morning from the brookings institution for a conference on u.s. transatlantic relations. it looks like it's just about to get underway here.

[inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everybody. >> thank you for joining us here. my name is rick jones, vice-president and director of the program here a the brookings.

it's my pleasure to welcome you for today's event hosted by the brookings center. this event is part of expanding with our partnership with the brookings transatlantic initiative. this is a multi-year platform that will spur a range of new activities not only on global issues, but that the transatlantic partners can get together. we're grateful they recognize that the value that brookings brings to this is our in depth high quality and independent research. we're pleased to be able to announce a fellow that will be joining us and add capacity to our team in answering questions in the relationship and as you see in today's discussions those are substantial. challenges faced in europe are numerous from an upsurge in

nationalism and populism to turmoil following the brexit decision and concerns after the financial crisis and great exit crisis, slow growth, high unemployment. russia efforts to destabilize eastern europe and the ongoing refugee crisis. of course, the united states has a variety of its own issues to be working through which adds to the complexity of the challenge. we're approaching a pivotal european election in germany. and these issues are shaping up not only to be central to those politics, but to the broader european debate as a whole and would i say in both cases, both in the united states and europe, these debates are con straining in the way we're working in the world and tackling global issues. so i think the discussion today is extraordinarily timely and underscored the need for this expanded efforts on the transatlantic relationship and on the work we can do together.

we are going to be building on that effort here at brookings. as you know, our team has had changes. fiona hill, director for center for europe and the united states, joined the white house for senator -- senior development. i'm pleased they found new leadership in tom wright and he has a book in which the transatlantic relationship is located. and we have a couple of other folks joining our team, which is terrific. victoria newland, who until recently was assistant secretary of state for europe, will be joining the team. so will our current president, he sits down later in the fall and jamie and nicole have joined the team and our french visiting fellow who joins the team now.

so as you can see, we're adding considerable intellectual and power pow power-- now i am i'll turn it over to my friend and partner who will say a few remarks and we'll get under way with the meat of the day. christian. >>. [applause] >> thank you, bruce, our distinguished panelists, ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome from my side and a big thank you to our colleagues at brookings for hosting us here today in d.c. my name is christian, i'm at--

it is a pleasure to see so many guests and members and familiar faces at the transatlantic community for our initial tich or in short the bbti. when asked about the state of transatlantic partnership, recently told press there has quote, unquote never been so much uncertainty in the history of the german-american relationship as there is at the moment. whether or not you agree with the statement i think it's beyond doubt we're facing one of the most difficult periods for transatlantic relationships in decades. this is among many reasons why the brookings institute have expanded our cooperation and under the roof of the bbti and it's two pillars, high quality research and programming, brookings scholars are scaling up research and analysis on the

most pressing transatlantic issues and challenges of our time. over the course of the next year, our two institutions will host a series of events on both sides of the atlantic, to build and expand a resilient transatlantic work, contribute between the united states and europe and to reinvigorate the transatlantic cooperation on global issues and social cohesion. which is an issue, a challenge, not only in europe, but also in the u.s., i guess. the topic of today's panel, the future of europe as bruce has said could not be more timely. the challenges that the eu currently faces are enormous and as current german foreign minister recently put it, have brought the historic project of the eu to the brink of collapse. in the economics here,

lingering concerns about the future of the euro zone and pro growth and persistently high unemployment rates and many eu countries continue to put pressure on politicians and the european project. and the foreign policy externals like increasing authoritarian governments of turkey and russia and trans national terrorism, on this day, another sad note with the events unfolding in the city of london. all of these challenges test the european union. one of europe's biggest concerns is the large flow of refugees and migrants from africa and the middle east. since 2011 civil war sent the implosion of the europe's neighborhoods, with a massive refugee crisis with several million people headed to the european union. one dimensional populous politics, of fear as well as

tendency of national isolation slovakia, looked at the fair distribution of refugees among the eu countries and ultimate contributed to brexit and other parties some of which harbor strong anti-eu and xenophobic sentiments. in germany current polls show the right wing alternative for germany to possibly rank third in the upcoming federal election later this month. but, i mean, giving the somewhat uncertainty of polls these days, fifth or sixth place would be possible as well. these forces continue to challenge the european project from within. long-time assumptions from the benefit of open borders, the significance of a deeper and wider european union, and even the relevance of the

transatlantic relationship are being contested. it's therefore only consequential that the topic of 2017 is the resurgence of nationalism and xenophobia and politics with a comparison in the u.s. and the current dynamics behind them as well as the constraints and transatlantic relations. and i will not stop without hope and optimism even though i'm german. we can be very optimistic. this year's elections in austria and france proof that people believe in the european promise for a better future and very much i'm looking forward to you-- the german elections in a week from now, because even though they might come in as third

place, by the way, finally have to face the democratic parties on the platform, of the established platforms of the democratic system which i think will be something to look forward to. we still have the luxury in dpaerm germany. and maybe some compatriots disagree, but we have the luxury in germany the choice is between two real europeans and two democrats who run for chancellor. so, i'm looking forward to today's insight from the panel discussion on future of europe as well as the following keynote conversations between talbert and victoria knewland. new without further adio, i look forward to this. thanks. [applaus [applause]...

i'm particularly pleased to welcome celia belin who's here to my immediate left. she's our new visiting fellow in the center for the u.s. and europe and was previously on the policy planning staff in france. so we're delighted to have her join us for your first public event, first of many in the next few years. william brozdiak is a nonresident senior fellow at brookings and also senior

advisor, mccarty associate bubbles and poorly he is -- is a new book out that just came out this week which is titled factual continent. the subtitle is europe's crisis in the fate of the west. i haven't read it yet but i have it. i heard bill speak about this week and it's terrific look at the state of the eu, and we look forward to hearing his thoughts on that in a few minutes. constanze stelzenmuller is the senior fellow here at brookings and is our resident expert on germany and all things european and transatlantic. and kemal kirisci is a senior fellow and director of the turkey project here at brookings. let's just dive into come if i could start with you because you do have this important new book

out this week. he spent the last two years really talking to me at the senior leaders in europe, many officials and others in europe about this really remarkable set of crisis that affected the eu over the last five years. look back five years ago there were many people here who said in washington that europe wasn't an issue anymore because all the problems have been solved. how do you think about it today in terms of the optimism and pessimism? is europe in the process of unraveling or have we seen a rebound this year that it might be about to sort of turn the corner? >> thank you, tom. i think there's a slight mood of optimism permeating europe today, but thanks to an economic recovery that's been taking place over the last few months. i think that the landscape is more fragmented than ever.

the income gap between north and south is worse than ever, exacerbated by the economic crisis over the past ten years. there's also a split between east and west as we've seen the worsening relations between poland and germany, with poland asking for war reparations which is very raw emotional subject. and also the battles that poland and hungary have been having with brussels, that they seem to be turning their back on democratic values in terms of cracking down on the free press, and the judiciary. and so there is going to be a continuing struggle to sort this out, even after the german election and the perception chancellor merkel get a fourth term. and as tom alluded to the recent crises of the refugee flows have

been stopped from turkey into greece, what they've continued from north africa into italy and spain, which is creating a lot of xenophobia and tension. and the battle to get russia to play a more cooperative role is still continuing. there's a newly resurgent and belligerent russia, this week conducting wargames in and around belarus which has trouble a lot of people at nato. because the president the four years ago it was a prelude to what the military involvement in eastern ukraine and before that, the incursion into georgia. and beyond that there is of course the very difficult negotiations over the next couple of years with britain on the exit from european union. there's been some buyers remorse in britain, but i don't think it has reached the level word that

would be the political decision by either major party to hold a new referendum and possibly stop the removal of britain from the eu. so all these problems are continuing. and i might add as poland chose which is the fastest growing economy in europe over the past ten years, the wave of population is not really -- populism is not diminishing because of economic recovery. large justice is the very populist nationalist movement and it still remains are entrenched in power. i think the classic division between right and left are being replaced in europe, th between populist nationalist and globalists, and just as it is in a way in the united states. so this is the big challenge i think over the coming years for the west. this is what the fate of the west is at stake here and it's

going to take great political courage to get this resolved. >> thank you. constanze, if we can get your perspective. people say germany is blessed with incredibly boring elections with very few excitement, which i think everyone in britain of use would probably trade for a heartbeat and was looking at beyond that and the question mark to really about what chancellor merkel, presuming she is reelected, will do in the next sort of four years, ticket with france. but could you talk to us and the livid about how you sort of to germany's role and also the wider context in europe in the post election of our? >> sure. thank you very much. glad to see everybody here with a full room. i take that as a complement in europe. and the transatlantic relationship obviously.

i think you can say it's boring on the surface, but i suppose germans are always a little nervous about their own country. i am certainly feeding a little nervous. the mere fact that the safety,, the alternative for germany, a party that is only four years old and start out as an anti-euranti-euro party and is t explicitly at the immigrant in some ways quite utterly at the somatic party, racist certainly and has made no effort whatsoever, in fact, has refusd all calls to distance itself from the more openly right-wing extremist elements of its movement, the fact that it's even about to enter the bundestag with dozens of members is, frankly, deeply disturbing to me although i agree with you that having them exposed to the glut of public scrutiny and

having them working in the bundestag with others is probably going to reveal a lot of the weaknesses. certainly in the course of the last four years they have made into 11 at 16 state legislators, and where that is the case their performance as legislators has been mostly abysmal. there are also members, often forgotten, some of the most egregious figures, also members of the european parliament, like many other european pompous movements and parties, and there again they've collected hefty salaries, made rockist statements, and other words contributed very little or nothing at all to the business of governance. i don't think the world is coming to an end because of that but it will change the nature of german politics. and if they come right now they've been going from single digits where they been in the polls throughout the summer and, in fact, german polls could almost be said to be rock solid

until quite recently. now the spd is plummeting to 20 and i've got friends taking bets they could go down as first 18 which would be sort of a national disaster for a party that is 150 years old. and the afd has been moving upwards to ten and even 12%, and as we know only half of the voters are not decided yet so there's room therefore surprises i fear. i think under the circumstances because with a multiparty system, it's highly unlikely the next chance will not be called angela merkel, but, of course, the succession debate begins on september 24 at 6 p.m. and one minute, right? and that is of course intense concern to her own party, to what he wants to a successor and to germans generally but every

-- whatever he also like to know is what is germany going to do on the front of european and transit letter politics? there is a huge edge and which has been more or less in suspension over the summer and both the introductory speaker here, i do want to take up all the panel times a suspect will get into some of those, but yes. i mean, the job of restarting the european project and the transatlantic at some degree begin next sunday afternoon. >> just on the succession, is it assumed merkel will stay the entire term, not just write again by which he step down before -- >> germany doesn't have term limits in its constitution, but it would be the only other chancellor was ever tried for a fifth term with conrad, then you said the position of the german president had been completely underrated, ha have far more por than he is going to run for that. since he was already a think well into his 80s at that

time, i think his party told him in no uncertain terms that wasn't going to happen. so i doubt that merkel is susceptible to the kind of delusion that conrad adenauer at the time was i think subject you. something she's not going to do that. i doubt come distance pixelation about her jumping off to some of the position. i don't think she would do that actually. i think she would serve to the infamous something -- something stopped her. what differentia turf from a career politicians in the world is she's not needy. i think she does is out of a sense of obligation. i don't think she really needs the spotlight to exist as it were. i don't think there is some switch into that gets flipped by the spotlight of public attention and that sort of feels her up with meaning and purpose. and i think she generally thinks she has a job to do. so will be looking at the big succession of it at a think the key question before germany is,

what happens to the centerleft social democrats take the kind of counting appears denouncing itself now? does the very successful triangulation that angela merkel did come moving it to the middle of the model of what clinton did in the '90s and that tony blair did after him? the sort of, it's kind of a third way which is not on the left but on the right, and will the elements of the cdu the want to do that prevail or will the more conservative elements that want to occupy the place that's now been occupied in part by the afd, was to try and regain that and refashion a much more angular, much more shall we say ideological conservative movement? >> went to my come back to later is the fate of the spd is a silver to the fate of other centerleft parties in europe. across the board.

kemal, if we can come to you. turkey, turkeys relation with the germany of not been in great shape over the last year and it's sort of fraud relationship between erdogan and chancellor merkel. but broader than that there's also the question about turkey's roll. ten years ago people were talking about, five years even pathways the eu membership. what's your perspective on this debate and how to sort of turkey fit into sort of europe hanging in this question of europe hanging in the balance about which way it will go? >> well, not a day goes by without some excitement developing from turkey. the german turkish relations have been a center of it for some time. but i'd like to draw some parallels. if we were to go back just about 20, 22 years into the mid-1990s, there was a very

similar situation then, too. relations between turkey, germany were terrible to do with arms purchases. germany was reluctant to did because human rights record of turkey was terrible. there was a question, the situation in the southeast. there was a member of the cabinet at the time even referring to european member of parliament from germany couple of ladies with a word that one shouldn't employ about women. this was the state of relations. but the difference between then and now is that at the time there was a transatlantic community, and including the united states, the clinton administration. that had a big agenda for turkey and engaging turkey and anchoring it into the transatlantic community to the european union. this is a time when the customs

union was adopted. this is the time when the clinton administration turn over the leader of the pkk. clearly there'd been some bargaining behind closed doors, which opened turkey to introduce some reforms that eventually to become a candidate and then the successful negotiations started. the difference now, there are two differences. one, the commitment to anchoring turkey has been weakened. and what was shocking for me from the debate between schultz and angela merkel was that a social democrat could be dumping turkey. and the two of them reducing turkey just to one person, for relations with one person while half the country had actually

voted in the constitutional, almost half of it had voted against those amendments in referendum that encountered quite a few questions about it's free and fairness. that's one important difference, the lack of commitment, both in europe and on the side of the atlantic as well. the second one is that turkey of the time had still a western vocation. very critical using very bitter language towards the eu, the west. but at the same time still this was a turkey that was part and parcel of the project of moving along into the western world. this is where the difference lies right now. turkey is led by a leader and it's very difficult to talk about who is around him, because -- not anymore the party that he

had founded with his colleagues back in 2001 and 2002 is not anymore the party that it was. the party of what was then called muslim democrats. it's not there anymore. it's a very strange political party that has in some way, excuse my language, in a stalin matter, purged the founders of our cape may, muslim founders of our cape may to the extent of removing from photographs and list appellate district this is significant. but at the same time there's also a turkey that is i think resisting the drift away from the west. in turkey we often use this analogy of a train that is moving towards the west. but the people inside is rushing towards the east. that depiction is a good reflection. institutionally, institutionally

in terms of consular europe, european human rights, wto, imf, nato, et cetera. turkey is slowly in the west. economy suspicion the last couple of years its trade with the eu has been expanding and the only area to which its exports are growing is the eu and its the united states. not the middle east, not russia. foreign direct investments are still coming into turkey, overwhelmingly from the west. and interestingly, turkey is going in the other direction as well. that is a recognition of it in the ranks of the turkish residents cabinet as well. where whenever -- president candidate whenever there's a flip from the side of the turkish leader you hear cabinet ministers meekly, meekly pointing out the importance of

the vocation towards the european union and its relations with the west. but right now the picture is one where clearly turkey's trotting away from the west, and its leader is burning with anti-western is him, and feels itself comfortable in the company of the russian leader and russia. so from the pages of europe, there is a serious challenge in there, and i think it would be great if the west, the eu and the united states were able to pull up its socks and kind of bring back that agenda of the 1990s. and i think there would be people prepared to play that ball. >> thank you, kemal. celia, turned you. at beginning of year i've been almost petrified about lepen

being president of france and thrilled by macron, seen as a rock star, a lot of people pinning hopes on him and turning your future fate around. but you have just come from serving in the french government, and the policy planning staff. how does it look from france? what are people sort of expectations in macron? when you look at the relationship between him and chancellor merkel, after the german election, assuming she's reelected, how realistic is sort of a grand bargain between the two of them acceptance or the cheetahs objectives? >> thank you. i'm delighted to be here for this first event. well, actually he mentioned the campaign and it was very exciting campaign, quite differently from the german campaign. >> with a happy ending.

>> happy ending, depending for whom, because the two main parties were utterly destroyed, special of the socialist party from which macron was coming from. and what happened is that macron really run a campaign on a pro-european base, and many people have pointed out that he was waving european flags during the meetings. we famously remember that he walked on the european anthem of the night of his victory. so we did something that french politicians have not done for decades, which is running a really pro-european campaign. a sort of european pride, if you want. before hand, for years now, french politicians as many of european politicians were just too happy to ask band all the difficulties would come from brussels at all the success of some of national capitals.

macron just decided not to do that. after this very impressive when and the following weeks where he got a huge majority in the parliament during elections, and once again crushed the other parties, he had a rough summer and he's now facing difficulties at home. he's down 22 points in appreciation falls, and he is now i think down to 40% of favorability ratings in france, which is quite low. it's not terrible. it could be much lower, but mainly because he's now facing a tough challenges picky wants to reform the labor laws. he's getting into the very difficulty of the governing, and governing from the center. so making obviously everybody unhappy come on the left is not on the right, so it's easier to

have a general opposition to his policies. but what's interesting is that at the same time that he's doing that he's running a very i'm still running a very ambitious campaign on the front of europe, on relaunching europe. there's a sort of mac chrome moment at the moment, at the moment -- on the european stage may because of someone to really put forward a really european narrative to put forward a vision for europe. most because the germans are busy with our own elections because the brits are busy with brexit. because if you talk about transatlantic relationship, trump is not putting for any sort of global narrative. so we can be the one really putting out new ideas. he just did several times, last week in athens in particular when he talked about european sovereignty.

and this concept is quite interesting to european sovereignty is, he's rejecting my tongue but european sovereignty is rejecting nationalism and national sovereignty, and he's basically, once again confronting populists and nationalists, and putting everything at the european level. so this concept of european sovereignty comes with some ideas around europe that should be proud of itself, a europe that protects its models and its citizens. and yes specific ideas on that. for example, he's proposing across state lift for european parliamentarian elections. when the brits will exit you will have seats opening and he wants to do a cross europe list of parliamentarians. he's also talking about a europe of cultural heritage where he's

providing answers on the identity fronts as well. he has put forward ideas on the euro zone, euros on budget, a euro zone finance minister. so all sorts of new ideas out there and now it's the turn of others to say what they think of it. they have a close relationship with merkel who seems to be warming up a little bit on these ideas. she knows that because of the fractured europe she needed to do more especially on the euro zone topic. just launched a vision, talked about the euro zone budget but he's indeed talking about the convergence of the monitor and economic front as well. i guess macron at the moment has the possibility of being heard on this topic. but let's see if that works out. >> thank you. what of the interesting things i think about what macron is

proposing, what people expect chancellor merkel to do maybe looted after the election is to try to deepen european immigration in certain areas. some are more difficult than others. but europe is not united on that. many people point to the uk obviously as the country that was sort of objecting to that but they're not the only ones. we see in central and eastern europe the very different narrative of europe what you want to see maybe less integration at the very least sort of stagnant, they don't want to deepen integration on immigration and border controls and other issues. and with president trump's recent visit that highlight of this distinction between the polish vision baby of europe and more western european visions, if we could come back to you, i think you addressed this in the book, but how significant is the divide that is emerging between

central and eastern european countries in western europe? doesn't have like real implications for where europe is headed? should we be worried about the future of democratic institutions in parts of the eu? >> well, i think that's right. after the german election we are likely to see an effort by chancellor merkel and president macron to relaunch the effort toward greater integration of europe. that would involve some very difficult decisions about how to complete the banking eugen, strengthen the eurozone, whether name a new finance minister. so you're going to see the 19 members of the eurozone attempting to move faster, and those that are left out, the other countries, the remaining eight after britain, will feel that they are being left behind. so this idea of a multispeed europe has been kicking around

for quite some time but i think once this becomes more and more evident you are going to see a lot of resistance from central and eastern european countries who feel that they will be demoted to second class, third class. and this again is going to lead to paralysis of the european process, because only decisions have to be taken on a basis of unanimity such as if they tried to come up with a new treaty, this would be stalled for years and years to come. so i think there's a recognition that this is going to be a very difficult nut to crack in terms of how you keep central and eastern european countries on board in terms of the european project. i might add that while 70% of europeans say they want the

european union, they want to remain members of the european union, only 34% of them think that europe is going in the right direction. this is across the board in eastern and western europe. so there are a lot of challenges facing the leadership, and i think this is where chancellor merkel recognizes that. the next phase of her tenure and power is going to be her most difficult. >> thank you. constanze, you wanted to come in? ..

that had a lot of political background which is the threat from russia. the other country that never turns up in economic conferences is the spanish. anytime you see a spanish diplomat come to washington, they talk of the integration game more than the french, in my experience at least. >> even though there own country may separate with catalonian separatists. >> it's possible. it's not impossible that would happen. at the same time i think the spanish have really benefited from the eu membership and they know that. they don't really have

significant. [inaudible] they just never quite came up to the level of others. i think the cattle on independence movement -- catalonian independence movement was seen with a lot of distance. i'm not sure they would get a lot of joy out of it. i say this because the spanish federalism provides more autonomy for spanish providences than other forms of government in europe, but we will see. the other thing is a lot of europeans know that there are problems we have that can't be solved otherwise. whether you do that they

kicking the can up to the european level or you do it on a governmental level, i don't think it's really the kind of ideological issue that once was. i think most people are willing to tackle that and the seniormost pragmatic in europe is the union method which was code for let's make europe more intergovernmental. i honestly, i actually wit wish the french project well. i think there are a lot of good ideas. i think the germans may apply a break on some of them. i'm hoping we find a reasonable compromise print at the end of the day, my guess is. [inaudible] one of the predictions people have had about europe is there would be more exit movements. that hasn't come to pass so far. i don't really see that happening right now.

>> did you want to comment on the. >> yes, i just wanted to reflect a bit on what bill said. we, meaning pro- european integrationist people, we sort of assumed this was simply a process that would go on to the point of even turkey becoming a member of the european union in this assumption collapsed with the financial crisis. i'm not very sure that we still have a good grasp of why it collapsed and what the implications or the consequences are out there. the reason why i wanted to come in, the way in which bill described how this europe can be destructive on

itself, it made me think the dynamics in turkey. today i wanted them to explain how we came this far and of course it's based on many, many factors but one of the critical factors wasn't 2006 the european council decided to suspend negotiations on a set of chapters. i will go into the details of this. but looking back at this coming you can see how politicians began to play on it and also public opinion sort of dropping their shoulders, beginning to look for alternatives. it is a point that i think needs to be addressed and taken up, precisely at the time, when we see europe putting projects forward including the upcoming elections in germany. i think it is not going to be

an easy exercise and may be on the shoulders of the younger generation to think about and to come up with the kinds of ideas that the others in the european union came up with just after the second european war. >> in terms of how, since president macron has been teaching this integration line, how does he think about it? he must be aware of the division between eastern and western europe. is he worried about a new europe or old europe divide and the big difference there or does he basically believe that the eurozone can push on ahead regardless of what others think. >> the french have always had the idea that there's a core of europe that would move

forward may be quicker, as long as it included the french. >> obviously, that goes without saying they were never really into. [inaudible] it was always the competition between the deepening of europe in which the french were always deepening integration of europe. i'm not sure exactly what president macron thanks, but what i can see is he seems to want to replicate his message for confronting french nationalists on the french stage and the european stage meaning what he did during the campaign was really confronting the national friends, and by pushing against her and by really

demonstrating that she was mistaken, by going.by.and showing her incompetence and by putting forward a positive pro- european message, the european pride that nobody has done before and that seems to have worked. he wants to replicate that so he seems to be doing that at the moment on the european stage. it's fantastic, it's very impressive, he is very charismatic, but i think there is a risk there and i call it the obama trap. the obama trap is believing that because your election was so symbolic, because it was so strong and powerful that your words were really be meaningful to other people and by your own charisma really take people and have them follow you in the direction you want to go.

he did this several great speeches on europe, and you can see already there is a risk of wishful thinking, exactly like obama did in 2009, putting forward a very ambitious new plan for europe but then not necessarily having the people on the other side responding to that. >> in some ways trump believed the same thing, the other should follow suit. i think it's follows the parallel that every president comes in having one in election. >> if i may, on the obama thing, the idea of having democratic conventions in the first half of 2018 in france on the future of europe, but he is proposing that other countries do so at the same time. he is saying there should be

more transparency over the discussion of the future of europe that it should not be discussed behind closed doors, et cetera. that's a fantastic ideas but it sounds a lot like the town hall that obama organized around obamacare idea which actually was moments for the opposition could go together and strengthened together and you had the emergence of the tea party. by being so ambitious he could solidify in opposition against him. >> if i met democratic conventions to be a little bit weird because i thought that's what parliament was. to have the conventions were people will come and be represented and talk about the issues of the day and policy that's where the parliament. [inaudible]

>> i just wanted to point out, i think the most frightening similarity to trump selection and the rise of the populace nationalists are these angry disenchanted voters who feel they been left behind by globalization, and that in europe, particularly among young people, it's striking that 40% of young people under 25 had voted for maureen le pen. there is a lot of worry that if president macron's policy doesn't succeed, who will be next. you mentioned earlier the central left, the social democrats have been swept away not just in france but their message has been diminished in many other countries as a result of their success. everybody accepts universal healthcare, the role of the

state and in a way andrea merkel has stolen a lot of ideas of the social democrats for her own such as gay marriage. >> that's right. >> i think the mainstream ruling parties seem to be in a state of political bankruptcy. nobody seems to have a compelling message to move forward and this opens up the space for populace on both the far right in the far left. >> i know you want to comment on this, but also this, just pivoting to brexit because i was going to come to you next about that, obviously british politics is on a very unexpected state following the election. the negotiations seem to be running into trouble and most

people believe ultimately this could be a deal between the leaders. there hasn't been much space to do this before the german election. the question is how bad is this going to get after september when people really get down to talking about the details, in germany from chancellor merkel, what's the probability of a reasonable outcome and are we likely to see it being dominated by negotiations and a real possibility with no deal. >> okay, brexit. >> i don't know how many of you have seen the recent editorial, the british tabloid, the sun had a great idea of publishing a pro brexit editorial in what they

thought was german. german commentators have said this is worse than google translate. it describes it as a cognac -soaked something or other and the chief negotiator has a puffed up d&d -. [inaudible] it's actually extremely funny. >> the germans have a sense of humor. [laughter] >> in this case it's a pun. i think it's a tragedy for europe.

i expected to be a tragedy for britain and specifically those people who voted for because they thought their lives were going to become better and i think the fiscal data we are seeing from britain paints a very different picture. honestly, i deeply regret that. in my ideal world are beastly brexit would have never happened but i don't think there is an exit from brexit. i don't see that happening despite the fact that some people seem to be hoping that. i think there would be a public revolt if anyone tries that in britain so we are going to see on the european side, and attempt to get this done as cleanly as possible. i am not sure we have yet seen the outlines of a persuasive dual from britain.

if you want to divorce, just go ahead and do it, we have a household to run in a family to raise, but the one ray of light that i have seen last week, which i thought was quite interesting was this new british proposal on contributing more than 5 million pounds to the european defense fund which has just been created as part of the defense integration. that when i think is really good news. the idea around that is good news because they can become the basis for british eu defense and security corporations in ways that are both pragmatic and effective. i think we have more of that on other topics we would be a lot better off. how can we expend this attitude of pragmatism and trying to solve problems together while we are pursuing this negotiation which we understand is final and is going to happen.

that would be my take on this. the larger point i wanted to make is that i think what were looking at in europe, after this last election is over, is a series of structural changes in european politics which has been touched on with reference to democratic conventions. i think we are seeing the demise of the party system as we know it and possibly the demise of democratic republican structures. also those are dangerous. elected politicians will go along th around the structures of democracy and use social media and other forms of appeal to the electorate without going through what the institution provided for.

i think in doing so, i understand the temptation that social media provides and certainly the possible example of how to use it successfully, but therein lies a huge danger to our constitutional orders in europe and thereby to the stability of democracy and the stability of the european project and so that is something worth discussing in greater depth. >> let's comment on this. we're going to go to the audience in about ten minutes. i also want to touch briefly on vladimir putin, trump and iran. a quick follow-up on brexit, as a point out, there was a

remarkable meeting three weeks before the referendum when angela merkel met with david cameron. is there some kind of package of concessions or attractive ideas that would perhaps sway the vote in favor of remaining and she said there can be no jury rigging, we can't do this. by the way, why did you schedule the referendum thursday in the week of the final exams for university students, and on the eve of the biggest pop music festival at glastonbury which meant young people were either going to go out partying or they were studying for their exams. sure enough, the turnout of young people who had the most at stake in this referendum was down around 30%, and that's what cost the votes. i think this is a succession

of tactical blunders, and the tragedy is that the people who will pay the most are young people who avoid this. whether there is a small chance that this can be reversed, perhaps a second referendum, and on the question of whether they have leverage, given the fact that they are the strongest military power, i think they need to be very careful in how they play that card because that could be something that could generate. [inaudible] from the european partner. >> so we haven't mentioned yet which is quite interesting since they are masters of social media and russia has played a very active role in the politics of the u.s., sort of looking

ahead over the four or five year period, is there a possibility of sort of leveling off european russia relations or are we likely to see a continuation of tension and sort of a cold war of sorts between the two. what does the geopolitical picture look like? what is vladimir putin role and how does turkey play into that. >> we just mentioned there event that we are going to have between turkey and russia. >> papers had come out. [inaudible] >> the way i look at it is that theoretically you would think that turkey would be deeply uncomfortable with the policies that vladimir putin

has been following in its neighborhood including the annexation of crimea and what's going on in syria. the reason for it is that turkey is a country to traditionally deeply at attached to integrity yet what we see is 2 liters are getting closer and closer to each other and one of them is more enthusiastic than the other as reflected in the purchase deal, it's very difficult to take into the traditional turkish statecraft could i think this may be the opportunity to vladimir putin's agility and flexibility that lacks on the western side. he used the coup attempt very successfully. the very issue that played to

the heart of the president of turkey, at a time when they had just started to build bridges over the fighter plane. while the united states, the obama administration and the eu remained absolutely paralyzed, partly because they were unable to cash in on the way in which the public hit the streets and defended democracy. i remaining paralyzed, the west has allowed them to hijack the whole thing and even refer to the cool as a gift from god, and that's where we are here. this aspect of pollutant frightens me, the way in which he successfully swaying a whole country, if you wish, but it's government and

public opinion. there is a turkish university who has been running poles regularly over the past couple of years and is using it to see how public opinion perceptions from russia is lower than the united states. when the plane was down and sanctions came up, it peaked and it has come down. the united states is hovering at frightening levels. [inaudible] the mismanagement of the coup attempt, my point in this is that vladimir putin has this ability to cash in on what occurred in their neighborhood and they enjoy

that they play along with him and it will remain a challenge to managing it. >> thank you. one more question before we go to the audience part we have about 15 or 20 minutes. i wanted to talk about iran deal because president trump has said he is determined not to certify and we'll see if that transpire transpires. nikki haley made a speech next door on aei a week or two ago about how the u.s. may pull out of the deal. others have been speculating how that might happen. france has obviously been a leading player on the koran deal. how would europe react and what problems might arise if there was a fundamental split over iran nuclear issue? >> on iran deal, the first thing we have to say is we have a double gain here.

it's as much ideological gain around iran, letting go of the iran deal, he wants to do it. he will in a way, try to do it in one way or another. like he pulled out of the climate change. the court, he will want to find a way to show intellectual base that he has done something on the matter. at the same time, there's another game playing between the white house and congress where leaders are in a game of chicken where nikki haley is saying we are going to be on the right side and say that iran is not complying and then push congress to make a decision, whether they continue sanctions or reinstate sanctions. and so, congress is trying to not do that, to not be in a position of being the one

continuing waving the sanctions or being the one destroying the deal. that's on the american side. it's still very uncertain and i think we will see it play out over the next few weeks. they are always mentioning this sanction and that sanction might not be waived and then it is waived so it still quite uncertain. the reality is that it's going to be a big bone of contention between the u.s. and france and the u.s. and europe in general. not only because france was at the table during the negotiations, but also because france and other european countries consider it important deal for middle east and also for regional stability, thinking of the case of syria, he said several times he wants to open the door to discussions,

possible discussions with the iranians on the future of syria, and this cannot happen if you have destruction of iran. it would put all of that into question. it will be as much as climate change deal is a big bone of contention. >> thank you. i just wanted to add, following what they said on vladimir putin because i think relations going forward are going to be one of the biggest parts of contention in europe. they met or spoke about 70 times. the principal message she was trying to deliver said one of the great diplomatic achievements of postwar germany was to build peaceful relations with all mine of its neighbors.

why can't you, russia, realize that building a similar kind of peaceful and prox prosper but you do seem to be destabilizing your neighbors and you need the west because it's your strategic challenge that's come from the east. islamic radicalism from the south. she said one of the most frustrating was that she could never get vladimir putin to engage or respond to that question. it basically, as we all know, in using the hostility toward the west as a way of whipping up support for the islam regime. >> let's go to the audience to take questions. keep it short and make sure it's a question. let's go here and then on down. >> i'm peggy yorke, the

correspondent for the hispanic outlet. it seems clear that i'm behind brexit and almost all of these difficult these, the migration problem you have not mention that at all, italy is dying right now with all their immigrants, and i don't know, there's some talk about italian exit because of not recognizing the national sovereignties, the natural right to decide who can come in and who can't. what do you think about that? >> one of the european storylines is that france loved the european community and the eu as long as it can run it, but now it's the junior partner has alluded to germany having the keys, both

in terms of influence of authority and money to potentially put the brakes on some of my crowns ideas so how is this german, french partnership going to work. >> good morning. the explanation you have delivered, be it economic inequality or migration are all similarly hitting the country. the one that seems distinguishing to me is the level of hyper bipartisanship in the media and i wonder if that's in the case of france comparing it to germany or my own country austria which is way more extreme. thank you. >> well.

[inaudible] >> you want to come in first. >> so many jokes about austrian germany. >> all right. on the france german mortar, i think it's up to france and if i've ever seen a french president willing and determined to take up that challenge i think it's the crown. i say goodbye to him but i would really like this to be a more balanced partnership and i like not all of his ideas but i like a lot of them and i suspect a lot of my fellow germans including german policymakers think the same thing and would love to have an excuse from some of the more rigid policies of the german finance ministry. i actually, i think he can give us cover.

the austrian problem is actually a real one. i agree with you. austria has been flirting with russia and had a really close in the last election. i worry about that. it's not to say there isn't an austrian civil society on the other side of all that, there is, but i think that austrian commitment to western-style democracy is looking a little tenuous these days. it appears to be closer to the thinking. [inaudible] i would like to say a word on vladimir putin. i think we upsets too much about him. i think what we should really be worried about is the fact of the aggression in this

internal affairs of western democracy, hours and yours and europe. it is not going to stop until russia becomes a different kind of country. and because it is, that is a very difficult and perhaps impossible proposition that that kind of action by russia is going to remain a challenge for us for the foreseeable future and because we no longer have an iron curtain between russia and us, the impact of these actions and their direct effect on us is going to be much more tangible. it already is much more tangible and has been for the past ten decades than ever could have been during the cold war which is why i think this metaphor is also very unhelpful. i think that it prevents the single biggest coherence, trust and resilience challenge to the european project and indeed to independent european states

that we currently have on the agenda. that's a challenge our generation needs to rise to and it will occupy us for the restaurant working lives. >> thank you. >> i would like to take up the? migration in italy because i think it relates nicely to some of the themes we were discussing and brought up. moving forward, this is the issue i think is even more important than the banking unio union, in the sense that the european union seems to be trying to divvy up common integration. it's kind of becoming marginally deeper and deeper but it hasn't crossed the threshold and because it hasn't crossed the threshold and there's no central authority that can take

asylum-seekers and process the application from the center and then implement the decisions that have been taken up by the central body, countries on the edge of the european union, like greece and spain end up carrying the burden more and more, and it really single eyes as the tension between the desire to expand deeply integration and domestic politics that are also at the center of this area. i'm afraid they will continue to bear the brunt for a while to come. >> i'd like to point out, europe's neighborhood policy was supposed to be a great leap forward in terms of making europe a more strategic minded entity and

one of the focuses was on a developed in north africa, the way to stop immigration was to build up industries and sources of income so that people would be willing to stay home rather than across the mediterranean. when they tried to do this, it was the agricultural lobbies in europe. you have morocco, tunisia, luscious tomatoes that they were willing to export into europe in january and february, were blocked by the european union because the farm lobby in the netherlands where they grow these tomatoes as hard as baseballs wanted to keep the market for themselves and so this shows you, look, we know all about

lobbies in this country. the same thing has gone on in europe. morocco and tunisia became the two biggest sources of recruitment for isis which. a lot of the terrorists that went to the middle east came from there and just as we saw the terrorist attack in catalonia was carried out by syrian that went to spain. >> it was even more the case of striking right after brexit where it seems friends had to face germany on a one-on-one basis, but i still think there are a few elements that makes this relationship possible to involve with an equal relationship because france made an interesting historical role in the

construction of europe and also because it has a few elements that germany doesn't have any more. a few advantages. one of them is to be extremely credible on the security side. we know that in all the reform area, the relaunching area that wants to be put forward for the european union, one of them is defensive europe security and there you have france taking the lead on all of those. the other point is that it plays the role, sort of a bridge between germany and south of europe. at least that's what's macron is trying to do when he went to greece. there was a message there, i understand the greeks, i understand your problems with germany and he is taking the

mantle of the one being able to reconcile europe or make a bridge between these two sides of europe. on the migration question, i just want to point out that it's not only a question of all these people arriving and link to unemployment, there's a question of prosperity, will they take my job, et cetera, but it's also very much a question of identity. from the french perspective, it's harder to understand, even if we have a very high extreme right and xenophobic movement, we still are a very diverse country with waves of immigrant dating from the 60s, and decades of society, it's changing very much with 12 or 15% muslim

population, integrated to the highest level of society and i understand that it's not the case for other european country. it's different ethnic backgrounds and different immigration, so this will create a divide between east and west and different countries, and this will not be solved overnight. you have behind it all cultural and identity question. >> will do one lightning round. gentlemen here, two rows in the back and the lady appear. very quickly. >> thank you very much. in light of the fact that somebody said 34% of europe

feel that they are headed in the wrong direction, what does that say for liberal democracy overall, especially in light of migration, income inequality and social media impacts. is liberal democracy threatened? >> thank you. the lady appear. >> thank you. [inaudible] i would like to mention briefly the transatlantic relationship and most specifically the relationship between the u.s. and the eu. we know the situation is quite difficult these days and i have an equation. [inaudible] over the summer we saw macron was able to build some sort of good relationship with france. he came to the still day so do you think that he could be

some kind of bridge builder between the eu and the u.s. to allow the europeans may be to bring their messages to the white house thanks to the french president. >> thank you. the final question, yes, there on the other side, and then the panel has about 30 seconds each to answer all of the question. >> thank you very much. i was curious, can we see ratification of the european patent court and why germany seems to be holding it up. >> the common patent court. >> we have about four minutes. the panelist can answer any of those you choose and any other reflections.

you sort of see the glasses helpful or half empty in terms, it would be nicely to see if the corner has been turned. when we go in reverse order, if that's okay. >> yes, take this one question regarding macron trump and the state of the transatlantic relationship in general. there are many things that are pretty obviously ideologically in the way they behave in the way they talk, but when they met twice already, there was no personality clash. on the contrary. they are both new animals in the political sphere, they have never been elected to any elected office before winning the presidency, they both came in one and destroyed either their party or the system where they come from.

in a way, they saw each other in each other and their personality clicked. i think when macron. [inaudible] it served a purpose for both of them but it was very good for trump's image that he would be valued enough to be invited there, he appreciated that very much and was very solemn. at the same time from her crown it shows that he can talk to anybody, he's taking on the biggest challenges, even donald trump. but more generally, on the french, how the french see the transatlantic relationship, i think in a way the french had thought of donald trump before donald trump even existed. i think they realized the american guarantees would not always be there. they would have a restricted vision of their strategic interest and will not care about the safety of europe.

they had integrated this idea and had been saying for years that you are up should have its own defense, u.s. [inaudible] so now donald trump is just embodying this idea and is living proof that the french were right all along, and we love to be right so it's wonderful. the climate change and the iran deal are still going to be tense over there. >> i would like to reflect on the first question and the challenges of liberal democracy faces. i think we danced around this issue and came out in the context of brexit. you have two types of politics. one politics that takes place around the constitution, and the way in which society, for almost centuries democratic politics, and what i am

seeing in the last decade or so is that we need to reach more and more majority and populism. i personally am a little bit familiar with european history. i get very nervous and very scared of referendums. turkey was not a country accustomed to referendums and now we have a president that's pushing them, one after the other and we are seeing the consequences of that in a very creative manner. moving forward, it will be important that the establishment against which it seems there is revolt, institutions are still able to maintain that relationship

and hopefully defend that liberal democratic project that took off right after the second world war and brought us the kind of prosperity and security that we were once accustomed to and took it for granted. >> thank you. although i am a lawyer, i know nothing about. i will say one thing, patents are just about that it's about biotech and medical technology. huge amounts of money are involved in this. there is something of a world war going on between the american legal system and european laws on regulations. american law firms have been ruthless in trying to impose their standards on the european markets for these

things. that's a really interesting topic. let me put it that way. it's one that isn't generally discussed. whatever is established there is going to be really important. >> one sentence because we're just about out of time. there are many enemies out there, most of them are in our countries and that's what we have to do. >> when chancellor merkel returned home after her last meeting with donald trump, she said she told the political audience it's time for we europeans to take destiny in our own hands. she pointed out that for the first time in seven years, she's dealing with a president who sees europe as a commercial rival rather than a strategic ally. i think in terms of the big

picture story, going forward, we could well be at a hinge moment in history where europe feels the need to move forward to find its own way and remove itself from the strategic umbrella and security protections of the united states. >> thank you very much but i would like to thank our panel for the terrific conversation on the future of europe and we look forward to our keynote conversations in ten minutes. while we convene here on stage, i would like to thank all of you. please join me. [applause]

>> of brief break in this conference on transatlantic relations in about 15 minutes or so. after that the focus will turn to how recent events in europe and the u.s. are shaping the global role of the west. among the speakers is president of the brookings institution and victoria newland who you've seen many times on the former u.s. assistant secretary of state for europe and eurasia. if you've missed any coverage you can watch it in its entirely in the c-span video library. we always remind you of that. today happens to be the 30th anniversary of the c-span

video library and weather events we covered happened 30 minutes ago or 30 years ago, we continue our contribution to the political dialogue. while we wait for more on this conference, we will show the discussion from this morning's "washington journal". looking at the ongoing congressional discussion on russian influence in the 2016 election. >> we want to welcome dan boylan. he is a national security reporter for the new york times for the number of developments over the past couple weeks including general flynn's son who is now a target of the investigation and robert muller who has a number of lawyers on his team who are experts on money laundering. what does all this tell you. >> this tells us that the special counsel that robert muller is pushing forward seems like they are starting to find things that could lead to criminal charges in the future.

there is that piece of the investigation. flynn's son has been dragged into this partly because everything flynn has touched has been dragged into this net. his son helped out during the trump transition after the election in december. he was in some scheduling at trump tower, he also got involved in this russian investigation that he was involved in a retrea retweet of the pizza gate story, that the pizza parlor that apparently he didn't want to go into at some point because their allegations and all sorts of odd things. there is a sex scandal that i think people are trying to push for the election. >> we also saw a story about the past week of facebook ads that passed up with ties to either the russian government or russian oligarchs. what is that all about. >> that is senator mark warner who is the lead

democrat on the senate intelligence committee. he has been digging up facebook and i think the big picture there is that television, the advertising space has been heavily regulated since television began. for 40 or 50 years, tv was always regulated in terms of what could be, the content of the ads need to be identified by the candidates. we all know this and washington d.c., the internet media space has never had anything like that so it's just been a disastrous sea of disinformation which people like warner and richard burns, he's the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, adam schiff, they've all been starting to look at silicon valley thing the stuff is unregulated and it proved to be something where we have a lot of questions about who was trying to sway or influence the 2016 election.

>> we also learned yesterday that trump advisor, friend roger stone agreed to testify behind closed doors before a congressional committee. what questions do think they want to get answered from them. >> i think there were a lot of questions they will ask them. he was involved, his name surfaced around the dnc have. i believe roger is also, how do you describe it, he's a very fascinating colorful charismatic person and he will probably lead a lot of people to talk about a lot of things that might not have to do with what investigators actually want to ask. >> let's talk about these different tracks. you have the house in query, the team in query led by senator warner and then you have robert muller and his own investigation. is there overlap? are they working collectively

together or is there redundancy. >> i think there's some redundancy. when these investigations initially took off there was the idea of jurisdiction and where they're going to be turf battles. the house has been seen as a much more ruckus for him in a more ruckus panel. they've got this unmasking narrative going that susan rice and other obama era officials had potentially look that deep intelligence of foreign targets, and use that somehow to look at trump people. the senate intelligence committee has been a little more sober. they. [inaudible] they have really been hammering at what had russia potentially do here. they say mark warner trying to look at silicon valley facebook and the senate

judiciary committee led by charles grassley from iowa. he's been hammering the trump dossier written by former mi six operative christopher. the muller piece has been, how shall we say, it's a special counsel and they've been appealing to a grand jury. it's shrouded in secrecy. there are things that occur there, but when you get out leaks and speculation. i think the one thing that our viewers and listeners across the country should remember about the russia story is that because it's investigation and investigators that don't like to reveal what trails the running down, what dark paths the racing threat night, speculation spills over in terms of what they might be looking at. people don't like to go on record. you have the story that tends

to be unsourced speculation which makes my job when i'm in the capital trying to cover it all, sometimes you think you should cover one eye and wander around in the dark because he gets to be a really wild story to cover. >> we are talking with dan boylan. his work is available online. you can send us a tweet at @cspanwj.com. we'll get your reaction in just a moment. we want to talk about the meeting that took place between the president and his attorney general in which the president called jeff sessions an idiot. he said it was the worst position he had done to make him the attorney general. he sent a letter of resignation to the president. he told associates the demeaning way the president addressed him was the most humiliating experience in decades of public life. the decision to hire robert muller was a pivot point for his administration. he rejected the letter of

resignation in part because his advisors, led by steve bannon said you cannot do that. >> i think it gets to the heart of the story. some of these things, the new york times is working like an opposition paper against the administration so they come out with these stories and people are often times left scratching their heads and where did this come from. i wonder if attorney general jeff sessions brought this up. trump and sessions could be back at the white house right now because trump is such a master of manipulating headlines, laughing that people are talking about this today because as you have something further down the road that maybe i can have a real nice moment with him six months from now. he seems to have this trend being an erratic, on orthodox behavior.

>> good morning. my question to you is about flynn and this russia thing that nobody has no information on. my question is when am i gonna hear more about hillary and her pay to play and i'm still waiting, he lied to congress. you've got susan rice, samantha powers, i want to hear more about the it guys. i just don't understand why were just hearing about russia and flynn and get more on the other stories. :

of this controversy. i think what people need remember about this story is a lot of these really mega scandals that rock washington every generation, most of them in the past, watergate was very much a republican party thing. iran-contra affair was very much a republican party thing. whitewater clinton was very much a democratic party thing. if you look at benghazi was more of a clinton family thing

almost. this controversy really does actually bring in both parties because there's so much speculation about was there any meddling from russia with the kremlin involved in influencing this election so that they'll trump could become the 45th president of the country? or, in fact, were the things that were occurring sort of disintegration within the democratic party that they then tried to cover up? was her infighting between bernie sanders and kelly so intense that they tried to make it look so how is it the russians had gotten in? i think this, this controversy really has both pieces that at play. the russians definitely push their propaganda in a way people had that scene in a generation or maybe since the cold war but at the same time there was both republican and democratic peace of this thing that we're trying to investigate. we've done a lot of reporting on the dnc hack which is very complicated, difficult story.

i appreciate sometimes what people here across the country, i think it does sound like it's all an attack on trump but if you dig deeper into your headlines you'll find people are trying to run down the other side of the story. >> we talked with dan boylan of the washington times. he covered politics in north carolina and massachusetts. he thought the national security beat and your bio includes a poet, a filmmaker and producing short comedies. so explain. >> steve, what's the old joke about i don't like political jokes? i've seen too many of them get elected. [laughing] >> i had not heard that one before. >> i've done some poetry over the years. there's an old line by chesterton this is if you're a poet when you're 20, it's because you are 20. if you're a poet when you're 40 is because you're a poet. sometimes we need the squeeze a status out of russell. when you involved in politics is fantastic because this is politics as much size as it is art as it is beauty and it's the greatest drama going.

sometimes we turn to verse. i also, i did a lot of counterterrorism work after 9/11 as well which gives one another interesting perspective on the city because you spend time at a washington, you come back to it and you think my gosh, what we have in the united states is a really precious thing. people need to pay attention to it to make it work. >> thank you. the bronx, new york, good morning. >> caller: good morning. i appreciate the approach you are using. because in my view, the whole collusion issue with the russians will was found to be forced by the intelligence agency before the election -- >> and that is i have known tory for little more than a quarter of a century, which means we got together in what was another

millennium, it sure feels like another millennium. she was an extraordinary friend and colleague, and i, along with my colleagues here at brookings and foreign-policy, are so glad that once again she will be a colleague. and i think the timing of this part of the program fits very well with the panel that we have just heard from. and perhaps you were there for although close to about half of it and you heard a number of observations about what's going on in europe, in the eu particularly. my sense is that there was a

feeling that may be the troubles of the eu are bottoming out, and the eu is getting its act together again with, of course, the leadership of two countries in particular, and that is germany and france. how did you react to the conversation which we just heard? >> thanks, strobe. i am so delighted to be at brookings in this next chapter of my life. america's number one think tank for the last decade or more under the leadership of -- >> the last millennium. >> exactly, exactly. we will see how we do in this millennium. before i jump into your questions, stroke, i want to start on a personal note. as strobe has said we'd been colleagues and collaborators in government and outside of

government for a very, very long time, and i'm grateful to strobe for many things including his friendship and his decency and his integrity out there in the world. but one of the things i am most grateful to strobe is that i met him, he came into government having been a journalist, when i was a young diplomat. i was just coming out of moscow. and i was trained in the very strict conformity of ways of foreign service training. and along comes a strobe with his personal relationship with the president at an enormously important moment in history as the soviet union was breaking up in russia was trying to find itself. and he taught me so many things about u.s. leadership that were different from the tight constraints that we learned in diplomatic school, but among them to start from u.s. values,

to start from u.s. interests, but that it's about people, it's about human beings and relationships that we form with them. but it's also about taking risks for the right thing and not just doing the expected thing. and that inform everything that i try to do in government after, so thank you, strobe. in terms of the conversation today, i was glad to hear most of the big issues teased out in the conversation, whether it is how brexit gets managed, how the eu now at 27 adjusts, and how it addresses the structural issues that are holding back the pollinthe pointof psalmody and . i actually think that for europe, and for the uk, it may not be, it can be an exciting and positive plastic moment. my only regret is that the u.s.

is not playing its role as the third leg of the stool if you will in trying to ensure that we come out of this time now with economic growth on both sides of the atlantic, in a stronger place as a liberal democratic family. so from the eu perspective, we touched on it in the last panel in talking about the issues of migration. i think there's a great challenge now in doing the same thing with schengen that the eu has begun with monetary union, namely, fixing the holes in the boat that make it leaky. so when eu countries pull sovereignty around a bunch of schengen borders but don't address the issues of a border security force, a shared

intelligence service to know what's happening in that common space and collaborate, a common approach to refugees and the burden sharing, then you end up with a kind of explications and difficulties that we've seen. but i think these problems have been now identified. the question is whether in the context of what an eu in 27 looks like, those countries countries who are in schengen can really work strongly together to make that schengen space fair and tolerant and open to the appropriate kind of emigration with the burden sharing among them, and really make it a no go space for terrorists, and can collaborate in citizen security, please, intelligence sharing, etc. i think that is possible but it's going to take a lot more work. on the brexit side, obviously the united states benefited enormously from the fact that

the uk was in the eu. i don't think it needs to be an existential crisis on either side of the channel, that the relationship will change but only if both sides of the channel are responsible in the way they handle it. so from the eu side, while i appreciate that the rules are that you break relationship first and then you rebuild it, i don't understand how even in a divorce context you would never sort of just walk out if they get later what happens to the children and the money at that this and that that. i really think that it is in the interest of both sides, and, frankly, in the interest of the united states to talk about that simply how the crack up happen but we want to be were posted to the channel want to be on the end of this and work backwards. on the uk side, the uk is making that case strongly, but has not

yet put forward a vision of the in-state that it once the transition period that it needs, what it's willing to pay for, what aspects of the relationship and wants to keep. so i frankly think there is a positive way forward here, but both sides will have to do a lot more work. and again i just wish that the united states was playing a larger good offices role in the context because it matters to us fundamentally. you can make america great again if our greatest allies are not getting stronger and if we don't create that affirmative three-legged stool, or four-legged if you include canada on trade come on security, all of it going forward. >> let me pick up on the last thing that you said. you said the united states, if i can put it this way, is more a part of the problem than the solution. i think you are referring to the policies of the united states government particularly, the

executive branch. but the united states is a lot more than the government. this beating today of course is -- meeting -- is part of our partnership. you guys are part of the international civil society. we are part of civil society, and we can do stuff together. you mentioned just a very quickly before we came in here that you have some thoughts about the digital age and cyber. do you want to say a little bit about that group? >> sure, but before we do that i'm not letting off the hook here as just a question or someone to turn it back on you and then we will come to digital. how about that? >> okay. >> all right. >> see what it's been like for the last 25 years? [laughing] and what is going to be for like the next i hope some period of

time. >> strobe, you have throughout the time i've known you and i think probably for your whole life been the embodiment of global integration, somebody who has believed that the more we work together, the more we depend on multilateral institutions, the stronger we will all be. i don't want to use the global governance word, but -- >> but you did. >> i did, i did. i said that i was saddened to see brexit but not existentially panicked. do you think that there's a way to go forward in the context of brexit? >> well, i think speedy i mean come in the sense that this i ta trend with regard to global governance rather than an

integrated one. >> well, speeded i want to hear you on this. >> no, no, no. i am very, i have many, many friends in the uk. and some by the way who were levers. but both seem overwhelmingly convinced that there's no stopping brexit itself. i cling, and it's probably wishful thinking but i can also imagine ways for practical reasons that might come into stop it before it goes all the way. we all know paradox. you get halfway through a goal and then halfway and halfway and have come but you never cross the line. i would like to think that as

this extraordinarily complicated process, and dangerous process in some ways, goes forward, there might be a way of putting brexit as a bad idea in the past, that wiser heads have decided not to do. however, if that happens, and going back to the conversation we heard in the last panel, there's going to be a difficulty with europe itself. because i can't imagine the uk being passionate about more europe, i would think that the uk position would probably be less europe, while the continentals would be, would want more. and that will be a very tough

compromise. >> but isn't it the case that not all the continentals want all, the some of want the flexibility to not join the euro, i guess they're all part of schengen, but this larger question of multispeed or variable geometry within europe and interlocking sets? to me that strikes as a way to balance the benefits of state sovereignty and the benefits of unity if countries can opt into those pool sovereignty clubs, whether it's monitored unit, whether it's shaken or whatever comes next, a higher degree of security, integration and those that -- schengen -- those the want to be in the family but not sitting at every single meal table could choose a different way. >> may be when we open up to the

audience, celia and constanze in particular might carry a little further some of the points that they made in the course of the panel. so digital, cyber. >> well, as strobe nose and as many of you know, one of the last huge issues that we tackled in the obama administration at the very end was the russian states hacking of the u.s. electoral process and its efforts to put its finger on the scale of u.s. politics. so that combined with my going concern about tensions between the big u.s. high-tech companies, and the eu, both the

commission and the member states, has led me to do quite a bit of thinking about how the liberal democratic world can lead in this new era. and there are so many issues here from the deterrence and protection of our free spaces from malign actors. state sponsors or nonstate sponsored, to the issue of processes of services, to how you maintain privacy while allowing governments and companies the ability to chase bad guys and malign actors within the network. so there's been quite a lot of thinking in the community and i been learning quite a bit about the sense of that government but i'm increasingly convinced that if those of us in the free world

don't now start collaborating on setting some floor standards in these areas, that those who want to abuse the internet, either to control their own societies forward to invade privacy or to create security threats, will set the rules. so the question i've been asking is whether there's a way we can gather, there been efforts at global governance on this issue, but they always run across these different interests between the liberal democracies and the autocracies on these issues. so is a time for those of us in our open free community to take the lead in what i like to call sort of a bretton woods in the digital sphere, in which others are calling a digital geneva convention? and gather ourselves, we could do this not necessarily as

committee as a whole, that interested governments and companies could start in the others to join like we did with the proliferation security initiative. microsoft and it ceo brad smithe start to think about this. we will be having some beatings with governments have been -- governors next week and i'll be excited to file a low brainpower and hope we can apply some brookings and some bosch brainpower to it as well. >> he mentioned corporations and governments. i doubt the russian government would be the vanguard of this enterprise. >> on the contrary, they are in the vanguard of making the world safe for digital autocracy. so i think that we want to get ahead of that rather than have it swap us or set the standards. and then in china, of course they're in the process of monopolizing control over their own citizens information because there is alliance between the

companies and the government that blocks out our folks, but demands that citizens share as much with government as they do with each other. and that's a standard i don't think we want to set. >> insofar as you're comfortable in sharing with not only the group but the public, when you were in the government, which is not that long ago, you had a lot of contacts with russians. what is their line, if i can put it on cyber, that obviously protects what they are doing and what all the world knows that they had been to? >> will come in terms of this question of whether we should have a cyber compact, the russian government has said of course, that they want to set the rules in a way that maintains kremlin control

certainly over the own citizenry, but as i said, is less in keeping with the bargain that we would set between citizens and government. but on the question of did they do it and what did they do and all those things, the president of russia had said show us some proof. but by the way, some russians are very talented on the subject. so he is, as he did in the early days in ukraine when he was admiring a little green men but not taking responsibility for them, and as he did in the early days in syria when he was admiring of certain assad strengthening that taking responsibility for them, he is nicely having his cake and eating it, too. but that takes us to russia, strobe. the question we been asking each

other was asked by the russians themselves, of themselves for more than a century. as you look at where we are in the u.s.-russia relationship with both sides now saying it at an all-time low, which i think we can take a little professional comfort and because there were times when we were accused of a responsible for an all-time low, and now seems to be even lower. who do you hold responsible? what is to be done? can we now move forward? is there a role for europe to play? and is there a difference between what the russian government and the kremlin are proposing and where the russian people want to be themselves? >> very few people in the room who don't know russian, i will translate the first two words --

it was actually coined by stalin by slightly longer, i would say imperative for russian, and that is who is able to prevail over whom? and, of course, as any government or any leader would feel, he or that government wants to be the who and not the home. -- whom. victoria also added two other favorite russian questions. what is who is to blame, and it is of course never themselves. and the third was, what is to be done? i think in all three categories,

russia has lost its way. i'm sort of preempting another question, which is who lost russia? i think nobody has ever lost russia. russia sets its own course. it has its own dynamics. it reached a point in the last two decades of the last millennium when russian leaders, reformist leaders with significant support much of the population felt that the system, the soviet communist system was simply not getting the job done in terms of this great countries

ability to integrate with the rest of the world, and to take care of its own people. and we all know who started that. it was a fluke, a miraculous fluke, that in march of 1985, the politburo said we just can't have funerals in red square every year, half year period and they took a chance on somebody who was convinced that he, with other reformers, could reform the system. he, gorbachev, failed in a number of respects, but

succeeded in a number of respects. and that was to open up to the rest of the world -- unthinking, looking at bill brozdiak right now. bill in the previous conversation may 2 very, very important points. one, -- made -- russia to the ages, czars, up until, and now again, they have the unique ability to make their neighbors frightened and, therefore, in a way very vulnerable enemies, which is tough on russia itself. it's often been said that russia doesn't feel completely secure and less everybody else is

unsecure, and that blows back into their own interests. bill also pointed out what i think is an objective fact. if there is a geopolitical threat to the russian state, it is not coming from the north pole. it is not coming from the west. it is coming from the south and it is coming over the decades to come from the east, and in particular in china. if a wise leader, russia, had a map of his giant country and had to look at it every day and say

what do we really have to worry about down the road, it would be the strength in terms of people power, of china, and the poverty of people power in the eastern parts of the soviet, of the russian federation. that's just not the mindset there. on my own hope is that the reformist time of late '80s up until, actually it went into the early putin years, will turn out to have been the new russia and what we're going through now is

a reversion, a return to a system that didn't work before and won't work now. picking up on something, i will end on this. picking up on something you said in the context of europe, i wish the united states government had a set of policies that would from the outside create an international context for russia's continuing evolution, more than it is doing right now. >> so what would that look like? you are king of the world. if the u.s. were to try to improve it now, what would the elements be? >> i think the elements would, because of the return to the past that russia is now, that is

the characteristic of russian policy, internally and externally, it's going to require us to go back to the remedies and the protection of our own interests. and i am here talking about those of the political west. so you know, i guess i will just preempt and say, give my own answer to the question. is this a new cold war? yes, it is a new cold war. it's got different characteristics and we're going to have to use two things that were critical for basically the planet for almost half a century, and one is containment and deterrence, the other is engagement on those whose -- issues with our generally shared

interests on the part of these contesting countries. i am thinking particularly on nonproliferation and arms control. just one point, and you know it very well. even in the really dark time of the cold war, going back to the aftermath of the cuban missile crisis, the united states and the ussr made significant progress in beating back the danger of thermonuclear war. that edifice, that process, is in very bad shape. and while we strengthen nato, and i hope come back on that,

having been our ambassador to nato, that despite the fact that we're going to have to beat back a lot of russian policies, we also need to return to arms control diplomacy. >> i certainly will not disagree with that. without getting into who's guilty and all these questions, my concern, and i know you have a lot of fascination with and us that your life studying the russian people and russian history of russia culture, as i have, my concern is that in this effort to close russia down again and reestablish sort of zero-sum principles, if others around us are doing well, we must be losing rather than seeking we win, is that the russian people themselves are

the biggest losers and that we are seeing that in the economic fragility, the fact that partly as a result of sanctions, partly as a result of isolation, and largely as a result of a lack of form that great mistake of sovereign wealth that had been built up has now shrunk in half, that for most russians, food prices are 30% higher than they used to be an general standard of living 15% higher than it used to be, while internally no attention is been paid to improving health care, improving education. i worry that we've got lots of external adventures which are really expensive in violation of the standard principles of international law and comedy but no attention to the russian people itself -- comity.

it's become increasingly fragile. in the protests in the winter, in 80 russian cities they were small, but the protesters themselves with a 20-35 year olds. so they. so they were the putin generation. they were young people who grew up not remembering the soviet union, but expecting that they were going to do better than the parents come expecting that they're going to be able to travel and go to school externally. and they were protesting the fact that they are now denied that while they see leaders ripping off the country for personal gain. i think it's, if those issues are not addressed, all the rest of it in terms of whether we can get back to that will be difficult. >> let me pick up on one issue, phrase, those issues have to be

addressed, including the brittleness, the fragility of russian society, which is very, very different from the days of -- not to mention khrushchev and sullen. -- stalin. we can't address those issues. russia will have to, or we would hope russia would in its, the degree of pluralism that has been part of the last 25 years, that there will be a critical mass, including in our circles as well as in the population to get back on the right path. >> i think we as a country, when we base our relationship with russia on values, on the

international system from which russia benefits enormously. they are benefiting far more than we are now from their entry into the debbie to, et cetera, the fact we use security council's for every major thing that we should come to iran because that's one place -- >> before we do though, on europe, russia is, the current russia is making inroads into what we hoped would be part of the political west. i'm thinking in particular turkey came up in the earlier conversation. turkey is now sort of deeming us by buying or at least considering buying russian arms and then there's hungry. give any thoughts on that? >> so just continuing the previous thought on linking them together, this notion of standing on the side of those

russians who want a more european open trading russia, that is a positive contributor to the growing west, i think that something we have to do, at the same time that we stand very firmly, call it what you want, deterrence i think is a better word than containment, against violations of the basic rules of the road of the international system whether it's the seizing of donbos in crimea or whether it's the meddling in elections are whether it's other, the violation of the imf treaty which is very interested we could wake up one day and have medium-range missiles pointed at our allies if we don't address this, back to point out arms control. and the putin years we started with medvedev but consent, so those issues have to -- i think it is incumbent upon us, whether it's in a relationship with

turkey, in a relationship with hungry or even as poland is constraining the democratic checks and balances in the system, to make the case that this is not as you said at the beginning been good for russia. they are not getting richer by adopting this tighter, more autocratic model by dismantling checks and balances by not having rule of law. people don't want to invest there. and that when you run, when your government is afraid of its own citizens, which is the net effect of hosting space for free media, close to stay for democratic competition, it lives in a permanent state of tension, not a state where it can focus on prosperity and integration and growth and opportunity for its citizens. so i think we've got to be firmer with, particularly i have found issue with the eu that it

sets standards of admissions of kanji like hungary and poland and then it needs to enforce them when you lose the democratic checks and balances in the justice system come in free media, et cetera, if they want to benefit. but similarly with turkey, turkey is a hugely important country on the landmass to us, aas a change to a more stable middle east. it's also a country that's deeply divided in terms of whether support for a more open global turkey in support for a tighter internal system. we've got to get in there and be in the conversation with citizens, and that's what i hope for a more activist transatlantic policy out of the administration. >> you wanted to say something about iran, which is important. they will open it up to the audience. >> well, i think we had, i was

gratified to see that the administration today i think, write, or was it yesterday? made a decision, made a decision to reserve a fundamental tenet of -- i think there are plenty of places to be critical and ex-essential issue that the transamerica mary needs to be working on, vis-à-vis iran, but if we throw out that we just throughout more burden as a centrally who might want to knew clear eyes, get a fresh went in their sales. but if the president and the administration want to be worried about iran, they should be worried about other things and focus with the transatlantic community of the things, including his creation of a radical crescent in iran's

neighborhood. it's exploding at terrorist policy, its effort to dominate politics in territory an event at her back, et cetera. this take you to why we need not simply a military policy in cleaning isis out of raqqa but we need to ensure that we are turning territories that would we free from isis into experimental zones for a more liberal, open, tolerant syria, iraq, et cetera. otherwise, those like russia,, like iran you don't want a liberal government chosen by the people in either place are just going to rush into the breach of the net effect will be that we'll put all her own blood and treasure into creating a serious that is safe for iran and for russia, et cetera, rather than say for the syrian people. and stable. >> over to you folks. yes, sir.

>> please identify yourself. >> john hudson. great to be here. just a question for ambassador newland. ambassador, you probably will go down as one of the more influential assistant secretaries in recent years, and i just was hoping that you could sort of talk a little bit about, in hindsight, do you think, do you mayb have any regrets abouto openly backing the ukrainian revolutionaries? and perhaps the notion this was an american backed coup, even if that's an unfair assumption which i think a lot of people, a lot of us would agree, do you ever think about those moments that came up, have any regrets at all? i would love to hear your perspective on that. >> well, we can obviously, thank

you for the compliment that was then not a compliment. [laughing] >> just to remind where we were in december of 2013, january 2014 and february. we had a ukrainian government under yanukovych and peoplehood chose to associate with the eu, not to join the eu but to have free travel, to a free trade, et cetera. and that was a choice of the ukrainian people, of the ukraine present at the time. and then you had this effort at financial blackmail because ukraine was also very fragile. and had not succeeded in what we were pushing at the time, reestablishing its relationship with the imf so that could have financial stability and financial freedom of choice even

as it did this. you like russia throwing its banner in and saying we don't like any of this. and essentially bribing yanukovych with a $27 billion gift, loan, whatever not to do it. and in the country, the ukrainian people exploded underneath the government. so what we were doing, what the united states was doing in december and january was not backing of revolution. we were trying to mediate between yanukovych and his own people to help ukraine not have to choose between a reasonable relationship with russia, rather than a relationship of economic dependence, and a european path. so we were working on whether they could be at technocratic government that could be a win-win for everybody. in fact, the deal that emerged on february 21 of 2014 that

yanukovych in cells chose that implement and chose to free from instead, that the europeans midwife with the two ukrainian sides, the elements of that were things that the united states had been laying the feed for it were to offer many, many months. i do think it's important to remember what happened on that famous day of the sandwiches, not cookies. i was in ukraine with cathy ashton. we are working together trying to negotiate justice, whether we could get ukraine back on the path of european integration in a way that would be a win-win, potentially a win-win for russia itself. because if ukraine could invent a pastor to your for some russian products, we were making the point of moscow. i had on, i think it was the tenth or something of december, been working with the opposition, the maidan leaders,

kathy had been working with yanukovych and on the next they were going to switch and see if we could bring something together. that night we were awoken at 1:00 in the morning because that was the night that yanukovych took for advice and decided to put the militia on the street and encircle the maidan protesters and start squeezing here and it was a very, very scary night. in the end the maidan protesters were able to push back, and these poor, young, 18-year-old paratroopers of ukraine were just following orders were traumatized as well. so before i went to my yanukovych meeting i went out to the square to see both sides, both the storm troopers and the protesters, to express empathy for the position that that leadership have put both of them in. there are pictures of me giving sandwiches today.

russian of course in its own rewriting of history made much of this and used that little symbol to sort of declare that we hav had always had a secret t that this was a color revolution. but it's not to do what happened at is not true to the desires of the craney people and it need not attend the show didn't. at the end of the day it was yanukovych himself who would sales the vessel in all of this. [inaudible] >> absolutely. there are pictures to prove it, pictures to prove it. but i do think it speaks to the power of russian propaganda and ability to pervert narratives, that that sort of narrative has really stuck, that it was all about me and i was on some broke policy here -- rogue policy. >> thank you. thanks. i've from the central transatlantic relations on sabbatical in the netherlands.

i had a question for you on to mention poland and hungary and you said you took issue with the eu not doing more to uphold the law standard in these countries. i'm all for that were wondering what else could be done? the european commission to sort everything in its limited arsenal at these countries, suing them in courts. there's a difference to the u.s. there's no, despite what you read in some british tabloids there's no secret army could sing, no national guard. what else could be done? what could the european institution to? what solutions are there? >> i'm not in favor of sending and a militia. that wasn't what i was intending but i do know both countries continue to benefit from massive amounts of financial transfer, from central eu, cohesion funds, et cetera. there's been no effort to link uthis to democratic standards. you're going to tell me that eu

rules don't allow that are perhaps they should. >> bill. >> thank you, the tour you. i'd like to you elaborate a bit more about speakers does anyone want to ask the question of strobe? >> you can deflected. you mentioned technology and democracy, which also find a fascinating subject. a decade ago the internet was seen as a powerful tool to spread democracy around the world, help population circumvent censorship of the government, et cetera. and yet now it seems like autocracies have used the internet much more effectively, the great firewall in china, et cetera. this is one area where europe seems to be taking the policies lead. germany and the eu pass laws saying that unless facebook or

other social media giants remove hate speech and other objectionable things from the internet within 24 hours there will be subject to huge fines. so do you think this is some direction where the united states should go? that is, imposing the owners responsibility on these social media giants, facebook, google, amazon -- odorous onerous -- or party think this would come as his company argue, this would hinder, this would violate american laws and hinder their own freedom of action? how do you -- >> thanks for that, bill. look, there are two things here. the first is that one of the great powers of our democracy, and you saw it in the original

bretton woods was that we had this very flexible ability to have dialogue between government, policymakers, and business, and industry when we are at our best. on this set of subjects, whether it's on the european side or whether it's on the u.s. side, we need more of that. we need a single conversation about how you come on the one hand, protect privacy but on the other hand, allow law enforcement to operate. what's the responsibility of companies to police their platforms against abuse by state actors or tears or criminals? what can government do to help them? what should the legal standards be? we can have that conversation as compared to what's happening in russia and china where governments are setting the standard in a very illiberal way. i think we need to have it. i felt in watching the hacking thing mushroom in 2016, that

what we needed was a u.s. unified in her agency that was inviting all of the majors and some of the innovators in the international site to address the problem together. that's point number one-third think we can take the lead on. the second thing is with that getting into putting the government sort of down without the conversation, i am very admiring, particularly of what france did to blunt, neutralize, deter hacking in the context of the presidential election. they did far better than we did because they attributed in real time, because they exposed in real time and i think germany is doing a better job as well, particularly after the garbage campaign about the young girl. so we need to learn from that, iand part of that goes to makin,

again, if you had that constant conversation between industry, governments, by government i mean both policy and intelligence, and the legal regulator, you can move much more quickly than we were able to move and we will have to. that takes the back to this bretton woods or digital geneva convention of us, let's set the standard with industry, not impose them on industry and met as show the world that liberal democracies can get the best out of the stivers technologies, which have put us together. i can tell a maidan story from this, that is a positive. so on that very night when they were encircling and trying to squeeze the protesters, the bells ring and the snow is coming down and the protesters were singing to try to create some moral authority to push back the police, we, the united

states, at about 1:30 a.m. in secretary kerry snape but at a very strong statement calling what's happening on the square disgusting, and we had it translate into both russian and ukrainian in real time. i literally sat in my hotel room in kiev having worked on this statement. the minute we push the button, within five minutes, all across maidan on tv could see them hold up their phones reading this statement and gaining strength from it. so without their cell phones that would not have happened. it was a direct relationship between us and the people. >> last question, and very quick one. >> thank you. ambassador nuland, i would like to ask you first of all if you take a stance making an assessment about the past? do you recognize the mistakes that you may have done in monitoring the european affairs

texan also what is the biggest disappointment that you had in collaboration with the europeans europeans? what is the biggest disappointment from the europeans that you had while working with them? and last question for the president, and you also. what is the greatest fear and the greatest hope that you have in regards to the european union for the next ten years? thank you so much. >> i would have liked to react much more speedily to the annexation or effort to annex donbass and we were able to. recognizing what those green men were, getting more pictures out, more support out of various kinds. i think we could have blunted it earlier. i think the greatest mistake

that we made together, the community, is when we began negotiating the implementation of the minsk agreements. we did it in parallel rather than doing it as a single negotiating structure, u.s. and europe. we had pushed for that as you know but for a variety of reasons it didn't come together and that just allowed space for those who didn't want to deal to get out of the way. i think the biggest, the thing that my heart still believes about was syria. as you know i was spokesperson of the state department in the first obama term under secretary clinton and i had to from the state department podium every day in 11 and 12 get up and justify what was going on, and i am certainly on the team that thinks that we should have done more in 11, 12, 13, 14. we should have done more together with your and that we might have prevented the refugee

crisis. we might have, l bunch of dominoes fell from that of most importantly it matters to us the transatlantic community that the middle east has a chance to organize itself liberally. and its citizens in the middle east have right to have a say in how their governed and have opportunities that we have. it's not good to be stable and good for us without that, and siri is the linchpin. strobe. >> my biggest fear, i'm sure shared by many, leaving the north korean issue aside, i do worry about miscalculations on the part of russia as it probes and bullies and sends its military assets into the sovereign territory, and particularly maritime areas in

the nordic region. i can see putin testing of the article v issue, and he might do so in a way that could either really undermine nato, or it could bring us to a very serious conflict. ..

the transnational if not supranational governance, which i think is absolutely imperative if we are going to have a good century. i was heartened by much of what was said in the previous panel, and i hope that we can get to a point where there is a constituency both in the populations of these countries as well as the leaderships, that the big slogan should be let's make globalization great again. [applause]

tori is coming to brookings. it's a great boom to us in a great boom to the other institutions. i do think your idea about a cyber project could be one that not only you will find colleagues here at brookings eager to work with you but other institutions and one thing. the washington think tank is reaching out in many ways to get out beyond the beltway, but particularly in the puget sound silicon valley area.

perhaps we can find some partners on the other side of the atlantic. >> okay, go forth and be transatlantic. good to see you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> finishing up our live coverage, if you missed any of this event it will be available to you shortly online at cspan.org. just type brookings into the video search bar. today is the 30th anniversary of the cspan video library and events that we covered either happen 30 minutes ago or 30 years ago, we continue our contribution to the political dialogue. tonight, the profile series of trump administration officials continue with ben carson housing and urban

development sector. he talks about his childhood, how he met his wife, his career as a doctor, his run for president and his interactions with president trump. you can see it tonight at 80 stern on c-span. here is a brief preview. >> we are both from detroit but we had to go to new haven to meet each other. we were both poor so we wanted to go home for thanksgiving. they would pay for you to go home if you were recruiting. so we were recruiting and we discovered we kinda like each other, but nothing formal until we were on our way back to new haven. we were going to drive all night get there. fell asleep at the wheel, going off the highway at 90 miles an hour and awaken by the vibration of the cars going off. i grabbed the wheel. it should've whipped over but it started spinning like a top. they say your life passes

before your eyes and it does. the car stopped in the correct lane next to the shoulder and we pulled off just as an 18 wheeler was coming through. we were both wide-awake at that point and we said the lowered spirit our lives for reason and that's the night we started going together. >> tonight's complete profile interview with ben carson starts at 80 stern on c-span could be with us monday when hillary clinton gives her personal account of the 2016 presidential campaign and election in her memoir, what happened. the former first lady and presidential candidate will talk to her former aide and politics and prose co-owner. that will be in the warner theatre in washington d.c. >> sunday on the tv, live coverage of the brooklyn book festival. starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern and msnbc host chris hayes discussing his book a

colony in a nation, law professor, cheryl, author of loving,. [inaudible] they talk about free speech. national book award nominated author kathy o'neil on her book weapons of mass destruction. watch our live coverage of the brooklyn book festival on sunday starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span to book tv. >> the american constitution society for law and policy hosted a discussion on the 2017, 2018 supreme court term. closely watched issues include gerrymandering, voter rights and present drums mototravel ban. they take questions from the audience. also discussed was way justice