In Discussion with Benjamin Haddad

Sous

-titrage

Société Radio

-Canada

Hi

Ben

Hi,

thanks for having me

Thank

you

So,

Benjamin, Ben Is currently one of the top political analysts On EU politics and transatlantic relations

He

is actually in a very privileged position To offer his insights On the workings of European integration And structural changes In European societies from the outside Located in D.C.

And

in close contact With social and political developments In American society

He

recently authored Le Paradis Perdu L'Amérique de Trump Et la Fin des Illusions Européennes Published at Grasset In English Paradise Lost Europe In the World of Trump

At

the same time Social movements And demands for racial equality Or democratic freedom In both continents Are equally present In his writings

This

constant focus On the dynamic intertwinement Between everyday politics And international relations Render his perspective In tune With the Greek chairmanship's concern To bridge the gap Between normative discourses And developments on the ground Regarding the state of human rights And rule of law today

Therefore Before

we begin With our discussion With Ben

I

will pass the floor To the chair Of the community Of ministers Of the Council of Europe And alternate minister Of foreign affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis For a few brief introductory remarks Minister The floor is yours

Ladies

and gentlemen Good afternoon It's a pleasure To welcome you Once again At the fifth round Of this series Of the Greek chairmanship Of the Council of Europe In discussion with

Today

After

Many

And Significant Participants We have the pleasure To welcome Benjamin Haddad

Mr.

Haddad Is a strong voice

A

strong voice That supports The relations Between Europe And the United States That believes That the Transatlantic tie Should go Without

Any

Impediments In the future And definitely He is a great Advocate For The European unity And efficient Collaboration Between North America And Europe

He

hasn't been afraid To take

A

public stance In support For democratic values Rule of law And human rights

Whenever

These are in danger And therefore That makes him An excellent speaker And For this Series Of events

The

pandemic

Brought

to us Many In question Many assumptions That we had In the past

And

fundamental Freedoms

Have

been Seriously affected

Therefore

There is a need

In

order To renew

Our

faith To these Human rights That they were Affected Through the pandemic And to highlight The importance Of values As the rule of law Democracy And human rights

Therefore I

think that

Mr.

Haddad Who wrote

A

renewed Political Liberalism And

Addressed

The issue More like A pragmatic Than A philosopher A pragmatist

That

touch upon Practical issues That have to be Addressed Presents One of the Keynote speakers That will

Give

us The

chance And

an opportunity To revive Our approach For these Democratic Institutions

I

think that

Throughout

this Series Of discussion With

We

try To highlight In the Pluralism That different Voices

Bring

in

Our

political

And

social Discussion

And

therefore I would like To thank Mr. Haddad For accepting Today's Invitation

With

him

Will

be Dimitris Kedidis A political Scientist Who is Part of Our Press team In the Chairmanship

And

I hope That they Will have An interesting Discussion That we All Will follow Through This Web Conference Unfortunately Unfortunately

Throughout

the Chairmanship We didn't Have a Chance To organize

Many

Events In person

Nevertheless

We tried

Through

This new Media To Attract More And more Attention From people Who interest

To Find A

new Point For thinking For their Future Reference

Thank

you All And I Wish you Good A good Discussion And a good Follow-up

Thank

you Minister

Ben Let's

go To your Recently Published book

By

stating That we Are Living In the End Of our European Illusions You offer A formidable Yet Very Pragmatist View On global Politics

This

is Very Different Than what We were Accustomed

Since

the Early 90s

I'm

talking About the Then euphoria Of a new Liberal Order

Does

this End of Illusions Entail A paradigm Shift

As

to How we Should Reimagine Europe

And

its Position In the World

Yeah

Thanks Dimitris And thanks For having Me today First I want To say A quick Word Because It's Really Great To be Able To speak With You At The Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Of Greece You know That Greece Is A Really Important Country For Us At The Atlantic Council We Deeply Believe In The US Greece And US European Partnership Obviously Our mission Is US Engagement With Allies But We Put A Special Emphasis On The Bilateral Relationship With Greece On Both The Security And Defense Dimension Greece Being Key Actor In NATO The Trade Relationship In Greece Leadership In The Western Balkan In Eastern Mediterranean Having A Very Good Relationship With Prime Minister Metzotakis That We Hosted At Beginning Beginning The Year 2020 Before The Pandemic And We Seen And Been Impressed With His Leadership In Dealing With The Pandemic And Also With Great Support From The Terrific American Ambassador In Athens Jeff Pyatt So First Wanted To Say How Much I Appreciate Being With You Today Thank You As Well

On

Your Question On The Book Yeah I Think The Reason Why I Wrote This Book Is Because I Do Think That Europeans Have To Think About The World Differently I Think That The European Union Is An Incredible Success Especially When You Look At What Happened Before On The European Continent But It Was Built As A Way To Transcend Power Politics To Transcend I Would Say Even Politics Which Has Conflict At Its Heart To Build An Organization That Is Built On Law In Win Win Trade And Economics And I Think Right Now We Are Seeing That What Is Working Well For Our Continent Is Not Necessarily The Rule In The Rest Of The World And That The Rest Of The World Lives Still In A World Of Great Power From The United States Especially Under Trump When You Look At Increasing Chinese Assertiveness All Across The Globe In The South China Sea But Also The Way China Weaponizes Its Own Economic Investment As A Tool For Political Influence When You Look At Russian Aggression On Ukraine The And So I Think That Doesn't Mean That I This Is A Book That Is Both A Book Of Analysis It Is Also A Book Of An Activist Or Someone Who Is Deeply Pro European And I Admit It But Europeans Need To Take Their Destiny In Their Hand Need To Be More Comfortable Speaking The Language Of Power Without Giving In Without Giving Up What Makes The Origin Of Their Model And Their Identity But Also Understand How The Rest Of The World Function It's A Book That Was Written In Washington And I Think That's Also A Key Part You Know I Arrived In The United States Six Years Ago I Saw The End Of The Obama Administration I Seen The Trump Administration And Of The Styles The Personalities Of The Two Men Are Extremely Different But When It Comes To The Relationship With Europe I Think We Can See A Progressive Shift Away Of

The United

States From The European Continent An Emphasis Also From President Obama And President Trump On The Burden Shaking And

Europeans

Stepping Up For Their Own Security And Defense Bob Gates Who Was President Obama First Secretary Of Defense Left In 2011 Giving A Very Tough Speech On European Defense Saying Our Children Won't Want To Die For The European Continent If You Are Not Able To Make Those Kinds Of Sacrifices At The End Of His Term President Obama Gave An Interview To Jeffrey Goldberg In The Atlantic It It A Pretty Remarkable Oracle Called The Obama Doctrine Where He Calls Friends And The U.K Free Writers Of American Power So Of The Tone Is Quite Different And Much More Hostile When It Comes To President Trump But The Emphasis On Europeans Stepping Up Is The Same And You Know We Just Had A Debate A Few Weeks Ago On U.S Withdraw Of Troops From Germany And Of Course The Way It Was Done Uncoordinated Unilateral Matter In Which It Was Done By This Administration Is Problematic But If You Look At The Trend Over The Last 25 Years It Has Been A Trend Of Progressive Withdrawal Whether It's Republicans Administration And Democratic Administration Right Now We're Going Through Presidential Campaign Candidate Biden Vice President Biden Has Put The Rehabilitation Of Alliances At The Center Of His Discourse And I Think It's Really Important If We Work On Issues Like Climate Change If Responses To Pandemic But The U.S.

Is Also Going Through A Lot Of Domestic Challenges From Major Economic Crisis Obviously That We're All Going Through Due To Pandemic Racial And Identity Issues Social Tensions So I Think A Lot Of Emphasis Will Be Put On Rebuilding The U.S. Economy And Reconciling Americans So Once Again When It Comes To The Mediterranean When It Comes To Eastern Europe North Africa I Think European Or The Middle East If You Look At Syria Europeans Will To A Large Extent Have To Take Their Destiny In Their Own Hand And I Also Think That Would Actually Be A Positive Evolution For The Transatlantic Relationship So So My Book Was

To

Try To Explain The Evolution Of U.S. Foreign Policy Without The Drama And The Scandals And The Tweets But Try To Look At A Deeper Trend And Make A Case For Europeans To Assert Their Power On The World Stage

Ok

Ok Ok I Hear You And What I Find Really Interesting Is That You Are Taking A Long Term Perspective A Macro Perspective And In This Says We Could Also Throw Into The Discussion The Pandemic That We Are Going Through And Perhaps Move Away From The Sensationalism That We Always Like To Indulge Ourselves With And See Perhaps That The Pandemic Accelerated Processes That Of Certain Large Powers From Certain Parts Of The Continent And The Emerging The Emergence Emergence Of Some Other Powers So These Trends You Say Were Already Evident Before The Pandemic Right

Yeah

Well So I Think As You Said I Think Right Now Even Though We We Still In The Pandemic Especially In States We Can Already See Some Trends And We Can See That This Has Been An Accelerator Of Pre-existing Trends And I Think You Named A Few First It Igniting A Necessary Debate I Think On Sovereignty Now Sovereignty Doesn't Mean Inward Lookingness It Doesn't Mean Protectionism Or Isolationism But It Does Mean That On Certain Industry On Certain Interest We Should Have A Political And Strategic Reckoning Rather Than Only An Economic One And That Something I Say In My Book That I Think For Europeans An Economic Approach To A Lot Of Things That Replace The More Political One And So Now We're Going Through This Debate I See On The Question Of Health Sovereignty And Whether It Is Sustainable For Us To Outsource Most Of Our Industrial Capacities To And So I Think This Is An Important Debate I Think It's Also An Important Debate To Think About Our Dependency On Some Foreign Markets On Supply Chains So We're Going Through This Conversation I Think Obviously Another Debate That Has Been Accelerated By The Pandemic Is The Question Of China And The U.S China Rivalry And I Think That's Also Something On Which You Will See Continuity On The Vision If Not On The Method Between The Trump Administration And A Potential Democratic Administration I Think There's Now A Consensus A Pretty Large Consensus Among American Policy Makers That The Integration Of China And The World Economy Has Not Led To A Moderation Of Chinese Foreign Policy Or A Opening Of The Chinese Political System But Actually Quite The Contrary And So The United States Needs To Have A Strategy To Reckon With China RISE Both To Contain China As Certain Business In Certain Areas But Also Find Ways To Co-operate Obviously Because In Certain Areas Like Tackling Climate Change There's No Utilateral Solution I Think A Big Difference We Will See Though Between The Trump Administration And The Potential Biden Administration Is The Integration Of Allies And That Strategy President Trump Has Been Really Focused

On

The Bilateral Relationship With Beijing Especially Focused On The Question Of Trade And Rebalancing The U.S.

Trade Deficits Towards China Through This Negotiation With China It's Been One Of The Priority Of The President We Seen A Little Bit Of Emphasis Also On The Question Of Chinese Technology In Europe With Obviously The Question Of 5G Network And Some Pressure On European Allies But I Would Say That All In All It's Been Fairly Uncoordinated And I Think There's Been A Huge Missed Opportunity When It Comes To Working With The European Union You Know There Was This Just Last Week EU China Summit And It's Fascinating To See The Shift Of Tone In The European Union Over The Relationship With China It's Been A Summit That Was Mostly Marked By Disagreements The Question Of Human Rights For Uyghurs And Obviously The Question Of Hong Kong Was On The Agenda We Still Have Very Strong Disagreements

On

The Trade And We Seen People Like The Vice President Of Commission Margareta Vesteiger Make The Case For A Level Playing Field And The Ability To Protect European Industries From Unfair Competition She Didn't Mention China But Everyone Knew What She Was Thinking About So We See Similar Concerns On Privacy On Technology Feft On Human Rights In Europe That We See In United States But Unfortunately There's No Cooperation Today So I Think Another Administration Could Reach Out To Europeans And Build Common Ground In This Respect But It's Really Interesting To See These Are Trends That I Think Existed Already Before The Pandemic But Have Been Much More At The Forefront Of The Debate In The Last Few Months

Okay While

Reading Your Recent Most Recent Articles I Was I Came To I Came With The Impression That You Emphasize A Lot On The Prevalence Of National Actors Where Do You Think That International Institutions International Organizations Such As The Council Of Europe Or The UN Fit Into This New World Paradigm I Would Put The European Union In The Same Category Perhaps It's A Little Bit More Different But I Would Like Your Opinion On The International Institutions That We Grew Up With

Yeah

Well No I Think They're Absolutely Key First In Terms Of The Technical Cooperation On Specific Topics That They Can Promote And Both The Council In Europe And The UN In This Respect Are Really Critical In The Norms That They Can Promote And I Think Every Academic Even The Most Realist One Will Tell You That These Norms Do End Up Shaping Behaviors Of Actors And I Think They Are Critical But It's True That A Lot Of Those Are Also Driven To A Large Extent By National Actors And We've Seen You Know

I'll

Give You A Recent Example There Was A Debate At The Beginning Of The Pandemic When The United States Decided To Defund And Withdraw From

The

World Health Organization I Think That Is A Poor Response

To

A Question That Was Legitimate The Trump Administration Denounced The Poor Performance Especially Initially The WHO In tackling The pandemic And Sort of Repeating Some Of The Talking Points That We We Need To Be Clear When Some Of These Institutions Are Failing But The Response To This Is Not To Withdraw And Let Others Fill The Vacuum It Is To Reinvest Reshape And Push positive agenda de réformes dans ces organisations. Et je pense que c'est quelque chose que, unfortunately, cette administration a essayé de faire.

Ok. En

revanche à la pandémie,

on l

'a

dit

qu'à l'autre côté, il a accéléré diverses processus sur la

scène

internationale, mais aussi il a libéré des

forces

sociales dans les sphères domestiques politiques, dans différents pays, partout dans

le

monde, dans différents continents.

Comment

verrais-tu la tension entre démocratie et autoritarisme qui

s

'applique dans la conjunture

qu

'on va passer?

Vous

savez, c'est intéressant, parce

que je

pense que le jury est encore en

place

sur comment nous allons asséder ce moment, qui a gagné et qui a

perdu

politiquement.

Parce

que, en ce moment, je me souviens, dans les très frühes stages, en mars et en february, les gens ont dit, vous savez, ce sera un moment pour les populistes,

pour

les

nouvelles autorités.

Vous savez, il y

a

un grand propagande push par China, par Russia towards des countries qui sont hard-hits par la pandémie. Je pense que nous all remember les images de l'image

de

China sending masks à l'Italie. Et la même chose, sur le domaine, on a beaucoup de gens disquérés que il y a des des demandes pour protection, que ce pourrait être aussi, parce qu

'il

y

a

l'économique crisis intention, un moment pour trouver scapegoats. Et, vous savez, foreigners ou immigrants ou minorities sont often un convenient scapegoat dans ce context. mais aussi, il y a un moment pour conspiracy theories et interference et disinformation, qui est aussi très prévalent dans nos democracies et en force pour neo-authoritarians dans les derniers quelques années. Mais vous savez, je ne pense pas

que

ça va se

passer.

Je pense que au final, nous avons vu democracies, et surtout dans la EU, communiquer fairly transparently. Il y

a

beaucoup de improvisation. C'est un moment un moment pour la politique

des

leaders. Il y

a

eu

des

bishops, il y a

eu

des failures pour sûr. Mais ce

qu

'on a vu l'a

vu l

'année dernière c'est que les Européens managez d'agree sur une historique recovery package. Et donc, on a un moment de coordination et solidarité dominent le news. Ce n'est pas bien, on a l

'année

dernière, on a l'année

dernière,

on a

c

'est la dernière crise pour l'Union et la collapse de l'Europe et c'est exactement l'opposite qui est happening. You see, once again, the first few weeks were tough, but then you've seen

the

recovery package, and you've also seen a lot of just, I would say, more concrete solidarities with countries taking patients from across the borders and coordinating on masks and ventilators. So, you know, in this respect, and same thing, I think the propaganda outreach from authoritarian states towards Europeans has been a little too overreaching, has fumbled a bit, and there's been a form of backlash that we've seen.

speaking

of Europe,

and the

backlash that we've

seen. Speaking

of Europe and the particular tradition of democratic values that it has been associated throughout the last two centuries at least, would you see that Europe still has the momentum it had supposedly in the past in order to export its values or, as someone else might term it, collaborate with other parts of the world. In the case of Southern Europe, we have the Mediterranean Sea, which can be a bridge of friendship and cooperation with other parts of the world.

Where

do you see Europe in that?

I

think that, first, when we look at what our democracies have been going through these last few years, it is a moment also for humility

and

listening to the message that voters have been sending. You can have a robust attachment to liberal and democratic values, but at the same time understand where there's been failures. You can be pro-European and at the same time understand that because you're pro-European, you need to reform the European Union. If you look just at the last 10 years, we went through the Euro crisis

and

the Euro crisis has shown that some of the instruments, the monetary instruments of the European Union were incomplete and needed to be reformed.

We

went through the migration crisis

and

I think that the Schengen zone is one of the greatest successes of the European Union but

if

you decide to abolish domestic borders, internal borders of the European Union, then you do need to invest significantly in ensuring foreign external borders and supporting countries like Italy or like Greece that are at these borders. This is also one of the points I make in the book. The European Union should not be about transcending any kind of sovereignty.

It

should be about inventing a new kind of sovereignty and solidarity within the European Union which means ensuring strong borders at the external edges of the EU. I think we've seen a message that's been sent and some populist movements or far left, far right movements have conveyed this message in the political sphere and we shouldn't dismiss it. Now

the

question is can we listen can we capture this demand but

shape

it in a way that's compatible with a European ideal that doesn't give in to nationalism that doesn't give in to xenophobia or isolationism but it is compatible with a European liberal agenda. The United States has been going through the same issue. The 2016 election was also the result and the consequence of inequalities across the United States of the fact that this country still has many issues to reckon with in terms of equal access to health care infrastructure the fact that 60 to 70,000 people a year are dying from drug addiction and the opioid crisis.

The

country is very dynamic and obviously extraordinarily innovative but you have also social ills that Donald Trump as a candidate managed to tap into and capture. So

I

think first that should be a really key issue is answer some of the demands and some of the ills of our citizens and the grievances. Now that does not mean that we should be inward looking or isolationist. I think we can continue to support the rule of law and to support the democratic paths of countries around us especially when you see the case of Belarus right now is particularly eloquent when you see an open explicit demand for change for transition.

I think the European Union needs to be able to send a message and support and I really hope that EU and United States together will not lose focus on this and continue to put pressure on the authorities in Belarus to make sure that the Belarusian society has different options and could look to a better future because I think we've seen an extraordinary and very moving movement come out of this stolen election in the last month but that doesn't preclude also looking at our own societies

okay and

speaking of our societies while being in D.C. you have the possibility to make some really excellent comparative assessments as to how social movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement is different in many respects but at the same time ignites fascination among Europeans and how the Black Lives movement is matter the Black Lives Matter movement is translated into European politics where traditionally racial inequalities haven't been that high on the agenda especially in the French context for example

yeah

it's been a fascinating thing for me to watch from the United States so you know I wrote a piece on this in foreign policy comparing the movements on both sides of the Atlantic there's one thing that struck me is during the first few months of the pandemic during lockdown there's been a lot of commentary saying

this

is the end of the American century this is the beginning of the Asian moment etc

and

the truth is when you see

the

first global event

that ends

lockdowns in many countries and pushes many citizens to take the streets and send a message was the death and the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and I think that's already a very powerful tale about the fact that whatever the president or the administration the the attachment to the link to American culture to American societies and values across the world and especially in Europe the bond is still very strong and will outlast I think any administration and now it's been really interesting to see how this movement here in the United States and in the American context has resonated with Europeans and when you look at the protests in Europe first some of them were directly linked to George Floyd and Black Lives Matter in the United States and were a sign of solidarity with the movement but we've also seen how that has connected to some situations at home you mentioned France in France the march was both

a

Black Lives Matter march but it was also a march on a specific French episode led by the family of Adama Traoré who was a young man

died

in police custody so you can see that this also sends a message to our own domestic issues with race and identity we don't talk about it the same way you know France especially prides itself with being much more of a colorblind country the word race

was

taken out of the constitution last year and this is something that came out of the anti-racist movements in the left so you know to erase a sort of ugly word from the French vocabulary Americans are much more comfortable with racial statistics religious statistics which are forbidden for example in France so you have different social models on how to deal with it but at the end of the day I think both countries and both sides of the Atlantic have to reckon with the fact that there's still deep lingering discrimination and racism and have a debate on how best to deal with it and it's been really interesting to see how these two sides have connected in this we're moving on with a different question that is related with one of the priorities that our chairmanship the Greek chairmanship decided to put forward during the pandemic it is digital policies and how this in fact can help alleviate a lot of the burdens that came up during the crisis so it seems that for example again to go to a French example President Macron had spoken some time ago of European sovereignty in artificial intelligence

and

security

yet

still the issue of safeguarding the rule of law and individual freedoms

in

this domain is still debatable also vis-à-vis revisionist forces or rival continents or whatever you might term this

so

where do we stand on the relevance of digital policies in international relations today

so

I mean look it's interesting because first this has been a key priority as you know of the president of

the

European Commission Ursula von der Leyen put digital sovereignty and digital issues at the heart of her of her presidency this was already considered one of the biggest successes of the previous commission with the agenda that's been put forth by Margareta Vestager for example on the question of taxation content removal we've seen GDPR the norms that have been put forward on the protection of privacy by the European Commission really influence the rest of the world and now when you're in the United States and you go on the website you have to click and approve the privacy rules that have been shaped by Europeans so this is a really good example of normative power that the European Union has been able to assert on the world stage through its own technical and regulatory instruments and I think this was already a priority of Ursula von der Leyen but it's made all the most urgent because of this because of the fact that we're all on Zoom on WebEx on Teams and we're hosting our meetings virtually with the question that it poses in terms of privacy in terms of protection of content the fact that the big tech companies have become even more influential in this crisis in our daily life obviously and so I think the fact that the European Union is pushing

this

agenda is really critical you mentioned obviously the development of artificial intelligence and the norms and rules that are linked to it and President Macron has been trying to chart a sort of middle way third way between the development in the United States and China and China where it's really government control with key risks in terms of individual freedoms and in the United States where on the contrary it's really being driven by major tech companies with very little regulation with other concerns in terms of privacy I think this is interesting to watch and you know you see a lot of debates they're unfolding in the European Union my sense is that it will be necessary I think to build to shape a consensus on with the United States in the next few years on these issues on the question of taxation for example there's negotiations going on right now the OECD and I think it would be very constructive to be able to find some form of compromise and that is because I think for the United States on the one hand there is a growing reckoning growing understanding of the need to tackle these issues and this is something that we've seen a lot especially during the Democratic primary with some candidates talking about antitrust measures and also talking about the question of content removal against hate speech racism but

I

think on the European side it will be important first work with the United States to build a common agenda especially in the context of the rise of alternative authoritarian models but also because it's important to

make

sure that this agenda does not stifle innovation we talk about AI for example right now the European is really lagging behind in terms of patents and innovation behind the United States behind China behind Israel so the normative agenda should go hand in hand with also ambitious investments and an ambitious competitive and innovative policy

okay one

last one last question

so

in summing up

one

could observe that human rights have been over the last 50-70 years a constitutive part of the liberal order they have even been instrumentalized in some cases one might say would you say that they are still relevant in today's international politics conditionality clauses

are

they upheld in regards to Europe's relations to neighboring states or how we intend to promote universal values as a continent

yes

I'm actually convinced that they are still relevant and I think that you know you see the debate that's maybe a little different from the one we had recently but this is not only about spreading our values or being selfless defenders of the liberal order there's also a strong I would say interested and realistic case for this one thing that's really emerging right now in the United States and in Europe to a certain extent that I'm very interested in is the question of kleptocracy and the risks for our own sovereignty for our own freedom in conducting our politics and foreign policy of dirty foreign money coming from autocratic states being laundered in our democracies you see this in the United States and the city of London and European democracies this is really a theme that has been emerging and I think that will be more and more central in US foreign policy in the next few years so this is not only about projecting our values this is also about protecting our own democracies you see obviously a lot of more sophisticated methods when it comes to developing sanctions that do not target the population but really focus on leaders on oligarchs on people who are really tied to murders or corruption and we've seen a good example of this in the United States in the last few years has been the development by the US Congress of the Magnitsky Act and we're seeing some debate at the European Parliament going in that direction so I think that our instruments our tools are becoming more sophisticated also to defend transparency in the rule of law while at the same time defending our own interests

okay

lastly as a realist

is

there an inspiring message that you would like to share with us tonight before we put an end to this discussion

well

you know I will say what I said earlier that when you look at the evolution of the European Union especially in the last few years or just during this pandemic sometimes some of the things that are happening are highly technical and they can be a little boring from the regulatory instruments that are developed in digital policy to the massive recovery package that was adopted this summer but we see an evolution I think in the right place in terms of solidarity let me

give you

another example as you know I'm a French citizen living in the United States and I take the opportunity of speaking to a Greek audience to say that I think the evolution of the bilateral relationship between France and Greece in the last few months and the stronger solidarity between two countries in defending Greek sovereignty and international law in the eastern Mediterranean is also really a

strong

step in the right direction for Europeans to assert their own sovereignty and identity on the world stage so these things are not necessarily spectacular but I think they're really a step in the right direction and we're getting stronger

okay

thank you very much Ben for being with us

tonight thank

you

thank

you everyone for being with us tonight this was the fifth chapter of the discussion with series of the Greek chairmanship of the Council of Europe group

thank you for being with us they're very young as well as well as well as well