Mon entretien avec le think tank Atlantic Council.

Good afternoon everyone, my name is John Rogers and I serve as the Chairman of the Atlantic Council. And notwithstanding the pandemic requirements that we do this virtually, it's truly a pleasure to be hosting this extraordinary event. It's my privilege to kick off today's official launch of the Atlantic Council's Europe Centre with the generous participation of our special guest, His Excellency Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic. I was fortunate to meet President Macron at a state dinner in April of 2018 at the White House. How things have changed since then.

As this audience knows well, the relationship with Europe is at the very heart of the historic mission of the Atlantic Council as we look to shape our collective future, tackling the global challenges and issues that affect us all, in lockstep with our closest strategic allies.

As we embark on 2021, a storied year already, in its own right, as the Atlantic Council celebrates its 60th anniversary, we find ourselves in the midst of a historic moment where countries and societies the world over face simultaneously a health crisis, an economic crisis, and in some cases, an identity crisis, while grappling with sweeping technological changes, climate imperatives, and strategic rivals growing increasingly assertive, such as China and Russia.

Against that backdrop, I think most with us today would agree this is also a pivotal moment for transformation, a unique opportunity for those in the transatlantic community to step up and once again shape the future of international order. Of course, at the Atlantic Council, we take our responsibilities to this effort with earnest. Our Europe program in recent years has grown rapidly under the leadership of our Director Benjamin Haddad. And that's also why we're doubling down on Europe in 2021 with the launch of the new center. So I want to congratulate Benjamin and the entire team for this timely achievement and thank them in advance for what's to come.

In a period in stark need of transformational leadership, there is one leader who has established himself as a bold and innovative voice in Europe. And I am, of course, talking about President Macron, whom we are honored to have with us today. President Macron, you have been a courageous reformer in France and an advocate for an ambitious Europe agenda on the international stage. And I know I speak for the broader audience when I say we look forward to hearing your vision for the European Union as an impactful global leader and partner with the United States. As we come together today in tackling this century's biggest challenges so far unfolding before us.

And with that, once again, thank you for joining us. I'll now hand it over to Benjamin, the Director of the Atlantic Center's European Center, who will introduce and lead a conversation with President Macron. Thank you.

Thank you, John. I'm Benjamin Haddad. It's my honor to be here in Paris with you, President Macron, for the official launch of the Europe Center of the Atlantic Council. Mr. President, it's not a coincidence if we wanted to be with you today in this critical time for transatlantic relations. We're in the midst of a pandemic, of a global climate crisis, of an economic crisis facing a more assertive China. And these times call more than ever for deep transatlantic bond. At the Atlantic Council, we will play our role in advocating for this relationship, as we always have. But we need to look forward with no denial of the challenges that we face and no nostalgia for the past.

And this is why we will advocate at the Europe Center for a strong, responsible, assertive Europe at the core of this transatlantic partnership. With offices in Washington, in Warsaw, in Stockholm, in Belgrade, with a network of fellows all across Europe, strategic partnerships with the Munich Security Conference, Globesec, the U.S. Hellenic Chamber of Commerce in Greece, and much more to come. We will continue to be a strong voice in not observing the problems, but really being actors of change. This year, the EU will be our priority.

We will partner with the EU delegation in Washington to launch a national campaign to reset EU-US relations, explain the European Union to Americans, and explain why a strong and united EU is a core national interest of the United States. Mr. President, you've been a transformational leader for Europe, leading the way to a more sovereign Europe on the international stage to face these challenges. And this is why we're so delighted to have you with us today. We brought a group of Americans and Europeans from all walks of life and generations to ask you questions on the foreign policy issues, the global economic challenges, but also the societal challenges that our countries face together.

Let me ask you the first question, Mr. President. Joe Biden was inaugurated as president two weeks ago. You spoke to President Biden, stressed the necessity to coordinate on common challenges from COVID-19, global economic recovery, the climate, China, the Middle East, the Sahel and Africa, Russia. Where do we start?

Thank you very much. First of all, thank you for being here. And thanks, Mr. Chairman, for your introduction and your first remarks. And I'm very happy to inaugurate in a certain way Europe Center. And I want to congratulate you first for this ambition. And I'm deeply convinced that this intuition and your willingness to build a new common agenda is absolutely core. We will probably revert on a lot of topics during this discussion. But let me say that for me the number one priority in the relation with the new US administration and for the work between US and Europe is to have and to deliver, I would say, a results oriented multilateralism.

We worked hard during these past few years in order to preserve a multilateral framework. All the issues you mentioned, pandemic, economic and social crisis, new inequalities, climate change, our democratic issues and so on. All these issues require more coordination. And during the past few years, we experienced a sort of dismantling of the existing multilateral frameworks and for. So I think number one priority is to rebuild this multilateralism, not obviously by pushing an inclusive multilateralism to be sure that we are efficient and precisely inclusive, but to have a result oriented multilateralism, which means having concrete results in order to fix the main challenge.

The main challenges or at least to start fixing this, this main challenges. And for me, the very first days of this new administration are absolutely key in such a move. The WHO and his decision of President Biden to go back first to be a contributor, but as well to participate to a multilateral framework for our global health, to be part of the one health initiative at the same time. The WHO and his participation to the ACTA, our initiative for not just the African continent, but poor and emerging countries in the context of the pandemic. And we will probably revert on that, plus the commitment to invest at least 4 billion in this initiative.

Obviously, the decision to come back in the Paris agreement and to join the club of countries in a situation to deliver carbon neutrality by 2050. And probably the coming decisions regarding World Trade Organization and so on. This is the very first issue because when I would say the main player, the one in charge to guarantee the system in last resort, is the one to leave it. Obviously, it does weaken multilateralism. And those who benefit from such a situation are precisely the spoilers or those in the situation to propose or push another kind of multilateralism, which is not based on our common values and an actual and fair multilateralism.

The second key issue is, and it's linked to the very first one, how precisely to invent altogether because we will have to innovate very clearly in order to fix these new challenges, how to build new partnerships and build what we called a few weeks ago here in Paris. The new consensus of our global world. What we see is clearly a world where inequalities are at the top of the list, even before the pandemic and definitely after the COVID-19 period of time, inequalities will be a very critical issues. We have now, I would say, a weaker regulation regarding arms control, largely damaged by the past decisions.

We have probably to invent new corporations and partnerships in order to deal with climate and biodiversity issues. This is what we try to do during the past few years with the One Planet Summit, first to preserve Paris agreement, but to launch new initiatives for biodiversity. We have to be very innovative because this is this type of new partnerships means building new corporations between governments, but new corporations with private players as well and NGOs and some regional entities. And obviously, when we look at digital issues, when we look at the crisis of our democracies, we will have to build a series of new partnerships in order to precisely give a content to this new consensus.

The third, so this is the second pillar for me of the critical relation. And this is where for me, European Union and the US are the two main players to build together, but by being very inclusive with other players sharing our values, precisely these new solutions in the current environment. And third, I think we have to be much more committed to regional crisis and a consistent approach to this regional crisis. We spoke during precisely a while with President Biden about some of the some of these regional crisis.

But when we speak about Middle East, when we speak about Africa, when we speak about Indo-Pacific and this concept we try to push during the past few years, definitely we speak about the relation between the US and Europe, our ability to work together, our ability to preserve or restore peace and stability in some of these regions. Some of them are part of the European neighborhood. Some others are part of very critical region in the current environment. Some of them are part of precisely the way to reshape the EU and China and the US and China relationship in the coming years. And dealing with regional crisis means how the US wants to re-engage in some of them.

Where are the main top priorities? And for me, fight against terrorism is absolutely critical and peace and stability for this region of this world is absolutely critical. And this is as well how to clarify and we will probably revert on that the whole of NATO and the existing partnerships in such a framework. I don't want to be longer. We will have the occasion to revert on all these issues, but the three pillars are the three main ones for me to frame the relation with the new US administration.

So I want to pick up on your last point and reframing the partnership. Europe has been at the core of your vision ever since your election. You gave a very ambitious speech on European sovereignty at Sorbonne and you've pushed many initiatives on the European level. What do you think this European sovereignty and strategic autonomy agenda means for the transatlantic relationship?

For me, a very good news. Why? Because I I do believe obviously on the national fact we are democracies based on the expression of our people at the national level. But when you look at the current environment, given all these changes and the increasing tensions, obviously the European Union is a credible player and the one at the relevant scale, I would say. So my willingness from the very first days of my mandate has been to try to reinvent or restore an actual European sovereignty. During the past decades, basically, we leave the floor to the nationalistic approach, pushing for more sovereignty at the national level.

But our actual sovereignty, which means deciding for yourself and being able to decide your own rules and regulation and to be in charge of your own choices is relevant at the European scale. This is why we decided to have a common agenda. to have a common agenda. On tech, defense, currency, economic and fiscal answer to the crisis and so on and so on. And this is how we've progressively framed this concept of strategic autonomy. This concept means just the European Union has to be able to think itself as a common and relevant entity to decide for itself and to be in a situation to invest much more on the critical items of the sovereign entity and defense issues are part of them.

This decision as is absolutely not just compatible with NATO but totally consistent with NATO and this is why I strongly believe that this push and this decision to make more together at the European scale is completely is definitely the interest of the United States. Why? Because when you look at the past decades in NATO, the U.S. was the only one in charge in a certain way of our own security and the burden sharing as some of our former and current leaders push the concept was not fair. This is true. And the relation became progressively insane because in a certain way being part of NATO was getting access to the umbrella of the U.S.

Army and the counterpart was getting access to the contract and providing contracts and buying U.S. materials. And for me this is as a loose loose loose loose wireless runs for Europe countries and the United States. Why? First because this is not sustainable to have, I mean, your soldiers and U.S.士 being in Europe would Maureen involved en such a scale without clear and direct interests. At the point of time, we have to be much more in charge of our neighborhoods. The sustainability in democratic societies and so units are included dans les sociétés démocratiques de cette décision était à risque.

Deuxièmement, pour moi, c'était une décision impliquée et progressive d'Europe pour ne pas être en charge de son propre défense. Il n'y a pas d'entité politique qui existe qui n'est pas en charge de protéger ses gens. Si vous voulez pousser, promouvoir et préserver l'idée et la réalité de l'Union européenne, vous voulez que l'Union européenne soit dans une situation de protéger ses gens. C'est pourquoi la stratégie d'autonomie signifie d'abord avoir des joueurs européens investissent beaucoup plus pour eux-mêmes. J'ai décidé pour moi un budget plus grand pour notre défense.

Deuxièmement, travailler ensemble sur des projets communs, streamlining notre organisation et développer de nouvelles technologies et équipements. C'est ce que nous avons fait avec l'Allemagne, l'Espagne, l'Italie. Mais c'est ce que nous avons créé à l'échelle européenne. Deuxièmement, avoir de grands programmes de investissement mais aussi développer de beaucoup plus communes avec une culture commune d'intervention. C'est ce que nous avons poussé. J'ai proposé le 17 septembre à la Sorbonne. Deuxièmement, nous avons une dizaine de pays qui se reçoivent cette initiative européenne d'intervention. C'est un nouveau concept.

Et nous développons concrètes illustrations de cette nouvelle approche, par exemple, au Sahel, où nous engagons beaucoup plus d'euros européens avec nous, en Takuba, par exemple, pour mieux protéger les pays sahéliens. Et je pense que cette approche est définitivement de l'intérêt des États-Unis, parce qu'elle a créé plus de consistance et de solidarité à l'échelle européenne, et plus de l'involvement des armées européennes dans différentes situations, qui diminuent la pression sur les autres joueurs NATO, ce qui signifie les États-Unis. Ce que j'aimerais préserver, c'est évidemment la coordination politique avec les États-Unis afin de définir et de définir le concept politique de la NATO.

Et ce que j'aimerais préserver, c'est l'interopérabilité de nos armées, car cela signifie plus d'efficacité pour nos interventions partout. Nous avons décidé, ensemble, avec les États-Unis et les États-Unis, une opération unique en Syrie, contre l'utilisation des armées chimiques en mars 2018, et nous avons délivré, grâce à l'interopérabilité NATO. Maintenant, dans les semaines et les semaines, nous aurons un temps très critiqué, car sur la base des rapports que j'ai demandé après ma formule TAF à la fin 2019, je pense qu'on est dans un moment de clarification pour la NATO. Nous devons clarifier le nouveau concept et notre nouvelle volonté. Qui est l'ennemi ?

La NATO a été créée pour combattre contre les USA. Maintenant, qui est l'ennemi ? Qui est le terroriste et le principal ennemi de notre société, évidemment ? Comment se réagir avec les nouvelles issues pacifiques ? La Chine. C'est une question, c'est l'éléphant dans la rue. Nous devons parler très clairement sur cette question. Ma volonté est d'avoir une approche politique, car j'ai envie d'avoir un monde stable et paixant, mais cela signifie d'avoir une discussion fair et open, parfois de partager des différences, mais je pense que nous devons face à cette question. La troisième, d'avoir un rôle clair de conduite entre les États membres.

Nous allons probablement révéler à cela, mais comment parler d'un partenariat comme membres de l'NATO, quand vous avez un partenariat comme la Turquie, qui a eu le comportement qu'on a expériment en 2019 et 2020. Je suis heureux de voir, il semble, un changement. Je veux bienvenue la déclaration récente du président Erdogan. Mais les USA et les Européens ont expériment une incroyable agressivité pendant deux ans, dans différents théâtres, et je pense qu'une clarification de la solidarité et du comportement bon comportement dans ce cadre, est absolument critique.

Tout ce qui est possible car l'Europe est bien et plus organisée, et précisément car nous développons progressivement ce concept de la solidarité et de l'autonomie stratégique. de la solidarité et de l'autonomie stratégique.

Je sais que nous allons remplir certains de ces issues avec notre guest. Je vais passer à notre première guest qui est Dr. Esther Brimmer. Elle est l'executive director et CEO de NAFSA. Elle est l'executive director à l'Atlantic Council et a former assistant secretary de l'Assemblée internationale. Et je sais qu'elle veut parler des valeurs communes qui sont sous-prenant nos démocraties. Merci beaucoup. Monsieur le Président, nos deux pays sont républics. Nous sommes heirs de l'Université de l'Université et de la révolution de l'18e. Yet, on janvier 6th, a violent mob marched down those beautifully straight avenues que l'enfant designed pour notre capital city.

Ils invaded Congress et threatened nos élections leaders. En 2018, protestors marched in Paris et des déçus de l'Aix-de-triomphe. Xenophobie et violence ne sont plus à l'arrière de la politique. Monsieur le Président, quel est le state de démocratie libérale aujourd'hui?

Merci beaucoup pour cette question. Je ne suis pas sûr que je vais totalement être dans une situation pour donner une réponse complète et compréhensible, mais je peux partager quelques pensées sur cette situation. Parce que je pense que les deux exemples que vous avez mentionné sont probablement l'un des plus d'une certaine période de temps qui sont trop fortes et toutes les démocraties avec une complète solidarité et une amie. Je pense que la violence, l'hate, la xenophobie est retournée dans nos sociétés. Et je pense que c'est nouveau. C'est évoqué et légitimé par certains groupes politiques. Et pour moi, c'est un grand changement anthropologique.

J'ai eu l'occasion de développer cette idée, mais pour moi, l'initial de la démocratie est que vous pouvez choisir votre leader, vous électrez, vous électrez les gens en charge de faire vos lois, vous avez la liberté de speech, de démonstration, mais en charge de ça, d'une certaine façon, vous devez respecter tout le monde. Vous devez accepter quelqu'un qui n'a pas d'accord avec vous et la violence est forbidée.

Et il semble que certaines narratives politiques relégitimaient la violence dans nos sociétés, disant qu'il y a cette violence entre les raquettes de l'organisation actuelle économique ou sociale que votre décision de marcher dans les streets et de mêler, de mêler ou de mêler est légitimée. Donc, on a de l'occasion que la violence se résume. La violence se passait progressivement et maintenant se résume avec les différentes formes que vous mentionnez. Et je suis très risqué par ça parce que c'est un threat pour notre démocratie parce que pour beaucoup de personnes c'est inacceptable. Comment arrêter ça ?

Pour les normales dans les streets c'est inacceptable et ils attendent pour nous arrêter cette violence. Mais c'est très difficile quand cette violence est sentie à être légitimée par beaucoup de personnes. Et c'est exactement ce que nous ressentons dans beaucoup de notre démocratie. Ma conviction profite est que les réseaux sociaux sont définitivement partie des rares de ce changement qui est encore une changement anthropologique parce qu'ils légitimeraient d'une certaine façon la manque d'inhibition dans les différents discours. Ils ont promosé la culture des mots difficiles, des conflits et ainsi de suite.

Et ça progressivement, selon moi, change la nature et la nature de ce que le débat démocratique devait être. C'est pourquoi si nous voulons préserver nos démocraties, nous devons adresser ces issues. Vous savez, nous avons fait beaucoup de progrès pendant les dernières trois ou quatre ans afin de combler contre le terrorisme sur les réseaux sociaux et les plateformes globales. Je me souviens, qu'on a commencé ici avec Theresa May après la attaque terroriste de juillet 2017. Nous avons lancé une initiative et nous la promosions dans l'Union.

Au début, beaucoup de personnes sur la culture de la culture libre, qui est, par exemple, notre culture, étaient très reluqués de réguler nos réseaux sociaux pour combler contre le contenu terroriste. Un peu plus plus tard, nous avons eu cette attaque à Christchurch et nous avons lancé ici encore avec le Premier ministre Arden et les autres leaders la chambre de la chambre de Christchurch. Nous avons délivré et nous avons des plateformes principales des USA, largement, mais des plateformes et des réseaux sociaux pour avoir le commitment de ce Golden Hour, c'est-à-dire de remercier d'un autre moment tout le contenu terroriste identifié par la plateforme, les réseaux sociaux et nos services.

Et ils l'ont fait. Je peux vous dire, ils sont extrêmement efficients et ils nous ont beaucoup aidé. Et nous avons, juste quelques semaines ailleurs, passé une législation à l'échelle européenne pour le faire. Ce que nous avons fait sur les attaques terroristes, nous devons le faire afin de lutter contre les discours de la chambre, la xenophobie sur les réseaux sociaux et ainsi de suite. La façon unique de préserver nos démocraties est de ré-establir un ordre public et démocratique dans ce nouveau espace où nos gens pensent, vivent et plus et plus parce que la pandémie aussi, je dois dire.

Et cette nouvelle régulation, cette nouvelle gouvernance d'une certaine façon doit être démocratique et discutée entre nos leaders. Et je pense que c'est très important et pour moi, c'est l'un des challenges critiques de nos temps. Vous savez, j'ai mentionné ces initiatives et nous avons délivré, mais nous avons maintenant de faire beaucoup plus. et je pense que nous ne pouvons pas accepter parce que vous avez mentionné les images très difficiles de la ville de Capitale. Et je dois dire, nous sommes très upset ici à Paris et j'ai exprès de mon amie et de mon solidarité et de mon confiance dans la force de votre démocratie.

Mais en même temps, nous sommes très upset par le fait que, quelques heures plus tard, toutes les plateformes, et de ne pas être très politiquement incorrectes, mais toutes les plateformes parfois, qui ont aidé le président Trump à être tellement efficaces, parfois à promouvoir les mêmes démonstrations, quelques heures plus tard, à la très seconde quand ils étaient sûrs qu'il était terminé des pouvoirs, soudain, on a coupé le mic et on a mis le mic sur le mute et a tué toutes les plateformes où il était possible pour lui et ses supporters d'exprimer lui-même. OK, sur les très courtes rues, c'était une réponse unique à délivrer, mais ce n'est pas une réponse démocratique.

Je ne veux pas vivre dans une démocratie où les décisions clés et les décisions à un point de temps de couper le mic, de s'assurer que Ben n'est pas dans la situation de parler de la parole est décidée par un joueur privé, un réseau privé social. Je veux qu'il soit décidée par une loi votée par votre représentative ou par une régulation, une gouvernance démocratiquement discutée et approvée par les leaders démocratiques. C'est l'un des questions critiques si nous voulons arrêter. Parce que 2018 en France, 2021 en USA, c'est la nouvelle violence dans nos démocraties est largement liée à ces réseaux sociaux et à notre nouvelle façon de vivre.

Je vais revenir à des challenges communes de la politique commune. Je vais prendre deux questions à un moment parce que nous avons beaucoup de questions pour vous, M. le Président. Je vais enlever à Dr. Adam Tews, professeur à Columbia University, directeur du Institut européen, qui a écrit un livre sur la crise financière. à Dr. Tews, et ensuite, je vais tourner à Prof. Joseph Nye à Harvard. Bonjour. Monsieur le Président, bonjour, c'est un privilège d'être ici. Je voudrais vous demander de vous poser un peu sur l'idée de multilateralisme résultat-orientation, parce que je pense que la besoin de ce focus est urgent.

Nous devons évidemment répondre, si vous voulez, à la question de l'outil legitimacy generated, par exemple, par le régime chinois. Mais c'est aussi un standard et difficile d'essayer d'essayer d'essayer d'essayer d'essayer d'essayer d'essayer d'essayer d'essayer de réaliser

les résultats.

Et la question que je pense est une des questions que je sais est en train d'une des Européens maintenant, c'est l'essayer de la vaccine. Et comment on peut penser de notre expérience avec la vaccine en un object, un projet, un modèle, mais aussi un pardonner de la manière de faire une chance niveau pour assurer quelque chose de remonté comme une équitable ou même une distribution prudente de la vaccine, et puis pouvoir le délivrer dans une manière légitime et crédible, même aux populations de l'Europe.

Je voudrais entendre votre vue sur comment ça va, et comment nous pouvons développer un résultat-orienté multilaterale autour de cette question critique de biosecurity par way de la technologie de vaccins. Monsieur le Président, je voudrais passer sur vos commentaires sur la Chine. Comme vous le savez, beaucoup d'économistes croient que, à la fin de cette décision, la Chinese economy at exchange rates will be larger than the American economy. At that point, how should Europe and France respond? There are some European leaders who suggested that Europe should find a position equidistant between the United States and China.

There are others who say, no, if you look at the internal nature of China and the Chinese economy, if it becomes dominant in the global standards, when it's a society based on surveillance, it's going to damage our democracies. And instead, the democracies should start something called a T12, a technology 12 of countries which will have special trading arrangements to set standards so that we're not prey to Chinese companies or Chinese standards in areas like surveillance, artificial intelligence, and big data. In other words, that equidistance would be a tremendous mistake. This is not just about balancing two large powers, it's about preserving democracy.

So these seem to be big choices that Europe faces. I wonder if you could tell us how you see it from the French as well as the European perspective.

Thank you very much for these two easy questions. questions. Let's first start with Dr. Two's question about indeed how to illustrate a results orientated multilateralism. I think vaccine, I would say COVID-19 is indeed a very interesting object in order to think on how to deliver on that. And on purpose, I don't just speak about vaccine, because I think the answer is COVID-19 crisis and the consequences. I think first at the G20 level and largely led at that time by the European leaders, but in a co-construction and common work with the African leaders, we launched March 2020, this ACTA initiative, which is for me typically how I see the new types of partnerships.

We conceived an approach where dealing with COVID-19 crisis was helping the African countries in order to preserve their primary health system, to treat people and to deal with the economic and social consequences of the pandemic, because at this stage, the main consequences for Africa, for instance, is much more economic and social than sanitary and health consequences, given basically the structure of the population, probably some other main features of African societies. And we started this approach and we delivered first results. We created a common organization, the ACTA initiative, a common governance with African leaders and African Union and Covax initiative for the vaccine.

If you look at the past few months, I agree with you. China probably managed to convince some countries with this diplomacy of the vaccine. They delivered very efficiently as a reaction to this first inclusive and much more G20 slash African Union initiative because they were in a situation basically to provide vaccine. They were less impacted by the pandemic during the recent period of time than the US and the European Union. And they put themselves in a situation to provide a lot of doses to some countries, some in Western Balkans, some other in the Gulf and some African countries in proportion which are not totally clear to us, but with some clear diplomatic successes.

And it can provide the idea that they are more efficient than the multilateral approach we had a few months ago. But I think if we have a compréhensive and coordinated approach, I think on the very long run, we can be more efficient. And this is what I want to advocate. Because on the very short run, we can be impressed by the Chinese efficiency. This is true. This is a little bit humiliating for us as leaders, perhaps as countries. I received a few days ago, no need to go to African or poor countries. The Serbian president was here. He get access to vaccines thanks to Chinese cooperation to be very direct with you, with a clear and genuine remark.

These guys are more efficient than your COVAX initiative, the European Union, my very good friends. But what we are seeing is, I think, much more complicated than the way to address it, especially for poor and emerging countries, is slightly more sophisticated. Number one, dealing with the virus, with vaccines, requires to be sure that we have the appropriate vaccination, that the vaccine is clearly the relevant one against the different variants, with common and transparent information. And I think this is where, at the very moment of the crisis, WHO has a very important role. I will have the opportunity next week to speak with Dr Tedros.

But the role of WHO is to be in a situation to assess indirectly with the different national or regional entities, the efficiency and the potential toxicity of different vaccines against the initial COVID-19 and the variants. Today, we have some evidence about, basically, US vaccines, some other European vaccines, some partnership made between different players. It seems that we can have more information about the Russian vaccines with the Lancet publication yesterday, an initiative to register at the European level. I have absolutely no information about the Chinese one. I will not comment, but this is a matter of fact.

What it means is that, in the mid to long run, it is almost sure that if this vaccine is not appropriate, it will facilitate the emergence of new variants. It will absolutely not fix the situation of these countries. And Brazil, by the way, is probably a good example of what can happen with Manaus situation. People having infected, some others being vaccinated and getting a new form of the COVID-19. So I think what we can provide is the best possible science with our standard, I mean transparent, relevant, and I mean a science being proposed under the scrutiny of, I would say, the best possible researchers in the world. in the world.

This is not today the case for this Chinese vaccine at this point of time. And I would be very happy they provide such an initiative. So for me, short-term efficiency could be detrimental to the mid-term efficiency in this situation. This is for vaccine. But more than that, I think our ACTA initiative that I want to advocate is exactly for me the new type of partnership where we can deliver much more rapidly collectively because we put ourselves in a situation to provide vaccines to poor and emerging countries. Pfizer and Moderna are not relevant for these countries given basically their main features, especially in terms of temperature and logistics.

But Jensen and Johnson and Johnson, AstraZeneca, potentially Sanofi and some others like Novavax could be much more relevant. If we put all together our financing and our commitments, we can provide to these countries a number of doses without any comparison to the one provided by China in the coming weeks and months. This is the very first one. Second, in our initiative, we included treatments because you can avoid some severe forms for a lot of people if you basically have the relevant treatments testing. It's impossible basically to deal with a pandemic if you don't have a testing strategy.

And it means that on top of that where our multilateral approach through ACTA is for me the best one. You have to work directly with the government and to help them to strengthen their primary health system. If you don't have structures, doctors, nurses and so on, it's impossible to have a vaccination campaign. We perfectly know that in our countries. It will be the same in Africa or Latin America. So the fact that we have a much more comprehensive approach, inclusive, open to everybody, even China, by the way, and inclusive for basically the countries where the pandemic could be very tough African or Latin American countries is the most efficient way to get access to precisely results.

Now, what is at stake to follow you is number one WHO commitment to a full transparency and common standards because one of the weakening points of a result oriented multilateralism is a double standard approach. If you have one big country, one poor playing with different standards, no transparency and so on, you are weakened. So we need WHO. Second, more commitments of the country and the U.S. decision, the recent U.S. decision for precisely ACTA and COVAX is critical and third implementation capacity by involving precisely all the emerging and poor countries and having this comprehensive approach I mentioned.

For me, it's now the time to deliver by making it very pragmatic and it's time to implement it. And I mean, the perfect and complete answer to your question, Adam, would be in the coming weeks and months if precisely we deliver ourselves and we manage to organize big campaigns in these countries based on our COVAX initiative to provide vaccines, but more largely to the comprehensive approach of the ACTA initiative we launch together. But once again, I think it's the fact that we are more demanding, more comprehensive is for me definitely a strength. To go to the second question, Professor Nye, about China.

First, let me say that our view is that China is altogether a partner, a competitor and a systemic rival, which means this is a partner when you have to deal on some global issue with some global issues like climate change. China is a partner. They committed. They are changing their system. They are trying to reduce their CO2 emissions. And I have to say during the past few years, they definitely created an efficient carbon market in their country. They took some clear commitments and get some results. This is a competitor when we speak about trade issues and industrial issues. And this is a systemic rival given its ambition in the Indo-Pacific region and its values, human rights.

The question is how to reconcile these different agendas and and precisely how to deal with what you mentioned. I think we never have to precisely consider that we are. For me, we have two different scenarios which are to be excluded. Number one would be a scenario where we put in a situation to join altogether against China. This is a scenario of the highest possible conflictuality. This one for me is counterproductive because it will push China to increase its regional strategy. It will push China to precisely diminish its cooperation on the different agenda. And I think this is detrimental to all of us.

The second scenario for the European Union which is unacceptable would be to say we should be basically a partner at the same distance from the US as from China. It doesn't make sense because we we are in any case a systemic rival with the US. We do share the same values. We do share the same the same history and we have to face precisely all the challenges regarding our democracies and and what we've just discussed. But so the question for us is how to to precisely team up on some critical issues and try to be the useful player to push China not to diverge anymore.

I don't know what will happen in the coming years and and to be honest with you probably the coming semesters will be very critical for Chinese leaders and China as a country and a power China decided to be part of the multilateral framework WHO basically the World Trade Organization as well and so on and so on. Now as the US is reengaging itself what will be the behavior of China. I think we have precisely in good faith to try to work all together. This is why I will try to push in the coming months a P5 summit in order to try to recreate between the five permanent members of the Security Council some convergence because we totally lost the efficiency of this forum in the past few years.

Second, I think we have to engage China in a bold and efficient climate agenda and I think the reengagement of the US is a good occasion as well to have a proactive and a discussion on that and Glasgow obviously will be a rendezvous at the end of this year on this issue and the fact that Glasgow will be at the same time more or less and the Chinese COP on biodiversity. third, we now have to create a global initiative on trade industry and intellectual property on this issue. I think the disalignment of the US and the European Union during the past few years was totally counterproductive.

I think we have to resume a discussion obviously at the WTO level but OECD level as well for us as OECD members discussing afterwards with China but by creating as well probably new forms of discussion to try to see how to fix the issue of IP which is definitely one of the critical issues. IP and market access are the two critical issues in order to I would say perhaps open a new phase of normalization and openness and force we have the human rights agenda. On this issue I think obviously we have to put pressure we have to be very clear and we have to find the right ways to try to re-engage on some critical points.

This is where the famous investment agreement signed at the end of last year with China by the European Union was for me an opportunity. This agreement is not honestly a huge deal. It is not a transformational deal neither for China nor for the European Union. Let's be clear and serious. It presents some very important and positive items. It will improve some issues on investment and access to market. It failed to deal with the IP issue. Let's be lucid.

But for the very first time China accepted to engage on ILO regulation and to commit precisely on labor issues which are part of how human rights package and for me this is very interesting because this is a test of the reality of a good faith discussion on that.

So you see I try to separate these different tracks for me we have a series of discussions with China where we can have a positive agenda and our collective interest is to deliver because we speak about global issues without a lot of I would say controversial approaches we have obviously very challenging agenda largely on economic issues but I think our common interest should be to reduce the conflictuality but this is I don't know the final answer and we have the very complicated human rights agenda where my willingness is to increase pressure have direct discussion and precisely trying to re-engage on some specific issues in order to be in such a situation in the coming months years and in the long run what we have to do obviously the US but the European Union as well for itself is to preserve this famous strategic autonomy and our ability to negotiate in good faith and you mentioned that very very fairly I think on technology on artificial intelligence on the type of initiative space will be a critical issue as well we have to put ourselves in a situation to cooperate if we decide but we have to avoid in any way to depend on a 100 percent Chinese solution and I have to say my willingness as well is to avoid depending not because for me this is the equivalent distance but I don't want to depend on 100 percent US decision otherwise I will be put in a situation not to decide for the European continent itself this is why one and a half years ago I launched an initiative on 5G in order to have a 100 percent European solution this is what we put some restrictions for the French solutions and I totally uh basically uh uh decided to endorse this decision uh in my bilateral discussion with China and I am very happy to see that the European Commission in March 2020 decided to put its own standards on 5G same on the regulation of our platforms same for instance on the regulation we need for artificial intelligence and where I think we can cooperate as well much more in this global global platform for artificial intelligence solutions we created uh in the G7 few semesters ago is typically an initiative and I hope the US will will join and participate but we created largely with with Canada where we can work to together to avoid any dependency on on technical decisions but where we want to build a common democratic governance on this issue but uh preserving our solutions and our ability to decide for ourselves is the precondition of any agenda

on these different fields uh with China let me turn to our two uh next guests from Berlin we have Sophia Besh is a research fellow at the center for European reform and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and then uh Rachel Rizzo from Washington DC who is a director of program at the Truman national security project Mr.

President thank you for speaking with us today it's a great pleasure to be a part of this event I would like to come back to the subject of strategic autonomy and the role of NATO for some European governments European strategic autonomy and defense has become less urgent with the election of President Biden because for them a central point in the argument for European strategic autonomy has been NATO's political weakness in recent years the lack of strategic alignment and coordination between the US and the Europeans or between Turkey and other allies for instance and while Turkey may well remain an issue the new US administration has made restoring alliances including NATO the central theme of its foreign policy so how can we make this transatlantic realignment realignment succeed without undermining European defense ambitions and how can NATO usefully contribute to your vision of European strategic autonomy thank you Ben it's an honor to be part of this conversation today Mr.

President I'd also like to shift the conversation a bit to Russia earlier this week a Moscow court sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to more than two years in prison over the last two weekends thousands of Russians have taken to the streets to protest his arrest and it's likely that these protests will continue in light of this sentencing now you've adopted sanctions against Russia however you've also been a proponent of ongoing dialogue with Moscow what are the areas of overlapping interest where Europe and the new Biden administration can work together to shape a common

Russian policy thank you I think you're right some some leaders some players in Europe could be convinced that a realignment of of the agenda with new US administration should weaken our strategic autonomie or at least reduces in a certain way the relevance of such a strategy I don't believe one sec is the case and as I as I tried to um to explain it at the very beginning of our discussion I think the more Europe is committed to to defend invest and be part of the protection of its neighborhood the more it is important for for the US as well because this is a more fair burden sharing the question is the nature of the coordination at NATO and the clarity of our political concept and our common targets at NATO obviously with the new administration we can say we will have a more cooperative approach this is definitely sure but look at the reality Middle East Africa is our neighborhood it is not the US neighborhood this is matter of fact I just speak about geography I remember a few years ago when we spoke about Syria the fair and democratic decision of the US administration finally was not to make an operation and an attack after the use of chemical weapons and this decision left the European without the ability to do it on their own and I think no it definitely weaken the credibility of NATO but the weak it weakens the Europeans themselves because we are not speaking about the theater and and and and the place very far from us speaking about Syria in 2013 was just picking about a place where the terrorist attack attack in Paris November 2015 were prepared so I speak about my own security this is why I I I think the Europeans have to understand that we do need this cooperation this interoperability and this very intimate work with us but we never we never I mean our duty definitely is not to put ourselves in a situation to depend on a U.S.

decision because any U.S. decision which is democratic could be led by a domestic approach could be led by a domestic agenda and obviously the reasonable weight of the U.S.

interests and could not be exactly the same as the European one especially when you speak about our neighborhood and this is the explanation I want to give to our strategic autonomy and I would say whoever will be in charge on both sides I think this is the right approach and our our fair interest on both sides the the point is that you have to change the mindset clearly existing in Europe because during decades we built in fact the concept of the absence of European defense and in a lot of countries basically we we created the system a mindset almost a DNA where not having a clear defense not being in the situation to decide yourself was a precondition after World War II now we are opening a new era where we have to put ourselves in a situation to clearly prepare endorse our European defense but I want to re-insiste on the fact that we need this strong cooperation with the U.S.

as for Turkey when I look at the situation both for Europe and the U.S. Turkey put ourselves in a crazy situation and the absence of any regulation I would say by NATO the absence of intervention to stop the escalation was detrimental for all of us I want to remind you that now two years ago Turkey launched an operation without any coordination with NATO with the U.S. with France in North East Syria they launched this operation as our troops were on the ground as a coalition was present in in Syria a coalition led by the U.S.

but with the participation on NATO and they launched this operation based on a national approach which is which was to say the democratic syrienne forces are terrorists to me because they are linked to PKK some of them this is true but de facto they launched the military operations in a place where we were present at the coalition level and against our proxies the U.S. soldiers the French soldiers and all our soldiers work together against ISIS on the ground thanks to these guys and suddenly one of our members decided to kill them because they became terrorists this is exactly what happened the credibility of NATO U.S.

France was totally destroyed in the region who can trust you when you behave in such a way without any coordination and this decision was lowered by the implicit and after what the explicit decision of the U.S.

to withdraw much more largely for the Syrian theater afterwards in Libya in Nagorno-Karabakh in Eastern Mediterranean Sea we had a systematic Turkish approach which was unfriendly with its different partners European or NATO members with the decision to basically frame the situation with Russia this is why I suddenly declared that NATO was a brain dead organization organization because what is the concept who is the enemy what is the rule of the game when you are supposed to be allies in an organization where such behaviors are tolerated we increase pressure during 2020 we get some results now the coming months will be critical I welcome very much the recent declarations of President Erdogan I think it is largely due to what we did at the European level and the re-engagement of a new U.S.

administration much more compliant with a classical approach of NATO and with such I mean a demanding a normal approach and I'm very happy with that I hope now we will deliver results what will be the concrete evidence of our ability to deliver fix the Libyan situation get rid of Turkish troops from Libya get rid of thousands of jihadists exported from Syria to Libya by Turkey itself in complete bridge of the Berlin conference fixing the Syrian approach with the rest of the coalition and I hope fixing the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and decreasing the pressure in Eastern Mediterranean Sea even now the situation seems to be better so I think in the coming months what we need is the U.S.

the Europeans and a few members to clearly work hard on the basis of the reports recently given to us by the experts mandated one year ago to clarify the new concept as I told you who is the enemy easy and if the enemy is ISIS for instance my enemy is not automatically these small groups and so on and how to regulate house to define the enemy to legitimate any external intervention and what is basically I would say the code the the rules between member states we have some rules well established when we need solidarity from others when you are attacked but there is a lack of rule in order to regulate interventions in some countries where your interest can be basically at stake and where an intervention is counterproductive and launched by another member and when we speak about Mediterranean Sea or Middle East we speak about our neighborhood and this Turkish intervention do have an impact on us so this is why I do believe that strategic autonomy is still valid and that the U.S.

realignment and re-engagement in NATO is very important to make this clarification and to resume NATO as not just I would say a superstructure to coordinate our armed forces but a political body to harmonize our choices and to have some political coordination on Russia obviously I totally share your remarks on Mr Navalny and I expressed yesterday my strong and clear condemnation after this Russian decision to condemn somebody basically not to be compliant with in Russia as it was being treated in Berlin which is I think probably the most obvious way to express a sort of irony and disrespect not just for him but for the rest of the world I think this is a huge mistake even for Russian stability today so Navalny case is a very serious situation we decided some sanctions and I do regret and I do condemn these these decisions having said that obviously we had we have as well the Ukrainian situation we justified sanctions and a process with with basically the design in Minsk with a Normandy format and we get some small progresses in December 19 here in Paris and we are working hard to get more progresses but in such a context what why did I decide indeed to resume tracks of discussions with Russia and I'm indeed I advocate ongoing dialogue because I think you have to deal with your history and your geography Russia is part of Europe from a geographical and historical point of view and I think this is very important whatever happens to encourage Russia on this part of the Eurasian big part of the world and clearly the history of present Putin and a lot of leaders basically is completely a European one they have common values history literature culture mindset and we have to take that into consideration second we have our geography it's impossible to have peace and stability in Europe especially at our borders today if you are not in a situation to negotiate with Russia and for different reasons it's largely due to the Russian aggressivity and the NATO expansion we created a situation where we pushed our borders to the maximum place at the east but we didn't manage to know to decrease conflictality and threat at this border I think our perspective for the coming years and decades is precisely to find a common way to discuss and build peace and security for the whole continent which means having a dialogue on cyberaggressivity obviously on any aggression on how we see all the critical countries I would say in this very sensitive area where you have Ukraine, Biélorussia and so on we need a discussion and a political discussion with Russia about that otherwise it will be our willingness to protect and the willingness to basically to conquer and dominate and when I look at the the outcomes of the past strategy with Ukraine with Biélorussians now and with a lot of countries our results are not positive so we have to recreate a framework of discussion for these countries and this part of our continent second when we speak about arms control definitely we need a discussion with Russia with the US decision the unilateral decision to leave INF now Europe is no more protected from these Russian missiles we were not perfectly protected by the way in Poland and some other places given the the legal framework of the the INF treaty but we we we framed in a certain way our discussion and our organization regarding arms control in a cold war way i.e.

through a discussion between the U.S. and Russia i want as a European to build a discussion between the European Union Russia probably we need and we do need the U.S. and probably China which is very important for the U.S.

agenda and this is fair and i do approve but we need a broader discussion on the different arms control agreement and treaties in order to face and monitor and reduce the conflictuality of our world but as we speak about the safety of the European continent we do need the Europeans to discuss with Russia about these issues if you don't create the right conditions and a dialogue to do so this is impossible last point our neighborhood in Middle East what we experienced during the past few years was the decrease of our collective credibility both NATO and UN because of the fact that we decided not to intervene because of the the fact that they send proxies or they are intervening and they played very well with i would say this gray zone they maximize their efficiency because precisely of this new type of war and at this point of time we did almost us European and Americans we almost disappeared and we are not in a situation to basically stabilize an international or multilateral framework of discussion if we want to re-engage we need to re-engage dialogue with Russia here are three examples where stopping any dialogue and being stuck in some critical situations like Ukraine and Navalny which are extremely important and where we have to be tough in full solidarity which is the case but beyond this these points we do need a comprehensive dialogue having said that I'm extremely lucid on the very short run our ability to deliver and to have concrete results is very low I'm lucid but our duty is to preserve or resume these channels of discussion and not to take the responsibility to stop the dialogue on our side and to constantly re-engage and my experience even with the current people in charge in Russia is that the more the more you re-engage the more you put a reasonable pressure to avoid any divergence this is when when you are tough and you don't deliver or where you don't speak about an issue they consider that the bar is open and they can go if you put a red line and you deliver you build your credibility what we did by the way in 2018 with the Hamilton operation in Syria and if you constantly re-engage dialogue you can get few results but at least you avoid strongest divergence it would take years perhaps decades but we knew we do need such a dialogue for European peace and stability

Mr. President with your permission let me take two last questions before we turn to our CEO and President Fred Kemp to close this I'll call Fred Smith who's the Chairman and CEO of FedEx and then Monique d'Orsenville who is a former staffer in the Obama White House and an Atlantic Council Millennium Leadership Fellow Fred Smith first hello hello Mr.

President as you know trade liberalization since the end of World War II was a very big part of the increased prosperity that we all enjoy today and the transatlantic expansion of trade was particularly important so what are your thoughts on how to re-engage Europe and the United States on a more positive and a expanded trade trade relationship sorry Monique thanks Ben um President Macron thank you for having involved us in this discussion in the current social and political climate you have a generation of young people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic a generation that feels that economic scars of graduating and job hunting during a recession you have young people who've witnessed populism and the rise um and really wars you know on and off their shores so my question to you is what do you say to these young people around the world many of whom are isolated at home grappling with these issues and still working every day to find creative solutions to lead and to stay connected with the

people around them thank you very much thank you for I do agree with you about the fact that trade liberalization did provide a lot of growth and opportunities for people over the place and was extremely efficient strategy to reduce poverty in a lot of places um here we are according to me in a quite different situation and and our challenge is that we need a more comprehensive agenda first obviously we we have and we will have post-covid-19 to resume some exchanges because basically this word reduced is uh its speediness and its ability to exchange and and i think the critical point is obviously to preserve and increase market access the ability to provide opportunities and and the ability to have an efficient uh organization of our trade and our industries in such a framework the kind of discussions we mentioned formerly with um professor nai is absolutely critical as market access to china is probably one of the main agenda but having said that we have to take into consideration two issues number one climate change we didn't take into consideration climate change issues in the former trade liberalization if we want and we do want to reduce co2 emission we will have to completely reshape our way to sink trade liberalization as i was mentioning it how to reduce our carbon footprint which means how to rethink our logistics how to be closer in terms of production to the final market and so on this is a very important point the second point is inequalities and i want to insist on that our trade liberalization was focused i would say on the consumer side largely how to reduce the pricing of different products and goods and and we killed a lot of jobs in our societies and this is true we reduce poverty in poor and emerging countries but we increased the gap and the inequality in our societies and this is part of the democratic crisis we have and i i revert to the the previous question about democratic crisis i i focus my answer on on violence and hate but inequality in our societies are critical because they are legitimizing legitimating basically this resuming of violence and any new trade agenda should take it into consideration the question of inequalities in our societies we so what i do believe in is i would say a multi stakeholders trade where we have to take into consideration consumers workers workers workers stakeholders citizens and when you have to work where we have to reconcile economic climate climate and inequalities issues so it is impossible to resume the former framework we have between the us and the europe because it didn't take into consideration neither the climate change nor inequalities issue to be very very frank with you it means as well why i do endorse not to have any trade agreement with a country or region which doesn't comply with paris agreement but we always have to assess the pros and cons of this agenda so it should be much more sophisticated but more than that what we should work work on very actively all together in the coming months and years it's to build a common agenda between the world trade organization the ilo the imf and our multilateral regulation of climate change and biodiversity putting putting in phase our different tracks and agenda is the only way to build the new sustainable openness and trade agenda let me go to the second question about our youths and these new generations and i i totally share your i mean for your concern and your willingness to address direct messages to these generations i have to say that these generations probably understood much more than ours the importance of climate change with a unique awareness of the fact that our ability to fix this issue and to provide clear and relevant answers was a global agenda based on cooperation this generation is the one to have 20 years during this pandemic 20 years old during this pandemic and is the one to to be student to have this first love affairs and so on as we live at home without any bars restaurants and sometimes without the ability to go to school or to go to university which is totally unfair in the situation where we are deciding lockdowns or a lot of restrictions to protect our older people my first point is that they totally understand this solidarity between generations but what they want now and what they need it seems to me it's the necessity not just to be part of a world pre-organized and just to put the place to earn money and to live a normal life but to to be part of the the reinvention i would say the ability to recreate a new world and to have a meaningful part of this this ability to create precisely not just a new governments but the rule of the game and our ability to live all together so if i had a message to deliver to this generation is first my first message would be thank you definitely because i know that the the efforts we are asking to you in your generation are definitely the highest of our societies because it's not just to protect yourself and to stay at home and so on but it's to renoncer to what makes basically the salt and the and the and the and the pleasure of of of of of life during these years but you do it precisely because we probably rediscovered during this period of time what solidarity and fraternity does mean because all generations decided to stop to protect some of some of our people because we decided to put human life on top of economic interest and anything but what we owe to your generation is not to go back to normal life the day after it's first to provide you the opportunity to study during this period of time to clearly have a full awareness of the fact that you are active an important player of our fight against the virus and to help you basically to build new initiatives in this period of time and for the future to reshape the world and build what i called at the beginning of our discussion this new consensus to help to innovate and provide new solutions and let's be clear i i'm sure that our world will be a world post-covid first will be a world where human life human dignity will be much higher than before where fight against inequalities for an ambitious and for health health system will be much higher where we will we will have to rebuild growth in a much more inclusive way and you have a role to play because you are the one to innovate and when i speak about innovation i speak about technological innovation but as well sociological innovation organizational innovation this world is a one where we can create and build new solutions and i have to say that during this period of time what was just unthinkable was did to fight against the virus the day after what was considered as unthinkable should be made and organized in order to provide basically new solutions for climate change fight against inequalities and build a new inclusive growth and i think our role and our duty as politicians is to give them the opportunity to do so by preserving their ability to go to school and university by basically providing the best possible uh uh situation post-covid-19 and probably by giving them the maximum opportunities and chance to be part of the solution and these new innovations

mr president before we turn to fred camp our president and ceo to close this conversation i really want to thank you for this fascinating exchange and the ambitious agenda that you laid out and i just want to tell you that your friends and partners at the atlantic council in the united states in europe to help you implement this vision in the next coming years let's turn to fred when maybe you want to say a word

first no thank you very much thank you for this opportunity i mean we addressed a lot of topics and and i'm sorry if i was too long in my answers obviously we didn't address some of these critical topics i mentioned them very lightly at the very beginning but we can have other and further discussions but obviously our discussion our role and our new partnership with the us will be absolutely critical in africa we mentioned about uh coven 19 obviously the vaccine and our acta initiative but in sahel we are very much involved and we have an agenda where we we do work hand in hand with the us and we need this commitment and i think in the coming months our partnership with the us in sahel both on security but as well development issue will be absolutely critical and we didn't mention iran which is perhaps a surprise for a lot of people but we had a very useful discussion about china and russia but let me say in a few words that i do welcome the willingness to re-engage a dialogue with iran and and this is a common challenge for peace and security in middle east i will do whatever i can to support any initiative from the us side to re-engage a demanding dialogue and i will will i will be here what i was here and available in uh two years ago and one and a half year ago to try to be honest broker and a committed uh broker in this in this dialogue but i do believe that we we do need to finalize indeed uh a new negotiation with iran and um president biden as a critical role first because they are much closer to the access and to the nuclear bomb now than they were before the signature of gcp or in july 15 second because we have to address as well the ballistic missiles issues and we have we have to address the stability of the region and this comprehensive agenda is to be negotiated now because this is the right timing and we have to find a way to involve in this discussion saudi arabia and israel because they are some of the key partners of the region directly interested by the outcomes with our other friends of the region obviously but this is impossible to fix the situation without being sure that all these countries are comfortable with with this new agenda but i will i will do support any re-engagement of the negotiation this is just what i wanted to add by thanking you again for this discussion and your questions and by welcoming once again your initiative to launch this europe center at the atlantic council thank you mr president uh thank you

so much that was a tour de force uh and thank you ben uh for guiding us through that and congratulations ben to the on the new europe center and thank you mr president for helping us launch it you brilliantly framed what you see at the heart of the u.s european relationship and you captured both the drama and the opportunities of our times from uh the violence and xenophobia that is infecting our democracies to vaccine diplomacy issues of china turkey russia next generation trade iran at the end you outlined at the very beginning a three-part agenda for u.s european relations that can be executed starting with the rebuilding and strengthening of the multilateralism that we together created after world war ii and has served us so well for 75 years you called for new partnerships number two you called for new partnerships for our new and future challenges climate biodiversity digital with the european union and united states at the heart third you focused on new work together on key regional channel challenges the middle east africa the indo-pacific again with europe and the u.s at the heart but also working with china also involving the eu and nato and nato you called the political body to harmonize our choices your ambitions for the european union to be an impactful global leader and partner for the united states to tackle this century's biggest challenges it's the right time for that message at the atlantic council we see ourselves uh as being in an inflection point a historical inflection point as important as a periods of time after world war one and world war two and we know that at that time the transatlantic relationship was decisive in a negative sense after one and in a positive sense after the other mr president i want to thank you for your significant comments in the launching of our new center but to be truthful mr president the entire atlantic council has been uh a europe center uh for 60 years we have 14 programs and centers uh regional on africa latin america middle east uh we have functional centers on energy issues climate issues technology global economy global security so in this way mr president we are designed to promote just the bold and future oriented transatlantic agenda you've outlined for us today as we work on in common and cause on all the issues that you enumerated mr president you can count on us to be there at the atlantic council and in our global atlantic council community for partners for a robust and effective franco-american relationship for stronger us eu efforts and of course as long-standing nato allies so uh and thank you for closing giving such an inspirational message to the next generation with this wonderful quote about post covid how the value of life will be higher than before after covid that's a great way to send us on thanks again mr president and for our next atlantic council front page at the europe center we'll continue to build this agenda by hosting the president of the european council charles michelle who will be live uh a week from now on february 10th at 10 30 a.m eastern standard time we hope to see you all then and thank you again uh mr president and and and ben haddad and everyone at the new europe