You can download an mp3 of the full lunch program here (66:04 run time). The following is a rush transcript of the lunch program. Please refer to the audio file before quoting from this transcript:
AMBASSADOR JOHN BRUTON: I am meeting you on a very heartening day for the European Union in the sense that we have succeeded in having the Lisbon treaty endorsed in the Irish referendum by a very substantial majority. I think the margin of the yes vote over the no vote is bigger than the entire no vote. So that is very significant, and it is the result, I believe of a number of the things: the fact that the Irish government was able to negotiate that there would be a commissioner from each country in the commission. It was very important, particularly for a small country and a country that's an island off an island off the mainland of Europe. Likewise there were assurances given about military neutrality and tax policy, which it could be argued were simply reaffirming what was already the case, but they were in a a form that was more convincing to the public. I think also a very good campaign was launched by not only the political parties in support of a yes vote but also by civic societies, businesses, trade unions and other influential groups.
What does this mean? Clearly we have still the question of endorsement of the treaty by the presidents of the Czech Republic and Poland, and that is a matter that they must respect and no doubt will respect the constitutional procedures of their own countries in making the decisions that they have to make. Then there is an issue with Finland with the Åland Islands, which I ask some of my Scandinavian friends to explain if that is necessary.
What difference will it make if, as I think as is likely now, the remaining three obstacles are overcome and the treaty comes into force? I think it will mean a number of important things.
Firstly, I think the European Union will become more democratic in the sense that more of the issues of legislation will now have to be endorsed by the directly elected parliament as well as by the Council of Ministers. The range of issues upon which the parliament has a co-equal legislative role is vastly expanded by the treaty. Secondly it will become more democratic because all legislation that is now being proposed, and EU legislation is proposed only from one source, from the European Commission, before it goes to either the European parliament or to the Council of Ministers, which represents the states much like the system here where the Senate represents the states and House represents the people, will have to be sent for a period to be considered by the parliaments of each of the member states, so you will have 27 countries looking at this. This will have two merits. First of all they will be able, if they feel that the European Union is getting into an area that is better judged at a national level, to stay stop, and if enough of them stay stop it will have to stop. I think it's one-third of [the parliament has to support] reconsideration. But then if a half say it has to stop, well then it stops, because you wouldn't get it though.
But more importantly I think in practice, because I don't think it's likely the commissioner is going to be proposing things that there isn't a decent case to be made for it to be done at the European level, the effect of this will be that European citizens will know long before it is enacted what the European Union is thinking about legislating about at the European level. Up to now frequently it was the case that people only discovered that there was an EU Directive on a particular subject when a friend of theirs was being prosecuted for having broken it, which was probably three years after it was promulgated, five years after it was agreed by the minister representing the country [UNINTELLIGIBLE] the Council of Ministers, and ten years after it was originally proposed by the European Commission. Instead on this occasion you’ll have much earlier scrutiny which I think is going to improve the quality of legislation and improve the legitimacy of legislation in the public mind.
The other big change is in the matter of Europe having what I would describe as full time leadership. At the moment the impulse for EU decision-making comes from the European Council, which is the 27 heads of government meeting together, chaired by one of their own number, a head of government. They are the people that set the agenda. The Commission then prepares the legislation, the Parliament and Council of Ministers pass or don’t pass the legislation. But the impulse is coming from the heads of government, but that body, which is critically important, is chaired on a part-time basis. The person who is the chair has the chair for six months, and he or she is literally doing this job on the basis of about two or three days a month. We are now going to have a full-time chairman of the European Council, somebody who’ll be dedicated to that issue. So I think you can expect much better quality of compromise, quality of decision making, quality of anticipation, quality of follow-up of decisions made by the European Counsel. I think you’re also going to see this person become involved a lot in sorting out issues that may cause difficulty between other parts of the decision-making structure. You’re going to have a common foreign service headed by a high representative for foreign security policy who is going to be also a member of the European Commission. You’re going to have Councils of Ministers who are not chaired by the President of the Council but by a rotating presidency. So there is going to be all kind of possibilities of people maybe wanting to go different directions on particular issues, and I think the president of European Council will have an overarching rule of making sure that the entire machine is moving in the same direction. He or she would have the capacity to be the forger of compromise at an earlier point than is currently the case.
The other big thing that will change is that, as far as our foreign policy is concerned, again we will be uniting the force of the European Commission, which spends a lot of money on foreign aid, the European Union is the biggest donor of foreign aid in the world. Uniting that force and the force of the delegations of the European Commission all over the world with the political role of the Council of Ministers, managed separately. You have Javier Solana representing the Council of Ministers, and you have Benita Ferrero-Waldner representing the Commission. Those two persons will be united in one foreign representative, who will chair the foreign ministers councils. That will mean a more coherent presentation of European Union foreign policy. Foreign policy in the Union will still have to be agreed on important issues by unanimity among the members, as is the case in NATO also by the way, so it’s not going to overnight have a foreign policy super power in Europe . That is not the goal; the goal is to be coherent where we can agree and be more coherent where we can agree than we’ve been in the past.
To conclude on this subject, the union will become more effective on energy policy, on climate change, on cross border crime and terrorism, because in these areas the area of majority voting has been extended in the council so that we’ll be able to take more decisions more quickly on these matters. Those are the principal points I wanted to make.
I was prompted to say how will this all affect transatlantic relations?I think the European Union will be a more effective partner for the United States. If the European Union's internal workings are made more effective by having more full time leadership, by having a single person responsible for shaping foreign policy, and if the Union is able to make more decisions by majority rather than by unanimity, the United States will find that the European Union is the place that you go to do business rather then to go to 27 different capitals in the 27 different European Union countries, that going to Brussels and seeking to influence policy there will be more time-effective for the United States, and I expect this will lead to an upgrading in the relationship. The United States and the European Union share fundamental values as far as global policy is concerned. We want to promote human rights. We want to promote democracy. We want to promote open markets. We want to promote responsible stewardship of the global resources, including the climate. And we will be able, I think, to work more effectively together on our shared goals then we would have done hitherto.
MICHAEL TOMASKY, GUARDIAN AMERICA: I was just in London last week at the Guardian offices among other places, and of course they are reporting very heavily on it. I guess the first think I would ask, the Guardian was full of speculation that it was virtually a done deal that Tony Blair is going to be the first new president of this organization, and does that seem accurate to you? If you could comment on that, (a). (B) It would seem to me that there are pretty clear political implications of having someone like that be the first president because Tony Blair is not just some bureaucrat in Brussels. Tony Blair is Tony Blair. He’s a world-famous person, more famous, at least here in the United States than any European head of state. So I guess it would seem to me to give some kind of psychological momentum toward a very quick coming together of policy making out of the European Parliament and this new European body.
BRUTON: That's an issue, that obviously can not be addressed, until the Lisbon Treaty—
TOMASKY: I'm sorry and I meant to ask: how is this President elected, by popular vote of all people in 27 countries, or how?
BRUTON: This decision will be taken, when it's taken, by consensus among the heads of government of the 27 countries meeting together. It's not a decision that can be taken up until the treaty is actually ratified by all member states. Even to speculate about what decision might be taken could be construed as being presumptuous of the prerogatives that have yet to be exercised by the countries that have yet to ratify.
TOMASKY: How will the person be chosen?
BRUTON: By the heads of government, they will be looking at it. I was involved in the European Convention, where this concept was originally floated. It is true that, at that stage, although this is not in the treaty, that all the presidency went to somebody who had been a prime minister or had been president of the European Council and the rotating presidency would be people who had the relevant experience.
VICTORIA JONES, TALK RADIO NEWS SERVICE: I have an Irish question for you. It's an Irish-EU question for you. With Ireland backing the Lisbon Treaty last week, nevertheless last year they voted no. How much damage do you think was done to Ireland's reputation in Europe, and what do they have to do to get it back?
BRUTON: Well, it is the case that this is the second E.U. treaty that Ireland would have be forced to asking said no to, which it then on second consideration say yes to.
I think it’s fair to say that most political leaders in Europe understand that referenda on issues of a very high complexity, as an EU treaty always is, is a hazardous undertaking.
I think European leaders also recognize that it isn’t as such the choice of the Irish government to have to have these referenda because it’s a requirement laid down by our Supreme Court in light of the interpretation they’ve placed on what’s in the Irish constitution, so it’s not a decision that’s being taken by politicians who are unwilling to make decisions themselves and are passing them onto the people but rather it’s a constitutional requirement.
So for all of those reasons, I think, the other member states of the European Union would have a high level of understanding of the problems that Ireland has undertaken, and also a high level of appreciation of the efforts that have been made not just by the government parties, but by the opposition parties in securing the [inaudible] on this occasion.
However, I think it does make for greater difficulty in amending treaties in the future because in addition to having it ratified by the Parliaments, there now is, at least in the case of one member state, in what appears to be a requirement to have a referenda as well. And that’s going to make for reluctance to go to treaty amendments. And we can see in this country how difficult it is to amend your constitution. And there are upsides and downsides to that. If it’s difficult to amend, obviously you won’t have hasty amendments. But on the other hand, if it’s too difficult to amend there may be things that you really genuinely need to do but that you’re not able to do because of the difficulty in getting amendments through.
It has changed, these two defeats have changed and reduced the facility for amending treaties in the future in a way that’s ongoing and permanent.
BILL PRESS, THE BILL PRESS SHOW: Thank you, I must admit I am as ignorant on the workings of the E.U. as I am of the Politburo but my question is a curious one, which may or may not be relevant. Is there any military component or capacity to the E.U. at all and whether there is or not, what is your sense of the interest of any of the E.U. member nations in sending more troops to Afghanistan.
BURTON: The European Union does have a defense component in the sense that we have a European rapidry action force which is under the aegis of the European Union. It consists of people who are in the armies of member states but who are available within a time frame to be deployed.
PRESS: Under the leadership of?
BURTON: On the basis of decisions made by the European Union.
[Cross-Talk]
PRESS: At the European Union, is there a general who would lead those forces, or would they be...
BRUTON: Yes. There are European forces in Chad for example, where the general is an Irish general. There have been European forces in Kosovo, European forces in Congo. There have been a number of other missions where E.U. forces have been deployed. Mainly in peacekeeping roles rather than in peace making, if you like.
Now Afghanistan is a different issue, that is a NATO operation. While the European Union is involved on the civilian side, European monitors were involved in vigilating the election, European assistance is being given to rebuild civil society. The EU as such is not involved in the military side. That’s NATO.
PRESS: If I may just follow up, with your contacts with the leaders of other nations, is there any interest or willingness, do you think, to send any additional troops to Afghanistan. One would have the impression here that it's just the opposite, they're interested in getting their troops out.
BURTON: I’ll give you a bureaucratic answer first, which is that the Euopean Commission doesn’t have any involvement in that decision. But I do observe form opinion poll data, including recently, that there is a greater reluctance to deploy more troops in Afghanistan than in Europe than there is in the United States. But I think that is ,of course, something that would depend a lot on whether the mission was something that the public understood and understood as attainable and reasonable. And I think the definition of the goal is as important as the means supplied to achieve it in a matter like this. All military operations ultimately depend on civilian consent and civilian consent is influenced by the political case and the political prospects that are set out before the public. That is an issue that's ongoing, but I would point out that NATO engaged itself in this, it wasn’t just the United States, NATO engaged itself in this from the very early days. So this is not just a problem or a responsibility for one country. It is a problem for all those countries who were part of the original decision to intervene. But it’s not an EU matter, per se.
[Inaudible]
BRUTON: I've got to get a sandwich to follow up.
JIM PINKERTON, FOX NEWS/NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: My question, Bill sort of asked part of my question, but my further thought was since, as you mentioned, the European Union is going to take on a greater potency in terms of diplomatic and foreign affairs, then issues as Bill alluded to of chain and command and so on will certainly come back much more into focus, and since you've been a leader of a country, I was wondering A: If the difficulty that President Obama is having with General McChrystal and the Pentagon and the decision about more troops for Afghanistan offers lessons for the European Union and NATO and however that military force will get configured. And then second of all, given your own experience in small d Democratic politics, what advice would you have for President Obama as he thinks about the Afghan mission?
BRUTON: I think I probably said all that I can say already. I think, as I said in the second part of my last answer, I think it’s very important that the goal of the operation be defined in a fashion that can be fully understood and accepted by the public. So that they can see progress, but also I think that people are told a full dimensions of the problem that there’s no expression that something will be quicker and easier than it really will be. What I think is it is an issue of putting forth the goals in a fashion that the public can accept. And if that’s not possible, well then you have to draw the conclusions that flow from that. That's all I think I can I can say, this not an issue of the European Union handling responsibility.
When I was Prime Minister of my country, my experience wasn’t in prime ministry forces. My experience was in dealing with terrorism, not in dealing with peace process. I’m not so sure that I can draw on the equivalent type of expertise that President Obama has to apply to this matter.
BLANQUITA CULLUM, WASHINGTON TIMES RADIO/WTNT: Having had your very prestigious background of serving as Prime Minister of your own Country, I wonder, and maybe you can explain to me what the feeling is or the decisions are of these member states when it comes to, let's say, if there's some sort of commitment as a body towards some engagement militarily by the member states and if there's some incident, let's say, where you have a war crime incident, will it be a decision as a body that the incident will have to be treated at an international court level or will the countries like your country, or England, or Germany or any other member will be able to maintain the sovereignty of their respective participant or soldier or person who might be involved in an incident. Will they be forced to have a trial under an international court or will they be able to maintain some sovereignty back in their own country and have the incident dealt with there?
BRUTON: As you know, the European Union is supportive of the International Criminal Court because we believe that war crimes do need to be dealt with in an objective way by whomsoever they may be committed so that we don’t believe that there should only be victors' justice, and that whoever is involved they should be rivaled in the same way. I suppose it’s a practical matter. I’m not sufficiently expert in the law as between national jurisdiction, national ministry jurisdiction and international criminal courts. Obviously if it’s possible for a matter to be dealt with by national courts, that’s preferable to bringing it to another lever. But exactly where the legal responsibility lies for particular crimes in the case of countries that are, as the European countries are, parties of the international court, I’m afraid I just don’t know the answer.
CULLUM: Because this is...
[Cross-Talk]
BRUTON:I just haven't the information. There probably is an answer...
CULLUM: The question then begs to me, let's say you have a situation where you're talking about, for example, Afghanistan. Maybe you have some member states that decide they are going to engage, they want to support, they want to go to go into Afghanistan, or others that may determine that they don't. What I'm trying to get to: Is there a point where if they determine that they're not going to be a party to or not a party of, does that cause them to be a member in bad status? Do they have to withdraw? Is there some point where there is a deal-breaker and these member states that may have a conscientious objection to an issue, whether it's engagement in a military intervention or a policy issue, Is there some point where they say 'Look, you're a member of this group now, you've got to support our big issues' and if they say 'No, no, no, no we can't do that' is there any point where the European Union says you're out of here for good?
BRUTON: Thanks very much for clarifying that.
[Cross-Talk]
BRUTON: The situation is that all policy decisions on defense matters and foreign policy initiatives are made by unanimous agreement, so any country will have been party to that unaminous agreement in the force stances. Now, of course, if there’s an change of government in that country, there are provisions for countries to withdraw from operations if their new government doesn’t want them to participate in. This is not a country’s participation, in certainly any military's operation of the EU I'm not talking about NATO, of the EU, to the extent that their own domestic rules allow them to.
There is country I'm very familiar with, which says it won't participate in EU operation unless that EU operation is ready to be endorsed by the UN security council. That’s one country, Ireland. So there isn’t a problem there.
As to countries having to withdrawal from the club, so to speak, the only issue upon which a country be required to withdrawal, and that's dealt with in the Lisbon Treaty and also in the Niece Treaty, is basically if the country ceases to be a human rights respecting democracy and would need to have manifestly failed. In those circumstances there is a provision for process to lead to a country being excluded, but that's the only circumstance.
Of course, countries are free to withdraw from the European Union. This has always been the case, because the European Union is a treaty based organization and under the Vienna Law on treaties, my understanding is that any country can withdraw from a treaty commitment so long as it respects international law in doing so which may mean compensating others for any disruption this causes them.
But in the Lisbon treaty, that's made explicit, there's a clause in the Lisbon treaty that provides for a country that doesn't want to stay in the European Union to leave. It's important that countries that are very doubtful about the European Union know that, unlike in the United States of America, states may leave. Nobody's obliging any country to remain.
[Inaudible]
BRUTON: Texas is a special case, isn't it?
LLEWELLYN KING, WHITE HOUSE CHRONICLE: I was wondering, where does the Lisbon Treaty leave in the importance of European institutions, the European Parliament, which has always been cited as evidence of the Democratic deficit. Now that we have a President and a DeFacto Foreign Minister, does that not sort of push down the importance of the European parliament?
BRUTON: On the contrary, I think that Lisbon Treaty enhances the importance of the European Parliament because, where previously it had a lesser role in certain aspects of legislation, it's now going to have a co-equal role with the council of ministers in virtually every piece of E.U. legislation. The European Union is the only multi-national democracy in the world. The European Union is the only multi-national democracy in the world ever. Now in it's present form with an elected European Parliament, since 1979 it has become progressively become more democratic because with each treaty revision there's been an increase in the powers of the European Parliament, not a reduction.
KING: A follow-up, if I may. If you were advising somebody with political ambitions in Ireland, would you advise them to seek a seat in the Doyle of the European Parliament?
BRUTON: Well, I'd usually advise people, if I was advising them to go into politics in Ireland, to go in at a local level. You need to, if you're a young person, establish a good local base. I was fortunate enough I didn't have to run for...county council. I was elected at the age of 22 to Parliament but that's a very, very rare and not an easy course for people to follow. I still think I would advise people to go into national politics, in the sense that the vast majority of money is spent by member states and not the budget of the European Union. European Union spends less than 1% of Europe's GDP, whereas member states' governments spend variously from 30%-50% of their member state's GDP. So to the extent that influencing public spending and influencing taxation is of interest to people, then national politics is the place to be. On the other hand, if one wants to influence globalization and if one sees global forces as important rather than local forces, then the place to be is the European Parliament because the European Parliament assembles a mass of 500 million people, one of the biggest economies of the world, it is increasingly becoming not just the rule-maker for the E.U., but a global rule-maker. E.U. rules on the safety of chemicals. E.U. rules on how to deal with climate change, E.U. rules on accounting standards. These are increasingly becoming global standards because, you know, we’re the most active rule maker. But rule-making and spending money are not the same thing. So if your interest is in getting and spending money, national politics. If your interest is in global rule-making, European politics.
[Inaudible]
BRUTON: What's the language? The spoken?
[Inaudible]
BRUTON: Well, Business is conducted in... well two interpreters, at all formal meetings and there’s a very good interpretation service, in all of the languages, so you can get people speaking in Latvian, being translated into Italian, speaking in Portuguese being translated into Slovene, or whatever. If you ask me, what’s the most usual language when ministers get together without interpreters, I think English and French are the two that are most frequently spoken, with English, I think having the advantage. Particularly since the European Union enlarged a lot of the new member states, well, they’re not all that new now, but they’re countries that came from central and eastern Europe, the second language that most of them had was English, so that has increased the amount of English spoken. But French is still a very important language of the European Union. French is spoken very much in this delegation, internally.
GABRIEL ARANA, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT: So I have two questions, and the first is sort of a follow-up to yours, or reframing of it. I guess I’m curious, it seems like it would only be useful to go to the E.U. if one is able to get consensus among the member states. So I guess to reframe your question, how does this system deal with dissent, and then also, how would this change the legislative time line?
BRUTON: Well, it depends on what you’re going to the E.U. about. If you’re going to the European Union about wanting to get an agreement on climate change, well, that issue is decided by qualified majority voting in the European Union. So you don’t have to get complete consensus to make decisions. Or if you're going to do something to do with trade policy or with issues concerning, you know, the regulation of business, those are issues that are generally the subject of majority voting, and qualified majority voting in the European Union. On the other hand if you are going about it on the military issue there, you either go to NATO where you still have the unanimity requirement, or if it's more suitable to you because it's more, sort of, soft power peace keeping rather than peace making, then you still have the issue that Europeans can ... there is the requirement of unanimity. But, there is also a provision in the Lisbon Treaty for what they called re-enforced cooperation, I think there is a new word they are using for it now. But, whereby a group of countries can go ahead and do something where not the others want to get involved with, what they can do is in the E.U.'s name and with some support of the EU. I think increasingly you are going to see that mechanism used because there will be some countries that will have difficulty participating in a particular thing. You know in the case of Ireland cause it is not UN authorized, because China doesn't like it. Or in the case of other countries because they have an issue, they dissent in some way from some aspect of the operation, then I think if the rest want to go ahead they have a mechanism for doing so. So, while there has to be unanimity on policy, there are mechanisms for getting around that and getting on with things.
TOMASKY: Yeah, I guess I have two questions if i may and the first one is pretty quick. What, as you understand it, are the basis of Voslov Klauses's opposition to this and what would turn him around?
BRUTON: Well, my understanding is that he is delaying because a petition has been lodged with the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic questioning the compatibility with the Czech constitution of some aspects of the Lisbon Treaty. And he wants to give the court an opportunity to decide whether this is a case worth hearing and if it's going to hear it and making a decision. That's my understanding. That's the position that they're are...
TOMASKY: Let me just ask...
BRUTON: He can speak for himself, but I can speak for him. He has been here and he has expressed his views about these various matters anyway. But, officially as i've described, it is the position.
TOMASKY: I guess I'm wondering, and i've talked about this with some colleagues in London too, is this, if you combine these 27 countries in terms of population and terms of GDP, they I assume at least rival the United States probably surpass, possibly surpass.
BRUTON: I think we equal in GDP but surpass in population.
TOMASKY: Alright, okay. That would be a very powerful political entity, and given this effort gathered steam during the tenure of a president who wasn't very popular in Europe and during a time when opinions of America were lower in Europe than they are now, is this psychological, emotionally, you know, some sort of effort to sort of put all their marbles together and be the equal of America on the world stage?
BRUTON: I think it would be unusual for people to put it in those terms in Europe now. Maybe 10 year ago, or 15 years ago, more often you'd here people saying that their ambition was Europe as a sort of counterweight and partner to the United States. But I think that particular formulation is not one that you would hear now-a-days very much. And the emphasis really is on managing our own business internally more effectively. Being more effective on energy policy, on energy conservation, on trade, consumer protection and research and development. All those sorts of things and partnering with the United States where we agree with the United States on global issues. Obviously, we are not going to agree all the time but I don't think the European Union sees itself as a power seeking body. But we do want to be able to pull our weight. We want to be able to have the decision making capacity [inaudible] with our size. That shouldn't be seen as threatening by anybody. No. I have seen some speculation here and some publications of I think the Heritage Foundation had one poet who saw the European Union as somehow a threat to the U.S., but I don’t think we see it in those terms anyway.
JONES: I have a question drawing on your experience with the peace process. Why do you think it was possible to get a peace agreement with such an intransigent situation such as the Irish one, but it hasn't been possible to get any kind of peace deal in the Middle East and indeed it seems to be more stuck than ever. And what would you suggest as a way of moving it forward?
BRUTON: Well, on this subject I think I probably ought to speak in a personal capacity rather than on behalf of the European Union. I have actual experience in being involved in a peace process that’s been a successful one. Of course, I was not the sole participant. I built on the work of my predecessor and my successor brought the thing to a successful conclusion. I think the insight step one can draw on the Irish peace process are one that you don’t set preconditions for talks. You may set preconditions for the outcome of talks. But you avoid, as far as possible, setting preconditions for talks themselves. We had to work our way through this with Sinn Fein and the IRA because in the original Downing Street Declaration of December, 1993 there was a requirement that they would carry a permanent end to violence and then Sinn Fein could be permitted to talks. While they ceased their violence they never said it was a permanent end, and indeed it transpired to not be a permanent end. And that caused the difficulty. And then there was an issue about, well, if they weren't prepared to say their violence was permanently over, would they at least start disarming to at least a small extent and they declined to do that. And eventually we found a way around that, John Major and I, of saying well if people are elected to a body to negotiate, we’ll talk to them in the context of that elected route. And that elected route was the way we found around the precondition that was being set of the decommissioning of some weapons as a precondition to enter the talks. Also I think it is important to say in the case of the Irish peace process that right up to 1998 the Irish constitution, the constitution of the Irish state, said that as of right Northern Ireland ought to be allowed to the Irish state and not be a part of the United Kingdom. And that was in the Irish constitution, that wasn’t a policy of Sinn Fein. It was in the Irish constitution itself. And that had to be amended. But it was amended at the end of the negotiation, as a result of the negotiation, not as a precondition of the opening of the negotiation. And that has now been amended. And the Irish constitution doesn't have such a claim anymore. But it was something that, if you like, the unionist who wanted to stay with the United Kingdom, they were able to get out of the negotiation. And in any negotiation I think people have to have something they can get out of it. If they insist that everything that they want has to be conceited to them before negotiations begins, then they have nothing to gain from the negotiation. And it’s very hard to reach a satisfactory conclusion if people have nothing to gain from the negotiation. So this one of the, sort of, paradoxes of negotiation, of successful negotiation. Of course also in the case of northern Ireland we were not negotiating for two states. We were negotiating for an agreement to share an existing jurisdiction more amicably between two communities who were living interspersed with one another. In the case of the process in the middle east, one is negotiating for two states. Obviously states have to have territory and they have to have territory that they can move freely within. And there would have to be some questions as to whether one can say that a Palestinian state has territory that would make it capable of becoming a state if large parts of that territory are occupied by people from a neighboring state.
[Inaudible]
CULLUM: That's fine.
PINKERTON: Christopher Caldwell is an American who has written a book called Reflections on the Revolution on Europe about islamic immigration and demographic changes in Europe. And cites data that suggests that perhaps 1/3 of the population of Europe will be Muslim by the middle of this century. I’m wondering if you have any comment on the book, or in addition, what you might have to say about immigration policies in the European Union and the demographic issues confronting the European Union in the century ahead?
BRUTON: Well I have to say I'm a great admirer of Christopher Caldwell's writings, and I read them every saturday in the Financial Times with great interest. He’s one of the remarkably original thinkers. Well, I haven’t read the book. But I have read the supplement to the Financial Times last saturday, which deals with the issue as well. And it points to the fact, that for example, in France, the country where this issue most frequently comes up, that there are very high levels of integration in France of the Muslim population that increasingly see themselves as French. They see themselves as French people who are perhaps are not always getting a fair deal from their fellow French people, who may find if they apply for a job and their name indicates that they are of Muslim background that they have a less chance of getting an interview than if somebody has a name of European origin, but who increasingly are insisting on their rights as French people. I think that’s the way it’s going to go. I think it does take several generations for a new infusion of people to integrate and fully adopt the identity of the new country in which they are living. And Europe isn’t a melting pot like the United States because Europe isn’t-wasn’t largely bereft of population before the said immigrants arrived, as was the case of the forced immigrants to the United States But I think we’re getting there and we’re getting there I’d say rather more quickly than it took the U.S. to overcome issues between people of different ethnic backgrounds. Bearing in mind, it took as long as it has for an African American to become president. The country has been in existence since 1783. It didn’t happen until 2008. That's a long time. We’ve seen the French government with the Minister for Justice, [inaudible], a woman of Nigerian origin. We have the leader, the joint leader of the green party in Germany, with Turkish origin.
BRUTON: We have the leader of a very successful party in Denmark also of immigrant Muslim origin. In Ireland we have a very successful man of Indian, Hindu origin representing the county of Clare, which used to be represented by Mr. Debonair *(sic) who, of course, also had Spanish origin. So you know, Europe is a lot more open than it is seen from a distance to be. I think it's a place that is...yes it has problems, and yes there were riots in the suburbs of Paris, but they were...they were, by comparison with things that have happened in other places, relatively minor. There is an issue of course of identity, and identity politics is one of the hardest things to manage. 'Who am I?' is a very difficult question sometimes for people whose parents have come from one jurisdiction and whose grandparents were living in another. And trying to get people to accept that, in fact, you can have more than one identity, that's the trick. And the European Union an entity itself does that, because I'm Irish, but I'm also European. I'm very you know, those two identities are not in conflict. You can be Catalan, Spanish and European. You can have three identities. You can be Flemaux* or Flemish, Belgian and European - you can have three identities. And I think getting people to accept that we don't all have to have the same identity as long as we have something in common and we can live well together, that's the key. In this country, you have a different approach, which I think is perfectly good, which is that everyone becomes American, but that's, you know, at the same time you still have hyphenations, even in this country.
[inaudible]
CULLUM: From the Texan, thats right, the Texan-Latin. I think what you're saying is very profound. My concern though is in traveling around, even in Eastern Europe where you see more mosques developing, with Sinn-Fein and how you explained it, I mean it seems even in the madness of the terrorism you still had an underground reason; there was a fundamental, you know, reason that Sinn-Fein was reacting the way Sinn-Fein was reacting in taking kind of outrageous ways of dealing with terrorism. But when you're dealing with terrorism, it's almost like what I think...
BRUTON: Tell me what was the reason?
[Cross-talk]
CULLUM: You can say, 'well, we can get these guys to the table.' How do you get people from the Taliban or al-Qaeda to the table? I mean, it's not like you can. There's a difference between talking about sitting down and talking with the Palestinians and the Israelis, and saying there's gotta be a state here, you wanna have right of return, you wanna have this and that. But then when you're dealing with al-Qaeda, there's no way to make any sense to bring them to the table because they'll blow up the table before you get to the table.
BRUTON: I wasn't really referring to them at all. I was just...
[Cross-talk]
BRUTON: I was just talking principally that....
CULLUM: But they're a strong influence in Europe right now. There are pockets where you know, they worry about them in France, they worry about the situation with sleepers in London, they worry about sleepers in Germany, we saw what happened in Spain, and really that is kind of like taking all the chess pieces and throwing them off the floor. How does the E.U. deal with that?
BRUTON: When I was answering Victoria's question I was talking principally about parallels with the Israel and Palestine issue. I used the Middle East as a short answer to refer to that particular issue, I wasn't talking about al-Qaeda.
CULLUM: But that's a big, that's a big question.
BRUTON: Well ok. Al-Qaeda is a criminal problem, this is a criminal organization. And it's an organization that needs to be repressed as crime should be repressed. And I think people [should be] brought to justice and whatever legal change is put in place to ensure that they can be brought to justice. In Spain, we've had a major terrorist attack and the Spanish authorites have been successful in bringing the people who perpetrated that to justice, and that's you know, basically our approach in Europe to this - terrorism is just crime with a bogus political justification added on. I think where communities exist in territories, feel they have been dispossessed from territories, those are issues that can and have to be dealt with in a way that rejects violence, but accepts negotiations. But that's different from dealing with al-Qaeda. I wasn't making any reference to al-Qaeda at all. Sorry, I hope...I didn't give that impression.
[Cross-talk]
CULLUM: Its' almost like you have sets of terrorists, some of whom follow Roberts' Rules of orders and now you have a situation now with, you look at well, Iran. And Iran deals with China, China deals with Russia, Russia deals with Venezuela, it seems like you have another kind of union forming up there that's pretty frightening and how does that affect kind of the way that you operate with Russia? If they become very good buddies with Iran and Iran has this position where they're not going to, you know, stop developing any kind of nuclear warfare. How does the E.U. deal with that?
BRUTON: Well, the European Union as such doesn't negotiate with Iran. Some European Union countries are negotiating on our behalf in conjunction with the United States, with Iran. And I'm glad that at last there has been some response from the Iranians to a very reasonable and statesmanlike approach by the U.S. President opening the possibility of talks with them. And I'm glad that there is to be an inspection of facilities that recently have been disclosed by the Iranians later this month. I hope that that leads somewhere more useful. As far as Russia is concerned, Russia is a great power. It's an important country in the world. It's a very important country for us and our immediate neighborhood. Russia has as you know, in response to President Obama's visit to Moscow, has continued to allow supplies to American and European troops in Afghanistan to go through Russia, to be supplied to them. So that would indicate that Russia is not neutral, that Russia is on the same side, maybe not in the same way, but you don't allow transit for war material to your enemies or to people you're trying to frustrate. It's important that that be recognized. Not everybody will agree with one all the time. Russia has its own interests and its own insecurities. Remember, Russia was invaded in 1941, From its perspective, completely unexpectedly. It fought the most terrible war between 1941 and the end of the war. Lost more casualties and the turning point of that war was 1943 at the Battle of Kursk in Russia. And that's an experience that has seared in their minds, and one must understand that having a war fought over one's territory within living memory does have an effect on one's threat perceptions relative to countries that haven't had a war fought over their territories since 1865, or since other times. And it's important in any negotiation - I've applied this throughout my life as a politician - if you want to negotiate with somebody, you must put yourself in their shoes. You must actually say, 'Well, what would I do if I was in his position?' And then you try to work out is there anything that is in his position that is compatible with my desires? And you work on that and I think that's the secret to a successful negotiation. Whether with Russia or Iran or China or anybody. But, with respect to states, not with terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda who is completely outside the pail.
KING: I was wondering what lessons have we learned from the Euro, the first transnational currency and one that was greeted very skeptically by American economists who felt that if you had, for example, an underperforming economy in one country and an over-performing one in another, there was no mechanism for the central bank to address that as there are with national currencies.
BRUTON: Well, the Euro has been remarkably successful so far, but there are inherent difficulties which were identified at the time, such as that countries within the Euro may pursue different fiscal policies, and also that certain parts of the Euro area may have a need for, you know a different currency policy at a given time. One export-oriented part might want a relatively weak Euro while another would want a stronger Euro and those tensions haven't disappeared, they're there. We have mechanisms in place to manage them. We're managing them fairly well, but you know they haven't gone away and the result as the global economy's imbalances are addressed - and these imbalances do go back to the undervaluation of the Chinese currency which led to excessive saving by China, which led to excessively low interest rates in this country and elsewhere to a flood of money which led to speculation which led to a bust. And while we're now dealing with the bust, the fundamental problem that gets to the issue initially still exists, so it could happen again. And in the course of putting that right, there could be upward pressure put on the Euro, so managing the Euro is going to be a challenge for the European Union, but I think we're fortunate now that we have the G20. I think the G20 creates a context in which the world can manage its affairs more coherently. I know that people will say that, 'you know these communities, what do they amount to? How can people agree to things at meetings and then they go back and do something different?' Our experience in the European Union is that while all of that is true, the fact that people know they're going to have to face the same people 3 or 4 or 5 months from now, and face them again, you know 3 or 4 or 5 months later and 3 or 4 or 5 months later again, eventually just wears people down to the point that they do coordinate with one another more than they would if they didn't have these regular meetings. And I think that process that the G20 is going to operate on government policies to make them more coordinated will in the long run be very effective. And it is to a degree modeled on the way the European Union works. I mean, the European Union is into meetings and processes and documents and all that stuff, and a lot of paper is consumed and a lot of air miles are clocked up, but at the end, we reach a consensus. And that process I think is now what is now going to be, I think, very productively applied in dealing with the global economic problem.