyst and a thinker on international affairs generally and the role of diplomacy. 267 00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:50,920 Well, thank you very much. And I see that I was listed as a commentator on Peter Sutherland's splendid address. 268 00:35:53,020 --> 00:35:58,540 A difficult thing to do, because ever since we worked together in Brussels in the 1980s, Peter, 269 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:04,809 as part of one of the federal institutions of the European Union, the Commission and I, 270 00:36:04,810 --> 00:36:10,450 as part of one of the confederal institutions, the Committee of Permanent Representatives, 271 00:36:11,110 --> 00:36:17,020 we have tended to agree a lot more than we disagreed, for instance, over Britain and the euro. 272 00:36:17,530 --> 00:36:24,519 But I think you may notice one or two scintilla of difference in our views on the issues we're looking at now. 273 00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:29,259 And so rather than anchor my remarks to directly in his lecture, 274 00:36:29,260 --> 00:36:37,630 I'll just offer you a few random thoughts on the European aspects of the three main themes 275 00:36:38,020 --> 00:36:45,370 that have been identified for these next two days of discussion the challenges of adaptation, 276 00:36:45,370 --> 00:36:52,960 of identity, and of legitimacy. I take them, if I may, in the reverse order. 277 00:36:54,110 --> 00:36:57,500 First. Then the challenge of legitimacy. 278 00:36:58,670 --> 00:37:09,800 A lot of ink has been spilled on such concepts as the creation of a European demos of the democratic deficit, as it's called, 279 00:37:10,310 --> 00:37:21,680 and of such distinctly federalist federalising ideas as pan-European parties for European Parliament elections. 280 00:37:22,070 --> 00:37:33,290 European wide referendums on major constitutional reforms and absolute control by the European Parliament over top European appointments. 281 00:37:34,250 --> 00:37:39,920 Clearly, that is one way of answering the legitimacy challenge. 282 00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:47,160 But I have to say that I don't think that any of those ideas has gained much traction. 283 00:37:47,810 --> 00:37:52,250 And it really is hard to believe that they will do so in the near future. 284 00:37:53,390 --> 00:37:57,520 Voters at European Parliament elections one can regret it. 285 00:37:57,530 --> 00:38:00,980 I do vote largely on national issues. 286 00:38:01,850 --> 00:38:06,590 pan-European manifestos general to the point of meaninglessness. 287 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:15,650 No one is going to accept ratification of major constitutional changes by Europe wide voting. 288 00:38:16,970 --> 00:38:17,780 Personally, 289 00:38:18,110 --> 00:38:28,280 I believe that referendums and here I must say I do agree very much with Peter that referendums are an extremely dangerous diversion for Europe, 290 00:38:29,420 --> 00:38:33,110 even for a whole raft of reasons. 291 00:38:33,110 --> 00:38:40,280 And that goes whether you're talking about referendums on a Europe wide level or at a national level. 292 00:38:40,790 --> 00:38:45,130 I find the whole case for referendums very unconvincing. 293 00:38:45,140 --> 00:38:50,540 I do not accept that they are a superior or modern form. 294 00:38:50,540 --> 00:38:53,870 Update of representative parliamentary democracy. 295 00:38:54,440 --> 00:39:02,570 You have the problems of low turnout, very likely if there are referendums and it has been the case so far on them, 296 00:39:02,870 --> 00:39:08,750 you get a lower, much lower turnout than you do for national elections, for parliaments. 297 00:39:09,740 --> 00:39:18,620 You have the fact that voters in their to some way address quite different questions from the ones on the order paper that they're asked to do. 298 00:39:19,490 --> 00:39:24,880 That is quite obvious. The French referendum on the constitutional treaty. 299 00:39:24,900 --> 00:39:29,420 I have a house in France I live near. I lived there. 300 00:39:29,420 --> 00:39:34,730 I was there at the time of the of the referendum. They were not, of course, voting at all about the treaty. 301 00:39:35,030 --> 00:39:36,829 They were all sent copies of the treaty. 302 00:39:36,830 --> 00:39:43,460 And my neighbour Farmer said that she had thrown it in the wastepaper basket because she could find no use for it. 303 00:39:44,090 --> 00:39:53,360 But she knew what it was about. What was it about? Plastered all over our local town was signs saying no and our constitution as discard. 304 00:39:54,230 --> 00:40:00,650 It was as simple as that. It was actually about Chirac and Giscard, neither of whom were names to conjure with. 305 00:40:01,010 --> 00:40:06,950 And I think it shows how very flawed these sort of referendum approach is. 306 00:40:07,250 --> 00:40:15,740 They don't settle matters once and for all. After all, the 1975 referendum in this country on Europe was meant to settle matters once and for all. 307 00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:22,820 Took about two years for the Eurosceptics to pick up the councils again, and they've been bashing away ever since. 308 00:40:23,270 --> 00:40:27,950 And so they don't achieve that kind of finality. 309 00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:32,330 They can be very divisive indeed. 310 00:40:32,930 --> 00:40:38,210 And though I know this is a rather cynical argument to use, 311 00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:48,080 it is perfectly clear that if the euro had been put to a referendum in any country in Europe, it would have failed. 312 00:40:49,050 --> 00:40:53,190 And certainly in Germany it would have failed. 313 00:40:54,060 --> 00:40:56,340 So those who believe, as I do, 314 00:40:56,340 --> 00:41:03,390 that the decision to move to the euro was the right thing to do and who strongly believe that it needs now to be sustained, 315 00:41:03,660 --> 00:41:11,340 just have to remember that it's really difficult to be both a protagonist of referendums and a protagonist of the euro. 316 00:41:12,690 --> 00:41:20,620 So legitimacy, which is of course, a crucial requirement for the European Union, will need to be found. 317 00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:29,130 I would argue elsewhere than in outright clear federal approaches or in referendums. 318 00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:39,660 It's interesting that Lisbon, the new Lisbon Treaty, both gave national parliaments a role for the first time in a European treaty. 319 00:41:40,410 --> 00:41:45,570 And at the same time gave greatly enhanced powers to the European Parliament. 320 00:41:46,770 --> 00:41:52,080 Perhaps that does cast doubt on what previously was the conventional wisdom, 321 00:41:52,380 --> 00:42:00,330 which is that the struggle is between national parliaments and the European Parliament over a piece of turf. 322 00:42:01,350 --> 00:42:10,290 In actual fact, there are large areas the European Union is active which fall between the two and into a kind of democratic vacuum. 323 00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:16,590 That is certainly true of common foreign and security policy. Tell me which national parliament actually controls that? 324 00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:21,720 None of them do. Does the European Parliament? No. Are we going to let the European Parliament do it? 325 00:42:21,750 --> 00:42:26,520 No. The Member States are not going to. So you'll have to find some way of combining things. 326 00:42:26,910 --> 00:42:34,889 And I think they that could be through an active use of the provisions in Lisbon on subsidiarity and proportionality, 327 00:42:34,890 --> 00:42:43,080 through some imaginative working together of the national parliaments and the European Parliament. 328 00:42:43,530 --> 00:42:49,200 We could find a better way through to towards some legitimacy. 329 00:42:49,770 --> 00:42:51,210 And I hope we will make that work. 330 00:42:51,240 --> 00:42:59,520 It is quite interesting that when people in my select committee in the House of Lords looked at the implications of Lisbon, 331 00:42:59,910 --> 00:43:07,380 almost the first thing that was said unanimously was we need closer working relationships with the European Parliament, 332 00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:14,070 not we should grab back things from the European Parliament, but we must learn to work together with them. 333 00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:20,580 Well, we haven't actually done that yet, but we've talked about it and perhaps we will eventually get round to doing it. 334 00:43:20,820 --> 00:43:26,940 People do move in a slow way and I would like to see, for example, 335 00:43:26,940 --> 00:43:35,909 there is now a question thought being given to finding some way of getting some legitimacy into the decisions taken on the 336 00:43:35,910 --> 00:43:43,200 common foreign and security policy and perhaps something a little bit like the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate. 337 00:43:43,650 --> 00:43:46,950 The US Senate could emerge without a treaty base, 338 00:43:46,950 --> 00:43:53,669 but with both national parliamentarians and European parliamentarians participating and the High 339 00:43:53,670 --> 00:44:02,340 Representative using that as the chief creator of legitimacy for the policy that she is trying to put forward. 340 00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:11,250 I also think that it would be one other step towards legitimacy would be to give the members of the European 341 00:44:11,250 --> 00:44:18,090 Parliament in all countries a much closer geographical link with the people they they they represent. 342 00:44:18,570 --> 00:44:25,860 The fact that a lot of them are voted in on national lists and have absolutely no geographical link whatsoever. 343 00:44:26,340 --> 00:44:33,360 And that in this country, for example, although we have proportional representation, it's on the appalling closed list system. 344 00:44:33,810 --> 00:44:35,280 I think that there is way, 345 00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:42,530 if we could find ways in which members of the European Parliament could have a closer geographical link to the people they represent, 346 00:44:42,540 --> 00:44:48,690 that would be an increase in the potential legitimacy then the challenge of identity. 347 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:59,280 Now this is a hard one to again, many of is not, I think, susceptible of sweeping federalist approaches. 348 00:44:59,700 --> 00:45:07,500 Europe is not going to become a pure melting pot like the United States either for its own citizens, 349 00:45:07,980 --> 00:45:12,030 indigenous citizens, or for the immigrants who come into Europe. 350 00:45:12,570 --> 00:45:23,310 There's just too much history, too many languages, too many cultural differences are involved to think that the melting pot will work in that way. 351 00:45:24,540 --> 00:45:31,110 There's no sign. It's that that that is what ordinary people want and plenty of signs that they don't want it. 352 00:45:31,650 --> 00:45:37,620 So diversity in identity, unity and diversity, whatever way you like to say this, 353 00:45:38,340 --> 00:45:44,370 this slogan of of of Europe, I think will have to continue and we will have to make a virtue of it. 354 00:45:45,030 --> 00:45:48,630 We are, I suspect, close to a very major. 355 00:45:48,690 --> 00:45:55,350 Wrong turning on the identity issue, which is the challenge that arises over immigration. 356 00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:03,840 They're not the rise of a number of right wing parties in France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, the UK, 357 00:46:04,500 --> 00:46:14,400 which want a fortress Europe approach and rejection of multiculturalism is, I would say, a very dangerous development. 358 00:46:14,430 --> 00:46:21,930 And of course it is an attempt to define identity in an entirely negative way, negative and defensive. 359 00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:34,260 Personally, I find it morally objectionable, but even if it isn't because of the demography of Europe, it looks to me as being economically suicidal. 360 00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:39,900 And it's good that a number of businessmen are now speaking up about that sort of issue. 361 00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:48,569 So I personally think that the answer to dealing with these pressures from immigration, the pressures, the political pressures, 362 00:46:48,570 --> 00:47:01,050 will be a resumed economic growth, obviously, and a much more imaginative approach to assimilating immigrants who come to the European Union. 363 00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:03,090 But politicians, I would say, 364 00:47:03,090 --> 00:47:12,989 will need to be a lot braver in standing up to these populist right wing pressures which seek to define European identity on a narrow, 365 00:47:12,990 --> 00:47:19,380 inward looking, defensive basis. Now, what I have said so far, that identity sounds a bit negative, 366 00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:24,629 and it is I suspect that all the efforts that have been put into defining a 367 00:47:24,630 --> 00:47:30,570 European identity as such as a kind of successor to separate national identities, 368 00:47:30,990 --> 00:47:40,950 has been an attempt to answer their own question if achieving a European identity is juxtaposed as an alternative to national identities. 369 00:47:41,310 --> 00:47:44,940 And I believe it is doomed to failure for the foreseeable future. 370 00:47:45,720 --> 00:47:51,690 But this would not necessarily be an outright victory for renewed nationalism. 371 00:47:52,170 --> 00:47:59,520 After all, in many parts of Europe, in Scotland, in Wales, in Catalonia, in the Basque Country, in Brittany and Corsica, 372 00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:05,610 in many parts of the Balkans, national identity is under threat and being challenged from below. 373 00:48:06,780 --> 00:48:14,820 Whether or not the supporters of the regional identities aspire to a separate nation state, it is being challenged from below. 374 00:48:15,420 --> 00:48:29,159 So I would suggest that whether we like it or not, and if we are to avoid the Balkanisation of Europe and the rejection, 375 00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,310 the outright rejection of a federalist approach to identity, 376 00:48:32,670 --> 00:48:37,799 then we will need to aim for what I would describe as a multi-layered approach 377 00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:45,030 to identity with each citizen encouraged to embrace the same time regional, 378 00:48:45,270 --> 00:48:51,600 national, European and dare I say it, global layers of identity. 379 00:48:52,380 --> 00:49:00,780 This diffusion of identity will anger some, and it is certainly not a simple one to explain or to articulate. 380 00:49:01,380 --> 00:49:06,990 There have actually been a few little difficulties about that sort of identity issue 381 00:49:06,990 --> 00:49:11,880 in this great university in recent times between the colleges and the university. 382 00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:17,370 So it's not a simple one, but it does seem to me to offer the only peaceful, 383 00:49:17,370 --> 00:49:24,240 consensual way of handling the crosscurrents of the world we live in when we are talking about identity. 384 00:49:24,420 --> 00:49:35,010 Now for the third challenge, the challenge of adaptation, which is what up to now the European Union has been good at, has done best sharing, 385 00:49:35,010 --> 00:49:45,210 as it has done a remarkable capacity showing, as it has done a remarkable capacity for recovering from what at the time seemed to be damaging crises, 386 00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:54,210 for fashioning complex compromises, which may seem to some to federalist idealists and to radical Eurosceptics in particular, 387 00:49:54,480 --> 00:50:04,590 like messy fudges, but which have actually proved the effective glue which enabled the EU to move ahead, to prosper and to become stronger. 388 00:50:05,310 --> 00:50:10,709 This failure to understand the history of crises in the European Union and how 389 00:50:10,710 --> 00:50:16,380 these crises have been overcome is odd since they all happened not that long ago. 390 00:50:17,070 --> 00:50:20,880 I think it does say something about the shortness of our memories now collectively. 391 00:50:21,810 --> 00:50:35,250 So what were these crises? The French empty chair, 65, 66, the vetoes of enlargement to let the UK and the other countries with it in in 1963 and 67, 392 00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:41,220 the leadership vacuum in the world economic crisis after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, 393 00:50:41,850 --> 00:50:47,310 the great British budget war of the 1980s, the divisions over Bosnia and Iraq. 394 00:50:48,510 --> 00:50:55,020 All these were overcome. They have been overcome and largely remedied. 395 00:50:55,620 --> 00:51:00,780 The empty chair was filled. The first enlargement took place in 1973. 396 00:51:01,350 --> 00:51:06,240 The EU emerged from the hyperinflation and the unemployment in the 1970s eighties. 397 00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:12,510 The budget was war led on to the single market and the single currency. 398 00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:19,800 The foreign policy splits led on to the Lisbon Treaty with the new foreign policy instruments, 399 00:51:20,220 --> 00:51:26,340 the double hatted High Representative and the full time President of the European Council and the External Action Service. 400 00:51:26,340 --> 00:51:29,610 And I would be quite a lot less negative than Peters about that. 401 00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:34,310 These are long term projects, not ones that can be judged within a few months. 402 00:51:35,190 --> 00:51:40,589 And I have heard quite unlikely people saying quietly that, for example, 403 00:51:40,590 --> 00:51:49,860 the way that Cathy Ashton handled the very difficult dealings over the International Court of Justice ruling on Kosovo a few weeks ago, 404 00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:59,940 which led to a resolution of the General Assembly, which seems to have set all sides on a path towards negotiation. 405 00:51:59,940 --> 00:52:07,990 And discussion was actually a an example of how very well that sort of thing can be done on a European basis. 406 00:52:08,020 --> 00:52:11,820 That's just one small example, and we are in very early days at the moment. 407 00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:18,780 Now that historical record of handling crises is one of the reasons why I would suggest with some confidence 408 00:52:19,260 --> 00:52:26,490 that the EU will emerge relatively unscathed from the present economic and financial crises which are both, 409 00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:33,600 which are once again involving a leadership vacuum, because that's what we really have at the moment, 410 00:52:34,380 --> 00:52:38,550 and also major financial and economic weaknesses and traumas. 411 00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:48,450 To those who expressed doubt on the basis of financial and econometric analyses, I would suggest do not forget the politics. 412 00:52:49,230 --> 00:52:56,490 All those earlier crises were overcome by a combination of technical fixes and political will. 413 00:52:57,180 --> 00:53:00,960 So will this one be if it is going to be overcome, which I think it will. 414 00:53:01,710 --> 00:53:05,430 But clearly adaptation has to go a great deal further than that. 415 00:53:06,170 --> 00:53:14,049 Are. Union is living in a world where its capacity to influence the other main players is in relative decline and where 416 00:53:14,050 --> 00:53:21,070 major international decisions can no longer be fixed simply by getting together with the US and the Japanese, 417 00:53:21,070 --> 00:53:30,790 as used to be the case in the gaps in the WTO. When Peter Sutherland directed it said In such a distinguished way and with which he is so familiar, 418 00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:37,450 we live now in a multipolar world in which the principal emerging states like India, 419 00:53:37,450 --> 00:53:45,999 China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia are becoming essential players both politically and economically. 420 00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:56,680 So they must to become part of the decision making processes which precedes the finding of global solutions to the global challenges we all face. 421 00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:02,920 That was the logic of the, in my view, distinctly belated foundation of the G20. 422 00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:07,650 Now the EU will have to go further making room for these new players, 423 00:54:07,660 --> 00:54:15,460 and in our last session there were some suggestions that the EU would not be prepared to do that. 424 00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:23,110 Well, I don't imagine they will actually go rejoicing, but I think they'll go and not just in a token way, 425 00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:31,930 in a whole range of institutions the IMF, the World Bank, the UN Security Council, to identify only the most prominent cases. 426 00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:38,590 Can the EU summon up the will to do that, to accept a reduction in its own in its members roles? 427 00:54:39,430 --> 00:54:45,580 I believe so myself, although the process will be painful and not without setbacks. 428 00:54:46,150 --> 00:54:47,799 But the bottom line, surely, 429 00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:58,990 is that the European Union has a greater stake than any of the other main players in their being an increasingly rules based international order, 430 00:54:59,470 --> 00:55:05,170 and it is at greater risk from any drift towards new world disorder. 431 00:55:05,620 --> 00:55:13,330 So I believe they will have to accept the logic of that, which is that to strengthen the international institutions, 432 00:55:13,630 --> 00:55:16,930 the emerging countries must be given a greater say in them. 433 00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:24,219 And that, of course, begs the question whether the other countries, the emerging countries, 434 00:55:24,220 --> 00:55:31,960 India, Brazil, China and so on, will be ready to move in the same direction. 435 00:55:31,970 --> 00:55:35,800 And I don't want to get into that because I will be here all night if we got into that discussion. 436 00:55:36,220 --> 00:55:41,500 But and that is a wider debate, which may come later in this series of meetings we're having. 437 00:55:41,500 --> 00:55:44,260 But I think it is quite important because, of course, 438 00:55:44,260 --> 00:55:51,639 there is a possibility that the Europeans and the West generally will show a willingness to share the decisions, 439 00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:55,630 but that the new emerging powers will not want to take them. 440 00:55:56,110 --> 00:56:02,080 And that is a real risk. But let's not that's not our responsibility so much. 441 00:56:02,890 --> 00:56:12,400 Now, kind of, you know, and I would say can adaptation for the EU stop where I just described the various aspects of it. 442 00:56:12,790 --> 00:56:22,390 It will need to to face the challenge of new accessions if it is not to find its own neighbourhood becoming a less secure and a less prosperous place. 443 00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:27,430 And that means bringing in step by step, the Balkan countries. 444 00:56:27,730 --> 00:56:35,590 It means overcoming the divisions over Turkish accession, and it means opening the door at least a crack to the Ukraine. 445 00:56:36,190 --> 00:56:41,020 None of that will be easy, but over time, I believe myself it will be done. 446 00:56:41,620 --> 00:56:47,049 Now, can all those adaptations be achieved within the existing decision making machinery 447 00:56:47,050 --> 00:56:52,240 and within the existing treaties with Lisbon as the most recent set of changes? 448 00:56:52,900 --> 00:56:58,090 Well, I hate to say this in this categorical way, but they will just have to be, 449 00:56:58,870 --> 00:57:08,790 because I just cannot see substantial new institutional changes to treaties being ratified by those 27, 450 00:57:09,070 --> 00:57:13,200 soon to be 28 with Croatia Member States any time soon. 451 00:57:14,140 --> 00:57:18,250 Between the Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties, 452 00:57:19,300 --> 00:57:28,900 the European Union got into the bad habit of making elaborate and substantial changes treaty changes to achieve objectives, 453 00:57:28,900 --> 00:57:33,729 many of which could in fact have been handled within the existing treaties and machinery, 454 00:57:33,730 --> 00:57:39,520 as was done extensively between 1956 and the Single European Act in 1985. 455 00:57:40,150 --> 00:57:43,330 We'll just have to learn to do that again, in my view. 456 00:57:43,750 --> 00:57:50,950 No bad thing since the seemingly unending series of treaty changes from my stroke to Amsterdam to niece, 457 00:57:50,950 --> 00:57:54,010 and eventually to the failed constitutional treaty in Lisbon. 458 00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:59,170 Well, part of the explanation for public disenchantment with the EU. 459 00:57:59,980 --> 00:58:06,070 Well, I've set out a more confident answer to the challenge of annotation than to the other two challenges. 460 00:58:06,630 --> 00:58:14,280 Of identity and legitimacy. That's partly no doubt because I was a practitioner and not a political philosopher. 461 00:58:14,700 --> 00:58:22,230 I have to say that I did particularly badly in the political philosophy paper in my finals here at Oxford 51 years ago. 462 00:58:22,740 --> 00:58:26,490 But it is also because of the three. 463 00:58:27,060 --> 00:58:31,560 It is the more susceptible of clear answers, although even these are a bit risky. 464 00:58:32,250 --> 00:58:39,810 Fortunately, and this is by absolutely last point, and that is surely one of the great achievements of the European Union. 465 00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:48,900 These issues can now be debated across Europe and more widely outside Europe in a rational and tolerant manner, 466 00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:55,350 which was not precisely the way they were addressed in this continent during the first half of the last century.