2015 Conference proceedings

08:30 – 09:45 | Opening session

Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

Our goal is to help to improve governance, in all its aspects, in order to foster the emergence of a world that is more open, more prosperous, more just and respectful of the diversity of States and nations.

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Didier Burkhalter

Federal Councillor, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland

Globalisation cannot bring about progress if it is perceived as a risk, if it moves too swiftly and if it benefits only the few. Making progress, and not merely moving forward, is the key.

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09:45 – 11:00 | Plenary session 1

Global economic order at the Crossroads

Virginie Robert

Foreign desk editor, Les Echos

We are indeed at a crossroads, and one of the questions is that, in the light of the new dangers facing our world, whether global governance is adequate.

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John Lipsky

Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); former First Deputy Managing Director, IMF

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a filling-out of the multilateral institutions that formed the basic financial and economic architecture of the post-World War Two era.

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Il Sakong

Chairman of the Institute for Global Economics, former Finance Minister of Korea

The G20 was not meant to be a formal global institution; it was an informal “steering committee”, so to speak, for the world, to exert collective leadership for global economic affairs.

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Motoshige Itoh

Professor, Graduate School of Economics, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo, Advisor to the Prime Minister

The IMF, the World Bank, GATT and the WTO are still very important, but it has to be admitted that the world community has become much more sophisticated now than when it was established.

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Mario Monti

Chairman of the High Level Group on Own Resources, European Commission, former Prime Minister of Italy

I believe Europeans are thought by many to be sinners through an excess of virtue, particularly by the Americans and others.

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Debate

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11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee-break

11:30 – 12:45 | Plenary session 2

The future of central banking

Arthur Rutishauser

Editor-in-Chief, SonntagsZeitung

When I heard the news that we had terrorist attacks in Mali, I wanted to know from someone who has a lot of experience of economies whether he thinks that the terrorist attacks we have seen in Europe will impact the European and global economies.

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Jean-Claude Trichet

Former President, ECB

From the very beginning the Euro, as a currency, was considered with great scepticism, and I was a witness of that in America and Asia before the Euro was created.

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Jacob Frenkel

Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Group of Thirty (G-30), Former Governor of the Bank of Israel

Historically speaking, the creation and management of the Euro is a fantastic development, a huge change, and of course the effort to maintain and strengthen it is in place.

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Marek Belka

President, National Bank of Poland

We should remember that Europe has taken and absorbed, broadly successfully, tens of millions of immigrants, or refugees if you prefer, in the last few decades.

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Jacob Frenkel

Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Group of Thirty (G-30), Former Governor of the Bank of Israel

What is unique about [the G-30] is that it is composed primarily of current and former central bank governors. The reason I mention this is that, after so many years since the beginning of the crisis, it was time to take stock and see what we have learned.

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Jean-Claude Trichet

Former President, ECB

It is not surprising that those who were on the front line were the central bankers, who had to cope with absolutely exceptional circumstances, and very fortunately they were up to their responsibilities […].

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Mugur Isarescu

Governor of the National Bank of Romania, Former Romanian Prime Minister

Since they are elected, politicians enjoy democratic legitimacy. In hard times, but for limited periods, technocrats could step in and I have been in such a situation myself.

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Marek Belka

President, National Bank of Poland

Fortunately, the world is not like theoretical models, and we have a lot of leeway to choose both the level and dynamics of interest rates, to prevent unwanted inflows and outflows of capital […].

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Jean-Claude Trichet

Former President, ECB

We paid a terrible price in the crisis for not respecting the framework. The framework is there and it was reinforced by the crisis, so it has to be respected.

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Jacob Frenkel

Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Group of Thirty (G-30), Former Governor of the Bank of Israel

The European project in its historical dimensions is one of the biggest projects of modern humanity, because it has much wider implications beyond currencies.

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Marek Belka

President, National Bank of Poland

We think that the procrastination is probably more destabilising, even for those countries that are more fragile than we are, than the increase itself.

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Jean-Claude Trichet

Former President, ECB

It is absolutely normal that the central banks are concentrating on their own problems.

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Mugur Isarescu

Governor of the National Bank of Romania, Former Romanian Prime Minister

Regarding capital movement, there is volatility and unpredictability; it is very difficult to predict capital movement.

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Jacob Frenkel

Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Group of Thirty (G-30), Former Governor of the Bank of Israel

As was indicated, Europe is in a different phase of the cycle. The US started its actions early on. Europe started its actions a bit later.

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Debate

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13:00 – 14:30 | Lunch debate

Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Attiyah

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar

Our region is very important to the world. […] Our stability and prosperity is important to each and every one of you here attending today, and to your countries, for so many reasons.

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Debate

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14:45 – 15:30 | Plenary session 3

Washington’s view of the political and geopolitical implications of November 13th attacks in Paris

Jim Hoagland

Contributing Editor to The Washington Post

There are, of course, echoes of 9-11 in what has happened in Paris. It will change the way France looks at things and acts, just as it changed the ways the US looked at the world and reacted.

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Nelson Cunningham

President, McLarty Associates; former Special Advisor to President Clinton

The horrific events in Paris and what has followed will accelerate the narrowing of the fields of candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides.

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Debate

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15:30 – 16:30 | Plenary session 4

Trade Agreements from the Viewpoint of Middle Powers

Kemal Dervis

Vice President and Director of Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution, former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey

[We] have to remember that at the end of the day the two arenas of politics and economics are linked, and a well-functioning world economy is another way to create hope, employment and jobs, and also to ease tensions which in the end will help the cause of peace.

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Bark Taeho

Professor at Seoul National University, former Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea

The multi-lateral trading system is really in great trouble and maybe it is now at a kind of critical crossroads. In response to that I think many parts of the world are moving for more bilateral FTAs, so far but very recently many countries are participating in a larger kind of scale that we call mega-regional trade agreements.

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Jonathan T. Fried

Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the WTO; former Associate Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Trade ; former Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister, Canada

The challenge of the trading system is to smooth the way in effect from the producer directly to the consumer and all the barriers along the way, not just at the border but throughout the stream of commerce.

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Bark Taeho

Professor at Seoul National University, former Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea

Korea has very many different FTAs including very big FTAs with the United States and the EU, but our consumers are complaining because we are not getting many benefits. The reason is that our distribution sector is not very competitive.

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Jonathan T. Fried

Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the WTO; former Associate Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Trade ; former Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister, Canada

In the light of the WTO’s success in dispute settlement and in forcing a code of rules within a limited universe, we tend to put too much weight on the WTO as the solution to everything.

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Debate

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16:30 – 17:30 | Plenary session 5

Do Firms have a Nationality?

Nicolas Barré

Managing Director, Les Echos

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Charles-Édouard Bouée

Chief Executive Officer, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

When you look at geopolitics, when you look at the economy, you see that, at the end of the day, there is still something behind companies. There is a nationality.

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Nelson Cunningham

President, McLarty Associates; former Special Advisor to President Clinton

Despite companies wanting to be local, it is impossible for them to run away from their national origins and from the flags that they carry.

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Tadakatsu Sano

Attorney-at-law at Jones Day; Former Chief Executive Assistant to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama

Because of the globalised capital market we do not know who really owns each company. Even though the company name is originally from the United States or France or Germany or somewhere else, you still do not know who owns and controls it.

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Nelson Cunningham

President, McLarty Associates; former Special Advisor to President Clinton

We learned then that the most important thing is actually not to be with an institution that is too big to fail, but rather to be with an institution that has its home in a country that is too big to fail.

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Charles-Édouard Bouée

Chief Executive Officer, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

I think the link between companies and their mother country’s government is, paradoxically, of growing importance. And it is reciprocal.

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Nelson Cunningham

President, McLarty Associates; former Special Advisor to President Clinton

There is tremendous pride in the US for having had a leading role in the Internet’s development, and the Internet has obviously been a magnet both for investment in the US, and for foreigners coming to the US.

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Tadakatsu Sano

Attorney-at-law at Jones Day; Former Chief Executive Assistant to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama

I think that China wants to create its own independent regime even in the fields of Internet, ICT and technology. One reason is because they use a completely different language than some others.

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Charles-Édouard Bouée

Chief Executive Officer, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

I think that any company, any institution has its own peculiarities at the beginning. Like human beings, companies have different styles, created by the founder or the founders.

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Debate

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17:30 – 18:00 | Coffee-break

18:00 – 19:30 | Plenary session 6

The future of the Middle East

Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Elisabeth Guigou

President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the French National Assembly

We have a common enemy, an ideology of death and destruction that clearly has nothing to do with Islam, but takes Islam hostage. We must confront this foe together because, if we do not, I fear it will continue to thrive.

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Youssef Amrani

Royal Cabinet, Morocco

We as Moroccans think that respecting the independence, the unity and the territorial integrity of states is essential. We cannot create more states, because more states means more vacuums, more ISIS, and more movement.

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Mona Makram Ebeid

Egyptian Senator and Member of the Senate Constitutional Committee

What reforms are needed to make Egypt’s security sector effective, accountable and in line with international human rights?

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Vitaly Naumkin

Scientific Director of the Oriental Studies Institute, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

We have to understand the future of the Middle East not only through the lens of terrorism and extremism but also through the lens of this crisis and how to solve it.

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Jim Hoagland

Contributing Editor to The Washington Post

Public opinion in the U.S. largely supports the President’s policies in the Middle East. […] But people are war-weary and eager not to get more deeply involved, and the President for his own reasons has augmented that support.

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Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

I would like to ask each of you to answer yes or no to the question whether the Iranian nuclear agreement is good news from the perspective of the reduction of the degree of chaos in the Middle East.

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Bernard Siman

Senior Fellow, Geopolitical Information Service AG

The regional state actors have clearly taken the position of abandoning the globalist agenda and the global game in favour of a classical zero-sum power struggle in their own back yards.

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Debate

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20:30 | Dinner debate

Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Patrick Pouyanné

Chief Executive Officer and President of the Executive Committee, Total

I think it would be useful to recall some facts about oil and gas, starting with the geography of oil and gas reserves and production. You’ll understand why oil and gas are intertwined with geopolitics in the countries I am going to mention.

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Debate

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08:00 – 09:30 | Plenary session 7

Security in Asia in a Historical Perspective

Dominique Moïsi

Special Advisor, Ifri

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Kim Hak-Joon

President of the Northeast Asian History Foundation; Chairman of the Asia Journalist Association, Republic of Korea

[…] Northeast Asia. It is the one and only sub-region where the world’s four major powers, that is, the US, Japan, China and Russia, can easily meet and interact and their respective interests compete.

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Mayankote Kelath Narayanan

Former Governor of West Bengal, India

[…] Asia also provides an example that stability is not the natural state as far as the global strategic environment is concerned. Peace, everywhere, tends to be highly elusive.

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Yukio Okamoto

Founder and President of Okamoto Associates, Inc., former Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan

Security and the fate of Asia is an integral part of a world in which Europe is one of the key members.

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Igor Yurgens

Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, professor of the Higher School of Economics, Russia

Russia is still in search for its Asian soul. It found its European soul many centuries ago, but then it felt offended by our European friends, felt betrayed in the sanctions period […] and rushed to Asia.

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Zhang Yunling

Professor of International Economics, Academy Member and Director of International Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS)

Regional security should be based on multiple institutions, on consultation, on self-restraint, and on more functional institutional arrangements to make the situation stable.

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Debate

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09:30 – 10:00 | Coffee-break

10:00 – 10:45 | Plenary session 8

Peaceful coexistence of religions?

Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Lionel Zinsou

Prime Minister of Benin

Le Bénin est, en Afrique de l’Ouest, un des pays qui voit une coexistence des religions extrêmement féconde et traditionnellement extrêmement apaisée, extrêmement pacifique, ce qui n’était pas une évidence.

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Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

Devant cette asymétrie entre la profondeur historique et le risque d’une destruction […], il n’y a pas de tâche plus importante, qui est de notre responsabilité à tous, que d’empêcher à tout prix pareil désastre.

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10:45 – 12:00 | Plenary session 9

Food and water security

Kemal Dervis

Vice President and Director of Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution, former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey

In terms of moving beyond poverty, without progress in ending hunger and food insecurity, we will never succeed in providing not only economic but social security and stability.

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Mostafa Terrab

Chairman and CEO, OCP Group

We need a global approach on the agricultural front, with a strong focus on Africa. Africa can help feed the world, so to speak.

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Arkebe Oqubay

Minister and Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia

When food security is linked to the broader human security issues, it is important that we consider whether Africa could be part of the problem or the solution. I am a firm believer that Africa could be part of the solution.

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Kostas Stamoulis

Director, Strategic Programme Leader, Food Security and Nutrition, FAO

Urbanisation will mean that some of the stresses on water resources will come from competition between agricultural water and water for other uses, including municipality water.

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Panelists debate

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Debate

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12:15 – 13:45 | Lunch debate

Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Thomas Bagger

Head of Policy Planning, German Federal Foreign Office

What is clear, I think, is that we have a renewed sense of the fragility of the European integration project, that it is not something that inevitably only moves forward in some teleological fashion.

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Peter Hill

Director, Strategy, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Are we under threat? Well, clearly, we face more threats than we probably have at any time in the history of the European Union, but how you deal with threats is a large part of how real those threats are.

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Justin Vaïsse

Director of the policy planning staff, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

I think that the reasons to be worried are well founded. If we look back 15 years ago, when we see Europe’s ambitions and Europe’s burst of enthusiasm in the 1990s, we are obviously in a very, very different place.

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Panelists debate

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Debate

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14:00 – 14:45 | Plenary session 10

Israeli-Palestinian dialogue

Jim Hoagland

Contributing Editor to The Washington Post

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Itamar Rabinovich

President of the Israel Institute, Distinguished Global Professor at New York University (NYU) and Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution

It is vital for us to separate from the Palestinians and to have a two state solution. This means a Palestinian state as a nation state of the Palestinian people and Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, coexisting peacefully with one another.

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Manuel Hassassian

Ambassador from Palestine to the United Kingdom; former representative at the Ministry of Higher Education and at the Association of Arab Universities

Today, the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis is a struggle for existence and it is also the struggle to maintain the national identity, the geography and the demography of the Palestinian people.

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Panelists debate

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Debate

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14:45 – 16:00 | Plenary session 11

The global challenges of the digital technologies

Francois Barrault

Chairman of Idate/DigiWorld Institute; former CEO of BT Global Services and a BT Group PLC board member

Not only has this digital transformation changed the way we live, but it has changed many aspects, like knowledge. For many years, knowledge has been an asset that people kept for themselves. Now, knowledge is something that people share […].

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Patrick Nicolet

Member of the Group Management Board, Capgemini

Big Data is primarily what is generated by connected devices. Another term used in our industry is the Internet of Things. Just to give you two numbers, in 2010, there were 12.5 billion connected devices.

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Fyodor Lukyanov

Editor in Chief, Russia in Global Affairs

If we look at […] the approach to this dilemma between freedom and security, what is more connected to the spread of the digital world and the Internet? This dilemma is absolutely the same in Russia as it is anywhere else and we see that trends are more or less similar to trends that we can see in the Western world.

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Mari Kiviniemi

Deputy Secretary-General, OECD, former Prime Minister of Finland

In order to be able to use the potential of digital technolgoies in the 21st century, keeping the Internet open and accessible is absolutely key.

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Susan Liautaud

Vice Chairman of the London School of Economics and Political Science Council and Court of governors, Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center of Philanthropy and Civil Society

Digitalisation […] has infiltrated all of the other global risks that come out in our discussions in this conference […]. When we are dealing with the ethics of digitalisation, by definition, we are also dealing with the ethics of all of these other risks.

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Debate

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16:15 – 19:15 | Parallel workshops

Workshop #1 – Energy

Bertrand Badré

Managing Director and Group Chief Financial Officer, World Bank

Energy is fundamental to economic growth and sustainable development. […] Energy underpins progress in all areas of development. When countries lack reliable, sustainable sources of energy, people and economies suffer.

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Olivier Appert

President, Conseil Français de l’Energie; former President, IFP Energies Nouvelles

The recent decline in the oil prices has been dramatic, by 50% in just a few months, and the question is, is it temporary or structural?

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Masood Ahmed

Director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department

I will not talk about the impact on the oil importing countries, because it is small and predictable. They all benefit a little bit from lower oil prices, but it does not change their outlook dramatically. However, for the oil exporting countries, it does have a dramatic impact.

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Tatsuo Masuda

Visiting professor at the NUCB Graduate School

Every time oil prices dropped in the past, they naturally rebounded. I would like to be able to say that history may repeat itself, but my evaluation is not this time. This is because of the energy transition taking place due to risks to the climate.

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Antoine Rostand

Senior Advisor, Schlumberger

The US are now producing enough gas to supply their own market, at a very competitive price. Gas is replacing coal, which is leading to a significant reduction in US carbon emissions. The US are now in a position where they can cover the global LNG market for anything between 20 and 50 years.

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Debate 1

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Pierre Sigonney

Chief Economist, Corporate Strategy Department, Total

There was already a crisis 7 years ago, with a strong drop in 2008, but it was very short, and it was due to the fall in demand. Today, it is quite different. It is much more a supply-crisis, because there has been in recent years a strong increase in light tight oil supply in the US.

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Nobuo Tanaka

Former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency; President, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

There is something interesting about the newest world energy outlook, which was revealed recently, about two weeks ago. The growth happens in Asia, in developing economies, and India, not China, will bring the largest increases up to 2040.

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Lee Hye-Min

G20 Sherpa, Ambassador for International Economic Affairs, Republic of Korea

Energy is fundamental to economic development. That is the reason why it is important for G20 countries to talk about energy issues in order to help address the energy challenges of today and the future.

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Debate 2

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Conclusion

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Workshop #2 – Economy and Finance

Jean-Claude Trichet

Former President, ECB

The external observers and investors were keen to mention that, despite the slowdown of the emerging economies […], it does not prevent them from remaining the major source of global growth in the years to come, and projections for 2020 are still flattering.

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First part

Global economy and various visions of it

Globally, the most likely outcome is for continued moderate growth, but it is worth noting that if the IMF’s base case forecast is correct, global growth will remain slightly below its medium- and long-term average. In this case, the outlook isn’t terrible, but it certainly is not great.

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Second part

Monetary policy

Was the unconventional monetary policy effective overall? Asking the economists in main central banks, they would say it was, and they would point to the lowering of interest rates throughout the whole interest rate curve; there is no doubt about it.

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Third part

G20 Financial Stability Board, financial supervision, rules, regulations, standards and codes

The global imbalances have still been considerably reduced, but you will tell me that they have been reduced under pressure of the crisis, not that it was a deliberate ex ante action. However, I would not say that this process has been useless.

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Conclusion, Jean-Claude Trichet

Former President, ECB

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Workshop #3 – China

Park In-Kook

President of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies; Co-chairman of the Beijing/Shanghai Forum

The rise of China is no longer news at all. […] But the rise of China’s economy also raises the question of whether the world is headed towards harmony and co-prosperity – or doomed to fall in the Thucydides Trap.

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Jia Qingguo

Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University

When people talk about China US relations, many argue that the relationship is heading for conflicts and confrontation and you can find a lot of conflicts to illustrate that point. […] However, that is just part of the story.

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Zhang Yunling

Professor of International Economics, Academy Member and Director of International Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS)

One [priority] is to deepen domestic reform, moving from building a market towards the market deciding. That is a fundamental change and it means that you need to change the role of the Government and the risk structure that is SOEs and many assets of the deepening of reform. This is a very hard work for China.

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Richard Cooper

Professor of International Economics at Harvard University

I think that the potential for cooperation is very strong and it is a question of skillful management in both Beijing and Washington to realise that potential. It is happening now in a number of areas and there are many possibilities going forward.

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Qiao Yide

Vice President & Secretary General, Shanghai Development Research Foundation

I will not address the Chinese issue today but rather will give an alternative perspective to address some reasons for the cognition gap between Chinese decision makers and international economists and investors on specific issues […].

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Bark Taeho

Professor at Seoul National University, former Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea

There are many reasons why we are not able to produce the outcome here and one is that the big trading nations, such as the United States and China, cannot find any common ground to conclude the negotiations.

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Michel Foucher

Chair of applied Geopolitics at College of World Studies; Former French Ambassador to Latvia; Former Director of the policy planning staff of the French Foreign Ministry

As regards the European perspective, it seems to me important to understand the Chinese view before coming to any conclusion.

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Debate

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19:30 – 20:00 | Cocktail

20:00 | Gala dinner

08:00 – 08:45 | Reports from parallel workshops

Marie-Claire Aoun

Director of the Center for Energy, Ifri

The workshop revealed […] the different perceptions we all have from the effects of this oil prices decline. One American participant told us that we should cheer up. […] Oil prices decline does not seem however to be a good news for international oil companies who are struggling to adapt their costs to these new conditions.

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Daniel Daianu

Member of the Board of the Central Bank of Romania; former Finance Minister of Romania

One has to accept the reality that the forecasts, which have been invalidated for years by dynamics, show that there will be lower economic growth rates in the immediate period to come. What does this indicate? There is still much that gives us food for thought, and one has to link it with what some people have called secular stagnation and the lack of investment.

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Park In-Kook

President of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies; Co-chairman of the Beijing/Shanghai Forum

The issue on China is too diversified and with too much magnifications. [Our] four items were: […] characteristic features of Sino-American relationship, […] the New Silk Road Initiative or One-Belt-One-Road, […] the Chinese stock market crash this summer and its impact [and] the internationalization of the Renminbi […].

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08:45 – 09:45 | Plenary session 12

Health and global governance

Christian Bréchot

President of the Institut Pasteur

We are living in the context of a new era of technology. Technology is transforming biomedical science, and we know this. It has a major impact for surveillance, for monitoring.

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Bertrand Badré

Managing Director and Group Chief Financial Officer, World Bank

It is not surprising that [the] decline in poverty goes hand in hand with accelerated improvement in health.

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Louise Fresco

President of Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands

Health is linked to the way we function as a planet. Pathogens have always been there […]. Therefore, I will argue that unless we link pathogens, or health more generally, to the ecosystem, we will not really get a grip on these issues.

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Debate

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09:45 – 11:30 | Plenary session 13

Climate and Environment

Introduction, Richard Cooper

Professor of International Economics at Harvard University

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Laurent Fabius

French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development

As you know, our main goal is to reach an agreement between governments, all governments, that will limit global warming from greenhouse gas emissions to two degrees or, if possible, 1.5 degree, by 2100.

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Yukari Niwa Yamashita

Board Member, Director, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ)

450ppm scenario is an ideal target which we may ultimately need to aim at but for more practical point of view, it may be more pragmatic to consider various scenarios and options other than only the 450ppm scenario. Just like our diet target, we need to be more realistic.

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Bruno Lafont

Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors, Lafarge Holcim Group

Most European companies, or the bulk of European industry, is in favour of a global agreement as soon as possible and is probably also in favour of an agreement which goes beyond what COP 21 will do.

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Jean-David Levitte

Distinguished fellow, Brookings Institution and member of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council of the United States; Former Senior Diplomatic Adviser and sherpa of President Nicolas Sarkozy

We are the first generation aware of the fact that global warming poses an existential threat to our planet’s future. We are also the last generation that can come up with a decisive solution to that existential threat.

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Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo

Chancellor, Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

We do have a special responsibility towards the Earth, for it is a gift that God created for humankind; we must therefore preserve and protect it as our own home because this is where we live.

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Debate

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11:30 – 12:15 | Plenary session 14

Iran and Middle East

Hossein Amirabdollahian

Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Countries, Iran

The current transitional period of Middle-East requires new security order and the secret of new security order of Middle-East are efficient inbreeding policies, collective role-playing of governments and considering legitimate demand of people.

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Q & A

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12:15 – 13:45 | Plenary session 15

Europe’s refugee crisis

Karl Kaiser

Director emeritus of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard University

Very often, one says of the present exodus that it is the biggest since the great flow of refugees immediately after World War Two. That comparison is only partially correct […]. The new flow is very different.

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Haïm Korsia

Chief Rabbi of France

The refugee issue is essential. It is even vital, insofar as there are two levels, in my opinion. The first is a political level, and others on this panel will be able to talk about that much better than I can. But there is also an individual level.

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Kemal Dervis

Vice President and Director of Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution, former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey

Claiming that there is a solution to what is happening, to the drama we are experiencing today, is unfortunately impossible. We must talk about how we have reached this point and what the underlying causes are.

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Vuk Jeremic

President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), former President of the UN General Assembly, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia

The refugee crisis is perhaps the most serious crisis that Europe has come to face since the end of the Second World War. The very foundations—of values, institutions, and tenets—of the European construct are in danger as a result of this.

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Sergei Karaganov

Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the non-governmental Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia

We have to understand the magnitude of the problem. It is not just Syria, but Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries down the list, and then there is Africa. We have a problem of several million people and maybe even more than several ready to come.

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Hubert Védrine

Former French Foreign Minister

Migratory flows will continue growing worldwide. It is absolutely necessary for the departure countries, the transit countries and the arrival countries to move towards co-management.

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Debate

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14:00 – 15:00 | Lunch

15:00 – 16:45 |  Plenary session 16

Final debate

Dominique Moïsi

Special Advisor, Ifri

Ce qui m’a frappé dans cette huitième édition de la World Policy Conference, c’est un certain nombre de moments […] où nous avons parlé d’identité et où je me suis rendu compte que le grand péché du monde occidental n’était pas nécessairement l’arrogance, mais tout simplement le manque de curiosité.

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Ribal Al-Assad

Founder and Director of the Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria and Chairman of the Iman Foundation

We should not be focusing on the brand name. ISIS is only a brand. We should go after the underlying, poisonous ideology and all groups who share it.

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Meir Sheetrit

Member of the Israeli Knesset

I have come to the conclusion that the best way to achieve peace is through the Arab initiative, or what is called the Saudi Initiative. […] The Saudis came out with an initiative which in my opinion is very courageous and also very wise.

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Miguel Angel Moratinos

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain

I think Europe has something to say in the global governance that is taking shape. We have got a responsibility, and the best way to make our voices heard in this new world is by listening, identifying problems and addressing all the complexity you have mentioned several times in various talks.

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Bilahari Kausikan

Ambassador-at-Large and Policy Advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore

I heard Asia described as being divided into two blocks. One is the China led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) block and the other is the US led Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) block. This is at best a caricature and in fact, it is profoundly misleading.

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Narendra Taneja

Chairman, Energy Security Group of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)

In my opinion, this will be Africa’s century, and countries like India, China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia will play a big role in helping that happen.

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Renaud Girard

Journalist at Le Figaro, Editor at Questions Internationales

War has changed since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, when the signatories sincerely, but vainly, hoped to ban war as the continuation of politics by other means once and for all. Now it has many faces, all of them, of course, bearing the scars of history.

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Dominique Moïsi

Special Advisor, Ifri

Let us not get trapped by our own emotion. Let us distinguish between the reality and the way we want it to be. In a way, it is a summary of everything we said during this eighth edition of the WPC.

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16:45 | Envoi