08:00 – 09:00 | Opening session
Noura Al Kaabi
Minister of State of the United Arab Emirates
Before we start, we must acknowledge the devastating events happening in our region. Since the war in Gaza broke out, we express our deepest condolences for the loss of civilian lives, and our thoughts go to those who have lost loved-ones as a result of this conflict.
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Executive Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
The WPC rejects simplistic political classifications, and its point of view is not aligned with that of the great powers, whatever they may be. It gives voice to the “middle powers”, i.e. States that, without necessarily being endowed with large resources, are nevertheless determined to devote some of them to making a positive contribution to global governance.
Laurence Boone
Secretary of State for European Affairs
My message for the opening of this conference is very simple: we are living in a period of proliferating crises. And yet we have no choice but to cooperate. Let us be clear: cooperation is not so much a moral imperative as an existential one.
09:00 – 10:00 | Plenary session 1
The Major Mid-Term Issues of the Global Economy in an Adverse Geopolitical Context
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, former President of the European Central Bank, Honorary Governor of the Banque de France
I would just highlight that technology is a major driving-force, and we are experiencing something particularly striking with the emergence of artificial intelligence. This is only the start; science and technology are progressing very rapidly.
Gabriel Felbermayr
Director of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO), former President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Given recent system-shocks, this comes as no surprise. What we should take away from this is not only divergences across the Atlantic, China and Europe, but a relative lack of collapse. Resilience is what we should see here. The FIAT recession, if it comes to the Eurozone, will be a mild one. We are not facing an imminent disaster.
Sébastien Jean
Senior Associate of Ifri, Professor of Economics at CNAM University
A recent paper defined this situation as one of geo‑finance, to reflect the fact that it is marked by the increasing politicization of information and financial flows. This differs somehow from what we used to think of as geo-economic competition in the 1990’s or 2000’s.
John Lipsky
Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
Based on the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, global growth is slowing, and is expected to remain subpar for the coming 5 years or more, while inflation is not expected to return to its pre-pandemic rate until 2025. In these circumstances, the actual evolution of inflation will be a key to the outlook.
Marcus Noland
Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
Likewise, the legislation incentivized use of non-Chinese minerals in the production of the batteries for those cars, and due to our vision that essentially endorses production and free-trade partners, it has created a strange phenomenon in Washington where Korean firms who build the batteries are lobbying the US government to conclude free trade agreements with Indonesia, Philippines, Argentina.
Speakers debate
Debate
10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 2
World Economic Order Still Conceivable in a Foreseeable Future?
Masood Ahmed
President of the Center for Global Development, former Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF
It is difficult today to discuss the economic outlook without talking about changes in the structure of international relations and what that means for economics.
Aminata Touré
former Prime Minister of Senegal
We really need to look into the new world we want to build through what we are doing now – discussing, but discussing very honestly – and having the courage to put issues on the table. We are unhappy with the state of international affairs.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation
We can see the current order is still there but, at the same time, we have already seen signs of change or decoupling happen. In the World Economic Outlook, the IMF’s annual report, the word ‘fragmentation’ was mentioned 172 times in this year’s version while, five years ago, ‘fragmentation’ was only mentioned once. That is a very interesting phenomenon
Lee Hye-min
Senior Advisor of KIM & CHANG, former G20 Sherpa of Korea, former Ambassador for International Economic Affairs of the Republic of Korea
Deglobalization since the financial crisis of 2008 and Covid‑19 has significantly strengthened government regulations. Climate change and digitalization of the global economy require a stronger government intervention, as we need new rules on these issues.
Pierre Jacquet
Professor of Economics at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC), member of the Cercle des Économistes
An international economic order is a negotiated agreement that balances national interests with international cooperation. The emerging set of global rules and institutions is not stable over time.
Vladislav Inozemtsev
Director of the Center for Post-Industrial Studies in Moscow, Special Advisor to Middle East Media Research Institute’s Russia Media Studies Project in Washington, DC.
I believe that for at least several decades the global economy will experience an age of creative destruction with the cutting-edge technologies making it less predictable than at any other stage in human history, so therefore we should talk not so much of a new order than rather of a set of frameworks which can somehow help us to make the current developments a bit more orderly.
Yann Coantanlem
CEO of DataCore Innovations LLC, President of Club Praxis
If we really want to build a new vibrant multilateral organization, we need to meet, in my view, two conditions. One is to define clear mutual benefits, and the second is to have strong, equal, players.
Speakers debate
Debate
11:30 – 12:00 | Plenary session 3
Conversation with Leung Chun-ying
Leung Chun-ying
Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, former Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China
I think we could use a lot more people-to-people dialogue between the two sides, which is something that I have been facilitating myself. People need to see for themselves what political and socioeconomic life is about on the mainland. That is something that we are not doing enough of.
13:00 – 14:15 | Plenary session 4
Geopolitics and Global Trade: What Can Be Done Today?
Nikolaus Lang
Managing Director and Senior Partner, Global Leader GA Practice Area of Boston Consulting Group
As leaders constantly ponder and ask questions about the future of geopolitics, BCG has developed a few scenarios that describe what the world could look like in 2030. These scenarios range from “Back to the Future” at one end to “Global Escalation” at the other, with “Limited Stalemate” and “Multipolar World” in the middle.
Nicolas Terraz
President of Exploration & Production, member of the Executive Committee of TotalEnergies
In this changing global trade pattern, one key factor is the energy transition and the need to address climate change. In TotalEnergies, we believe that our role, our mission, is to provide more energy with less emissions.
Penelope Naas
Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, former President of International Public Affairs and Sustainability at UPS
Risks are generally not what the last crisis was. It is something new, usually something that surprises you and, while it might occasionally be a black swan, what hits you is usually something that is within your control.
Bark Taeho
President of Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute, former Minister for Trade of Korea
Major countries are utilizing subsidies, trade and investment measures to achieve their national objectives in various areas, including national security, economy, technology, society, and more. However, some of these measures may violate the multilateral trade norms of the WTO.
Jay Truesdale
CEO of Veracity Worldwide
They are seeking to build a taxonomy to map the various risks that they face. Financial firms have done this over the course of the last 25 years increasingly well, in part due to regulatory requirements that have been placed on them.
Speakers debate
Debate
14:15 – 15:00 | Plenary session 5
Climate Change: Is There Still a Collective Will?
Introduction
I could not have asked for two better individuals to guide us through this very timely, indeed, conversation – a few weeks before COP28, right here in this very country.
Need of COPs
First of all, it is about the just energy transition and, because ourselves as a country are going through this transition, we understand we need political will; we need money; we need to build up the national capacity; we need to diversify.
Food insecurity
We are trying to make the COP28 the most inclusive COP ever done. What I mean by this is the indigenous people, the women, the youth, faith-based organizations, all coming together because what they have in common is about doing more to respect nature. Bringing them all together and making sure that all voices from across the world are here is our commitment
COP 28
The international context is different today: diplomatic relations are more complex, the climate situation is worsening, and we are off-track from previous commitments. This year’s COP28 in Dubai is set in the continuity of preceding COPs.
15:00 – 15:30 | Plenary session 6
Conversation with Dmytro Kuleba
Dmytro Kuleba
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
I think that there is no room for deadlines when it comes to the fight for territorial integrity and sovereignty of any country.
15:30 – 16:15 | Plenary session 7
Reconfiguration of the International System: Short and Long-Term Perspectives in the Eurasian Region
Situation in Ukraine
As Kazakhstan which is a peace-loving country that does not have problematic relations with any country, we naturally want the solution as soon as possible. We are prepared to help, to serve as a negotiating platform if Russia and Ukraine want our services.
Situation in Armenia
On the global level, I think the biggest challenge is how to make sure that the United Nations system works again. Our President addressed this issue in numerous statements, including at the United Nations General Assembly, stating that the role of the General Assembly needs to be strengthened as the most representative body and the Security Council needs to be reformed.
Foreign policy of Kazakhstan and Armenia
Nobody knows better than us the horror of war. We witnessed it back in the 90s and in 2020. We are still witnessing the consequences of the recent military aggression of September 19, 2023, as a result of which Nagorno-Karabakh and 100,000 people were forced to displace and basically Nagorno-Karabakh is ethnically cleansed.
Major challenges for Kazakhstan and Armenia
We are diversifying the markets from where we are buying weapons, which are for defensive purpose only. France and India are some of our partners. We are determined to cooperate in this sphere with other colleagues as well, bearing in mind that we have a right to protect our sovereignty and territorial integrity, and we do not have any intention to attack any of our neighbors.
16:15 – 17:30 | Plenary session 8
2024: A Critical Electoral Year
Virginie Robert
Foreign Desk Editor at Les Échos, Vice President of the European-American Press Club in Paris
In 2022 the world has entered the longest democratic recession every observed, which means that for the sixth consecutive year democratic values are losing ground everywhere.
Isabelle Lasserre
Diplomatic Correspondent for Le Figaro
2024 will be an incredible year in terms of the elections organized absolutely everywhere, in India, the world’s biggest democracy, South Africa, Iran, Brazil, Nigeria, Taiwan, Russia, maybe Ukraine of course, the European elections in Europe and the USA.
Jean-Claude Gruffat
Member of United Way Leadership Council, board member of Atlas Network, Managing Director of Weild and Co LLC New York
The US elections next year in November 2024 is expected by many to be a remake of 2020, with a close race for Congress and a toss up for the President. Is there a chance that we avoid another dreadful choice between Biden and Trump?
Hiroyuki Akita
Commentator of Nikkei, Japan
U.S. voters have become increasingly divided between Democratic and Republican supporters, effectively creating a political civil war. U.S. presidential election in November 2024, whether President Biden or Mr. Trump wins, would result in a further deepening polarization in the US.
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management board of the Institute of Contemporary Development in Moscow
Do not forget that Russia is a seventh of the world’s land mass with a hundred nations and nationalities and it is very telling and interesting to know who reacts to what and how at the current stage of serious geopolitical conflict.
Jean-Claude Gruffat
Member of United Way Leadership Council, board member of Atlas Network, Managing Director of Weild and Co LLC New York
The US elections next year in November 2024 is expected by many to be a remake of 2020, with a close race for Congress and a toss up for the President. Is there a chance that we avoid another dreadful choice between Biden and Trump?
Debate
17:30 – 18:45 | Plenary session 9
Food Security in a Context of Political Turbulence
Jean-Michel Severino
President of Investisseurs & Partenaires
We also have this threat around climate and this big question of whether food and agriculture are going to be a climate ally or will there be a lasting conviction between producing food and fighting climate change.
Máximo Torero Cullen
Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Assistant Director General for the Economic and Social Development Department of the FAO
Our agri-food systems need to be transformed to achieve this carbon neutralization. For this we need to improve governance of natural resources, improve productivity, which means producing more from less, improve production practices, improve consumption patterns and behavior and use cleaner energy.
Sam Okwulehie
Chairman and CEO of LATC
The interesting thing is that protectionism starts to make food a weapon because there is social unrest in these countries as a result of these situations, and problems like migration with a lot of people migrating from Africa to Europe and the Mediterranean Sea now becoming almost a cemetery.
Kamel Abdallah
Managing Director and CEO of Canal Sugar
In Egypt 70 million people out of around 110 to 120 million people receive some kind of food subsidy for bread. However, this model is not sustainable, governments cannot continue to run budget deficits and we had another complication with the health crisis in the region.
Park Yong-joo
Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Global Business Operations at PlanTFarm
The question is whether controlled environment agriculture, CEA, technology can be the solution to food crises or shortages.
Debate speakers
Debate
19:00 | Dinner debate with Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, former President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, former Prime Minister of Australia
I continue to be a realist on US-China relations, there are certain structural things that have not changed. Number one, China is more powerful, militarily, economically and technologically, than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
08:30 – 09:45 | Plenary session 10
Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and Dependencies
Patrick Nicolet
CEO of Linebreak Ltd., former Group Chief Technology Officer of Capgemini
In Artificial Intelligence because every time there is a breakthrough in technology there is a discussion about the utopian or dystopian perspective. The question is whether it will destroy or save the world and the answer is neither for the simple reason that the technology is ultimately a machine.
Daniel Andler
Professor Emeritus at Sorbonne University, member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, philosopher
The dream of a machine that would be genuinely intelligent, a true thinking machine, one that would possess “artificial general intelligence” or AGI, or again “human-level intelligence” is alive again.
Kazuto Suzuki
Director of the Institute of Geoeconomics at International House of Japan, Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo, Japan
I think some of the questions touch upon the demand side of AI and I think most of the regulations are now focusing on the supply side, on how to apply ethics in the way AI is designed and used.
Ameena Al Sumaiti
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi
We needed the power of AI to take the weather impact into account in our planning problem and we made sure that no accidents will take place when we program our autonomous vehicles.
Tobby Simon
Founder and Chairman of Synergia
The moment you use AI there is a vulnerability, it is a like a boomerang, it can possibly ping you back. The attack involves data poisoning and data manipulation, thereby rendering AI very ineffective.
François Barrault
Founder and Chairman of FDB Partners, Chairman of IDATE DigiWorld
We have talked a lot about AI and there are three pillars in it. Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Intelligence has three pillars: the hardware, the transmission (fiber, satellite and Mobile 5G) and the software.
Debate
09:45 – 10:45 | Plenary session 11
Semiconductors and Geopolitical Trends: An Opportunity to Strengthen Relationships
Paul Boudre
Silian Partner, former CEO of Soitec
Handel Jones
Founder and CEO of International Business Strategies (IBS)
China is trying to do some mature technologies, which will be okay for a while, but there is going to be a point where China will push back and that will potentially create significant supply chain issues on a global basis. That may occur in 2025, 2026 or 2027, but it will happen.
Max Masood Mirgoli
Executive Vice President of worldwide strategic partnerships at Imec
It is imperative hence today that for any country to participate in the digital transformation as it is commonly said that today “ DATA is the new OIL “ and economic opportunities that technology can bring to any economy, all being based on advancements of Semiconductors is simply impossible to ignore.
Helmut Gassel
former Management board member of Infineon
Beside the benefits to Europe now getting from advanced manufacturing being brought into the region, Europe has its own strength in certain areas. One is automotive, where I would say that 50% of the semiconductors for automotive are being designed and to a large extent manufactured in Europe today, so it is a very great strength.
Debate
10:45 – 12:00 | Plenary session 12
Innovative Leaders: How Can Carbon Credit Contribute to Net Zero?
Lucia Sinapi-Thomas
Executive Director of Capgemini Ventures
More and more corporates are publicly stating their targets to net zero and are actively working on their decarbonization plans, which by the way very often translate into investments for modernizing their industrial estates.
Annette Nazareth
Chair of the board Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Credits (ICVCM)
By implementing the core carbon principles and encouraging market participants to embrace these high integrity credits, we are creating an ecosystem where the value of emissions reductions are appropriately recognized and rewarded and I believe this will unlock greater capital flows and drive innovation and catalyze the development and deployment of truly impactful climate solutions.
Matt Atwood
Founder and CEO of Aircapture
Aircapture is a US-based company that develops direct air capture technology. What we do in the simplest terms is build machines that use a fan which pulls air through the machine and the CO2, carbon dioxide from the air is collected on a surface of contactor substrates inside the machine.
Kristinn Ingi Lárusson
Head of Business Development and Commercialization of Carbfix
There are simple chemical components in the bedrock itself and in our case we need three ingredients. First we need CO2, second we need basaltic rock and third, we need water. What we do here is dissolve the CO2 in water and then gently inject into the bedrock.
Sam Gill
Co-Founder and President of Sylvera
If we were all to agree that if a carbon credit needs to be storing carbon for 100 years, for example, to be acceptable, that would allow the market to start engineering horizontal or vertical stacking approaches to allow different types of carbon to be used in portfolios.
Maryam Al Mansoori
General Manager of Rebound
The plastics recycling market today definitely faces a challenge of typically this is an economy. Financially companies will not pay more to introduce recycled plastics into their finished products if the virgin plastic is cheaper.
Debate
13:30 -14:45 | Plenary session 13
The West after the Ukraine War
Terry Martin
Journalist, TV news anchor
This is an important debate and important points you are bringing up with the whole question about the Global South and how it perceives what is going on. I also take your point on the West, and whether or not it is a useful term.
Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj
former President of Mongolia
The second half of those 10 issues are related to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the withdrawal of Russian troops, a special tribunal, the security structure and confirmation of the end of the war, including signing a document. This is Ukraine’s peace formula.
Bogdan Klich
Senator in the Polish Parliament, Chairman of the Foreign and EU Affairs Committee in the Polish Senate
I would say that the results of the NATO Summit in Vilnius recently were a good sign for implementing the decisions that were taken a year ago during the Madrid Summit. We should go this way to implement the new model of forces responsible for reinforcing those countries that could be attacked in the future.
Zaki Laïdi
Personal Advisor to the High Representative and Vice President of the Commission EEAS
The other achievement is that the level of consensus among Europeans is still very strong, with of course some caveats, but by and large it is extremely strong. That is because all European states see in Ukraine a challenge to their security.
Norbert Röttgen
member of the Deutscher Bundestag and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee
There are increasing doubts whether the United States will continue in this role as number one security provider for Europe. This is only one reason we are not going to see an end to this war until the presidential elections.
Speakers debate
Debate
14:45 – 16:15 | Plenary session 14
Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific between Security Concerns and Economic Opportunities
John Andrews
Author, journalist and contributing editor to The Economist
Whatever the current crises are the medium and long-term questions geopolitically and economically will be in the IndoPacific region. If you take the region, you could argue that it has far too many nuclear powers.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan
Senior Researcher Emeritus at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) attached to the French Research Institute on East Asia (IFRAE) of the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations, Professor Emeritus at Hong Kong Baptist University
The slowdown in China also has other consequences, such as the fact that the BRI, the Belt Road Initiative, now has less steam in its engine, with less money being invested in it today. I think this gives other players an opportunity to play a bigger role in the Indo-Pacific region and the Global South as a whole.
Yuichi Hosoya
Professor of International Politics at Keio University in Tokyo
Japan is the third largest economy in the world and has decided to double its defense budget to enhance Japanese deterrence in the region. This is mainly because the US government has repeatedly asked Japan to do this, and there are so many uncertainties and the regional powers must take more responsibility than before.
Kim Chang-beom
Vice Chairman and CEO of the Federation of Korean Industries
The most fundamental threat or risk being felt on the business level is undoubtedly the US-China rivalry. As this rivalry intensifies, governments of big and even middle powers, are trying to adopt more protective measures and sometimes to fortify their own economic structures and economic security.
Hervé Mariton
Mayor of Crest, Chairman of the Franco-British Council, Chairman of the Federation of Overseas Companies (FEDOM)
France is an Indo-Pacific country through its presence and connection, the presence is several territories in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific with more than one and a half million inhabitants.
Mayankote Kelath Narayanan
former Senior Advisor and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India (Manmohan Singh), former Governor of West Bengal
China wants to be the number one power in Asia and it is the only country standing between it is India, so they will try to belittle India and reduce its sphere of influence. However, we do not see China as a dangerous adversary so much as an imminent threat we have to face.
Douglas Paal
Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Program Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Despite a slowing economy, China continues to develop unprecedented military capabilities. The US is challenged to upgrade its own military capabilities while being compelled to provide assistance to Ukraine and now the Israelis in Gaza.
Speakers debate
Debate
Whatever the current crises are the medium and long-term questions geopolitically and economically will be in the IndoPacific region. If you take the region, you could argue that it has far too many nuclear powers.
16:15 – 16:45 | Plenary session 15
Conversation with Anwar Gargash
Anwar Gargash
Diplomatic Advisor to the President of the United Arab Emirates
We always have to recognize that Arab public opinion rightfully is very emotional when it comes to the Palestinian issue, this is something that you have read about and you have been brought up with and so on and so forth.
16:45 – 19:15 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Economy and Finance
Jean-Claude Trichet
président de l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques, ancien président de la Banque centrale européenne, gouverneur honoraire de la Banque de France
We are relatively confident at this stage, despite the abominable tensions that we have to cope with, geostrategic tensions, we know that a lot of surprises, unfortunate surprises can come and that we have to be prepared for everything.
Masood Ahmed
President of the Center for Global Development, former Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF
First, in financing climate, we should think separately about how to support adaptation and mitigation. For mitigation, we need to adopt an approach which maximizes the emissions impact globally rather than thinking of this as a sort of add-on for every country to avoid wasting money.
Bertrand Badré
Managing Partner and Founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, former Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank Group
In a nutshell private flows are diminishing, they are miniscule and they are diminishing, it is less than 4% of European AUM which goes to emerging markets, less than 2% of American AUM, so it is very small.
Akinari Horii
Special Advisor and member of the Board of Directors of the Canon Institute for Global Studies
In light of both the full employment at present and fiscal stimulus in the pipeline, the Federal Reserve may begin to lower the federal fund rate target in 2024 but it would do so only to the extent consistent with increases in the unemployment rate.
Pierre Jacquet
Professor of Economics at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC), member of the Cercle des Économistes
The bridge is called debt and I think that this pathology of the international system is the risk of emergence of a new debt crisis with considerable impact, especially for countries in Africa, but not only.
André Lévy-Lang
Founder and Chairman of the Louis Bachelier Institute, former CEO of Banque Parisbas
Jean-Claude mentioned about the embedded negative risks of the financial system, number five was cryptocurrencies. Let me make a comment on financial innovation and its impact on finance by starting with cryptocurrencies. They are not a systemic risk.
John Lipsky
Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
For most of the period post-World War Two, trade expansion was driven by cost and efficiency considerations. These economic incentives for expanding trade were created through market opening, reductions in restrictions, and the lowering of tariffs, among other measures.
Jean-Claude Meyer
Vice Chairman International of Rothschild & Cie
The stock markets should remain volatile and relatively flat until the third quarter of next year. The US stock markets and the Japanese one could go up slightly more than the European stock markets which will remain bumpy, but naturally all stock markets will go up again as soon of course of interest rates will appear, i.e., end of next year.
Debate
Workshop #2 – Energy, Climate and Technology
Olivier Appert
Chairman of France Brevets, Scientific Advisor of the Center for Energy and Climate of Ifri, former President of the French Energy Council
This workshop today will discuss the opportunities and challenges to achieve the goals of energy security, sustainability, affordability, acceptability and resilience, from the perspective of different geographic stakeholders which map out credible and realistic pathways through this most demanding period.
Nicolas Terraz
President of Exploration and Production, member of the Executive Committee of TotalEnergies
At TotalEnergies, we see, more or less, the oil production stabilizing over the decade, and then starting to decline from 2030 to reach a level in 2050, when we aim to be carbon neutral, of somewhere between 40 million and 60 million barrels per day compared to 100 million today.
Jean Abiteboul
President of GIIGNL (International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers), Non Executive board member of Tellurian, Inc. (AMEX: TELL), Founder and Chairman of JA Energy Consulting
In Europe, LNG has filled the gap created by the disruption of Russian gas. To make it simple, in Europe, the Russian gas has been replaced by LNG from the US.
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management board of the Institute of Contemporary Development in Moscow
We have got to understand that, whether it is energy or climate, we need to engage the whole world. Unless the discussion or the conversation is truly global, we will actually end up reaching the wrong conclusions and, when the conclusions are wrong, solutions that we propose to the world, or to the people of Europe, will not produce any results.
Narendra Taneja
Chairman of Independent Energy Policy Institute in New Delhi
The Russian Federation started a real integration into the ESG world. There is a carbon regulation, there is a sustainable finance regulation, there is a regulation of ESG risks by the central bank, and we created a methodical framework for taking all of those ESG factors into the development of industry in the Russian Federation.
Xavier Ploquin
Investment Director and Chief of Staff to the CEO of Meridiam
I think that a good way of probably discussing energy transition, and it will also involve the southern countries, is to focus on resilience, adaptation and sovereignty. Most of the climate adaptation strategies also have a benefit on mitigation. People are ready to accept adaptation measures because it will give them more value for money.
Valérie Ducrot
Executive Director of Global Gas Centre
We are only talking about renewables at the UN, at the COP, etc., and this is a disaster for the global south. This is a disaster, like you mentioned here, for even the citizens from the north or west or whatever you want to call it, and it is a complete disaster. However, we have to be here. We have to occupy the field.
Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega
Director of the Center for Energy & Climate of Ifri
We need a predictable, stable oil price that allows consumers to afford the energy, but still to transition, and the companies and the governments to have the resources to invest in the alternatives.
Debate
Workshop #3 – Economic and Social Issues in the Middle East
Abdulrahman A. Al Hamidy
Director General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors at the Arab Monetary Fund
It is predicted that, like the rest of the world, economic growth in Arab countries will be affected by several factors this year and the next including slower global growth, tight global and regional financial conditions, volatile commodity prices and country specific factors.
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator, Advisor to the UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, former member of Parliament
Egypt’s long-standing dependence on fuel and food imports has bloated its foreign debt, thanks in part to the war in Ukraine and Covid-19. In addition, securing international financing has grown more costly and domestic subsidies continue to drain government resources.
Abdulrahman Al Neyadi
Director of Policy Planning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the UAE
Countering extremist messaging is not enough. We need a longer-term vision of enhancing education, educational systems, encouraging and building resilience in society by educating our youth in critical thinking. It is also very important to work on empowering women and youth.
Raed Charafeddine
Central and Commercial Banker, former First Vice Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon
Lebanon is grappling with an unprecedented economic crisis exacerbated by regional turmoil, public finance challenges, and various other factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Beirut Port explosion. The macroeconomic scene in Lebanon has drastically shifted since 2019, with the regress of trade, tourism, investment, and consumption, while government spending has steeply declined.
Ernesto Damiani
Professor at Khalifa University for the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Director of the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems (C2PS)
Regional processes and inter-regional processes are particularly important in this region because we are in a place that is a hub between the East and West. I do not want to approach this from the point of view of the economist or politician because it is really not my way, but this make it a very fascinating place for the technologist.
François Gouyette
former Ambassador of France to the UAE and to Saudi Arabia
The Middle East is also a mosaic of nations with complex relationship. Increased regional cooperation is essential to address shared challenges, such as water scarcity, refugees and regional security. Diplomacy should always prevail over conflicts, the war that is raging between Israel and Hamas as we are speaking today, must reinforce our convictions in this respect.
Memduh Karakullukçu
Founding board member of the Global Relations Forum, Founding Partner of Kanunum, Chairman of Kroton Consulting
Unemployment is high, youth unemployment is still high, the informal economy is still huge, participation by women is still very low. When it comes to the quality of jobs, they are still low-skilled, low-paid and low-tech, so there is not much change there.
Kamel Abdallah
Managing Director and CEO of Canal Sugar
Do we have reliable, efficient delivery of water in the region? We do not. It is getting there and technology is helping a lot and thanks to that we are now being more self‑sufficient in food production in the region, but it is still not enough.
Debate
09:00 – 10:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
Pierre Jacquet
Professor of Economics at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC), member of the Cercle des Économistes
The bridge is called debt and I think that this pathology of the international system is the risk of emergence of a new debt crisis with considerable impact, especially for countries in Africa, but not only.
Marc-Antoine Eyle-Mazzega
Director of the Center for Energy & Climate of Ifri
We need a predictable, stable oil price that allows consumers to afford the energy, but still to transition, and the companies and the governments to have the resources to invest in the alternatives.
François Gouyette
former Ambassador of France to the UAE and to Saudi Arabia
The Middle East is also a mosaic of nations with complex relationship. Increased regional cooperation is essential to address shared challenges, such as water scarcity, refugees and regional security. Diplomacy should always prevail over conflicts, the war that is raging between Israel and Hamas as we are speaking today, must reinforce our convictions in this respect.
10:00 – 11:00 | Plenary session 16
In Search of Hope for a Better World
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Executive Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
I think our discussion shows that it was a great and beautiful initiative because of its symbolism. In this session, talked a lot about time, and I believe that time is indeed the root of everything.
H.H. Bartholomew 1st
Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
Globalization has unified the world in a superficial way. Today, there are strong trends towards fragmentation, a reorganization of space that goes beyond the economic dimension. The divides that are emerging or re-emerging are also political, geopolitical and identity-based.
Mohamed Abdelsalam
Secretary General of Muslim Council of Elders
This is the same region that, to our profound regret, suffers today from a bloody and devastating war which, at every moment, claims the lives of innocent civilians, presenting a scene that imposes a collective responsibility upon us all: not only towards the innocent casualties and the children, but towards our whole humanity worldwide.
Haïm Korsia
Chief Rabbi of France
I think it would be mistaken to reduce the conflict between Israel and Hamas to one between faiths. No religion in the world can encourage or incite the massacre of children, hatred and absolute violence.
11:00 – 12:30 | Plenary session 17
Are We Ready for the Next Pandemic?
Michel Kazatchkine
Special Advisor to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe
Key figures on Covid 19 show us that the political attention and the public opinion/attention is rapidly waning, what people call the cycle of “panic and neglect”. We are actually in a phase of neglect.
Antoine Flahault
Director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, Director of the Swiss School of Public Health
It becomes apparent that while they may excel in crisis management, our policymakers seem less adept at proactive prevention.
Els Torreele
Visiting Policy Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose in London
While the scientific community was able to create life‑saving vaccines in record time, the main failure of our collective Covid response was that many countries were precluded from timely and equitable access to these vaccines, resulting in avoidable suffering and deaths.
Maha Barakat
Assistant Minister for Health and Life Sciences at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the UAE
If countries implement the Paris Agreement by the year 2050, we could be saving one million lives every year, just from pollution alone.
Michel Kazatchkine
Special Advisor to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe
‘Are we ready for a next pandemic?’. To me, the answer is no, we are not, but it is our choice if we want it to be so. It is a choice now to put in place measures that will allow us to identify new outbreaks rapidly and to respond to them in speed where and when they occur, and prevent an infectious outbreak from becoming an epidemic or becoming a pandemic.
Haruka Sakamoto
Primary care physician and Senior Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research
Even if we succeed in vaccination research and development, we need several million vaccinations. However, usually a country does not have such manufacturing capabilities. Therefore, whenever a global pandemic happens, we need to collaborate with a country which has the manufacturing capacity on a large scale.
Jacques Biot
board member and Advisor to companies in the field of digital transformation and artificial intelligence, former member of the executive committee of Roussel-Uclaf and Pasteur Mérieux Serums and Vaccines
Overall, retrospective statistics show that there was a wide disparity of performances relative to morbidity, lethality and resulting mortality on the continent, which could suggest that ‘there was no such thing as Europe’.
Debate
13:30 – 14:45 | Plenary session 18
Securing Critical Minerals for the Clean-Tech Transition
Friedbert Pflüger
Director of the European Cluster for Climate, Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) at the University of Bonn, Founding Partner of Strategic Minds Company GmbH
Philippe Chalmin
Founder of Cercle Cyclope, Professor Emeritus at Paris-Dauphine University
By 2030, that is more or less tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, copper and nickel demand should grow by 70%, cobalt by 150%, and even the demand for graphite and lithium should be multiplied by six or seven.
Jonathan Cordero
Head of Corporate Development at Eurasian Resources Group (ERG)
Policymakers need to be open to mining as an industry. We are seeing this in the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia has made mining the third pillar of Vision 2030, but we also see adverse forces in Latin America and a mere standstill in Europe.
Christophe Poinssot
Deputy CEO and Scientific Director of the Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières (BRGM)
We have some long but weak value chains, which can be perturbed by any event that could occur and we had a large number of disruptions over the last years, regardless of the size of disruption. We need to also remember the key role of China.
Nicolas Piau
Co-Founder & CEO of Tilt Capital
Let us be clear – today, when we are saying, ‘We need to mine more. We need to refine more’, who are the recipients of those materials? It is the rich population of the more developed countries.
Speakers debate
Debate
14:45 – 16:15 | Plenary session 19
Middle East: What in the Next Few Months
Terry Martin
Journalist, TV news anchor
The attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s response have shattered the status quo and put a big question mark over the immediate future of this region.
Nabil Fahmy
Dean Emeritus at the American University in Cairo, former Foreign Minister of Egypt
My point really here is we need to have an Arab/Israeli process that leads to Arabs and Israelis living peacefully in the Middle East and, at the core of that, are the Palestinians and the Israelis. That will require an ending of occupation.
Dorothée Schmid
Head of the Turkey/Middle East program at Ifri
My concern is that this moment of flou could freeze into ‘the West against the rest’ and Gaza would be the symbolic point that would catalyze this divide of the West, explicitly the US, the EU and Israel, set against a very disparate group of countries that have stood against what they feel as blatant injustice against what they see as a massacre being perpetrated in Gaza by Tsahal.
Itamar Rabinovich
Vice Chairman of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution
It should include a return of The Palestinian Authority to Gaza, renewal of the negotiations with the PA with the prospect of a two state solution and the creation of a coherent moderate bloc composed of several moderate Arab states and Israel as a counterweight to Iran and its Russian and Chinese partners.
Volker Perthes
Under-Secretary General and Head Independent Strategic Review of UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq)
Nothing, not even the decade-long grievances of Palestinians, can justify the appalling attack by Hamas. And this appalling attack cannot justify any collective punishment of the people in Gaza. International humanitarian law has to be upheld any time.
Renaud Girard
Senior Reporter and International Columnist at Le Figaro
Only an international conference can impose a solution on Israel. It would not be that hard to organize it because this is an issue where views converge. The Americans, Russians, Chinese, French, British, Saudis and Arabs all have more or less the same idea on the solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, but disagree on other issues.
Mohammed Baharoon
Director General of the Dubai Public Policy Research Center (b’huth)
A Middle East warning – nothing about this region is regional. There are always global implications of everything. The conflict is already internationalized. We are afraid of regionalizing it but, in reality, it is internationalized and that is going to affect us.
Debate
16:15 – 18:00 | Plenary session 20
Where Is Africa Heading?
Amir Ben Yahmed
Chief Executive Officer of Jeune Afrique Media Group, President of Africa CEO Forum
Lionel Zinsou
former Prime Minister of Benin, Chairman of SouthBridge
The point I wanted to make, which is counter-intuitive, is that, unfortunately, agriculture, along with energy, is the activity that consumes the most capital.
Bertrand Badré
Managing Partner and Founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, former Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank Group
If we want to successfully make the shift to a more sustainable and resilient economy, it would be in Europe’s interest to reach out to Africa, Latin America and South Asia. We’d be better off doing it together rather than getting crushed between China and the United States.
General Francis A. Béhanzin
Co-Founder and Chairman of the Réseau mondial des professionnels de sécurité et de défense pour la prévention et la lutte contre le terrorisme, former Commissioner Political Affairs, Peace and Security of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
More often than not, it is civilians who ask the military to step in, although the army’s role is now defined in almost every African country’s constitution. When civilians can’t agree, the state must still keep working.
Jean-Michel Severino
President of Investisseurs & Partenaires
If we want profound change for Africa, these Africans need a step up to become prosperous, to become employers, without being forced into corruption, which unfortunately is an all too human temptation in these contexts.
Robert Dossou
President of the African Association of International Law, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin, former President of the Constitutional Court of Benin
I proclaim that Africa is making progress. The proof is that in recent years, if I take the case of Benin, we have seen the emergence of small and medium-sized agro-industrial companies, and their products are on the market.
Speakers debate
Debate
2022 Conference proceedings
08:30 – 10:00 | Plenary session 1
Geoeconomics and Development in a Fragmented World
Masood Ahmed
President of the Center for Global Development, former Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF
International development and politics – international politics, geopolitics – have always been connected, so it is not as if this is something new. The question we will explore in this panel is how the relationship is changing and what that means for the way in which we think about development and development cooperation. I would like to propose that there are at least three ways in which that relationship is changing.
Aminata Touré
Representative of the Senegalese National Assembly, former Prime Minister, former President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Senegal
We live in a deeply fragmented world. Even in wealthy countries, people feel left behind, and inequality is a major issue that needs to be addressed. It is clear to me that our concepts of international development need to be re-evaluated, so they reflect the reality of a fragmented society. This is particularly true in Africa, where the future of nutrition will be decided.
Jean-Marie Paugam
Deputy Director General of the WTO
There is not a clear trend towards de-globalization in trade figures. While there have been some trends, such as an apparent slowdown in the rate of openness or global trade on GDP, this can be attributed to various statistical phenomena, such as variations in commodity prices and the composition of GDP. However, there are new forces that will shape globalization and make it more complex, leading to increased transaction costs for businesses and governments.
Kim Heungchong
President of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy
The fragmentation and “blocization” of global economies are now substantial. All of these hinder the stable provision of global public goods that the emerging economies have hitherto utilized for their growth. The digitalization of ODA will be the revolution for increasing the effective distribution of global public goods while responding to the climate crisis through green technology.
Bertrand Badré
Managing Partner and Founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, former Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank Group
The convergence of traditional crises – economic, social, and energy – coupled with fundamental transformation across several domains has created a complex global situation. This transformation is geopolitical, with decarbonization and biodiversity at the forefront of discussions, and technological changes, such as artificial intelligence, rapidly evolving.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of Government at Harvard University
The highlighted points here are the current geoeconomic and political situation and the constraints that they impose on developing countries. We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the constraints and opportunities faced by developing countries and that this is going to be a very challenging period to come.
Vincent Koen
Deputy Director of Country Studies at the OECD
China’s near closure during the three years of the pandemic has come on top of other factors working in the direction of deglobalization: the Made in China 2025 strategy, which seeks to reduce China’s dependence on foreign technology; Trump’s trade war, with titfor-tat tariff hikes starting in 2018; the US Chips and Science Act and the EU Chips Act; and the US Inflation Reduction Act. Against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions, all this translates into less FDI and knowledge exchange.
Debate
10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 2
Is the International Economic Order Collapsing?
Jean-Claude Trichet
Vice Chairman of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, former Chairman of the European Central Bank, Honorary Governor of the Bank of France
The question is whether we should have a new international economic order and I guess the response is yes, because checking what has been said, all speakers, whether President of the US, President of all countries in the world or of China, they all say we need a new international order, implicitly or explicitly a new economic international order. The problem is, which one exactly, which international order that would be new and appropriate for the new world in which we live? Should it be multipolar or unipolar?
Taeho Bark
President of Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute, former Minister for Trade of Korea
It may not be realistic or even feasible to suddenly cut off all trade between the US and China. I think we should consider limiting the US decoupling from China to a few technologically sensitive sectors, which are directly related to national security.
Yann Coatanlem
CEO of DataCore Innovations LLC, Founder and President of Club Praxis, Board member of GlassView and the Paris School of Economics
It would also be very useful to have some kind of extreme risk measure of the entire world economy, across many dimensions: market risk, credit risk, climate risk, cyber security, operational risk. Nothing new here: let’s reuse the same models and stress tests that are applied to institutions that are deemed too big to fail.
Gabriel Felbermayr
Director of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO), former President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
I think we should have a broader perspective on the institutions that matter, that is not just the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, etc. We must bring in the big international enterprises. We need to mobilize them for the common good, public and civil society, NGOs and many more.
Motoshige Itoh
Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, member of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy of Japan
I would like to particularly emphasize the importance of COP’s efforts to address climate change. It is necessary, of course, to address the issue of climate change by promoting initiatives on common human issues with the participation of all the world’s major countries.
John Lipsky
Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), former First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF
I have concluded that renewed focus on a more cooperative and coherent approach toward setting macroeconomic and financial policy is needed to avoid creating new risks of protectionism and reduced efficiency of international financial markets. Such negative developments inevitably would reduce potential growth and increase economic volatility.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation
In the short-term, I guess it is very important for the US to do more cooperation on macroeconomic policy among other major economies. Also, many countries are currently experimenting for CBDC under the framework of BIS […]. I think it is good to facilitate the transaction and payment system.
Nicolas Véron
Senior Fellow at Bruegel, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
The Basel III accord on banking capital requirements, leverage, liquidity and stress testing, has been an extraordinary international success. It has been implemented in a more globally consistent way than the previous Basel II accord. Sadly, the European Union is still not compliant but most other jurisdictions are and I think that has led to great resilience in the financial system, in the banking system.
Debate
11:30 – 13:00 | Official Opening
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Executive Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Our ambition remains unchanged. It continues to be to work in favor of a governance that safeguards the chances for a “reasonably open” world, away from the two extremes of, one the one hand, a return to division into blocks that are radically separated by ideology, and on the other hand, the Fukuyama-style “flat world” dreamed of following the Cold War by liberal globalist ideologues.
Reem Ibrahim Al Hashimy
Minister of State for International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates
The path forward in the UAE is clear, it can only happen through constructive dialogue, but we do not meet with each other to simply talk to one another, we must meet to also ensure that we are bringing more to the table by being innovative and inventive and bold. We do have to look at ways where we also do not become echo chambers where we simply repeat and agree with one another about what the path forward needs to look like.
HH Bartholomew I
Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
The ethno-religious fanaticism inculcated in Russian youth stifles prospects for peace and reconciliation. The Orthodox world is divided and this fragmentation is projected onto poor countries, whose people hoped to find relief in the faith. Above all, it harms the Russian Church since sooner or later the people will realize the excesses of a Church subject to objectives that have nothing to do with its original mission.
Haïm Korsia
Chief Rabbi of France
All religions advocate the diversity that alone can lead to unity, which is actually the opposite of uniformity. Uniformity is an illusion, for we can never all be the same. To speak about unity, it is therefore necessary to speak about difference. Religions represent a way for everyone, each in his or her own way, to turn to the same person, to God, without wanting to get rid of others. No possibility of eliminating the faith of others has ever been imagined.
14:30 – 15:30 | Plenary session 3
The Future of Geopolitics and Business: Building Resilience and Adapting to a New Global Reality
Nikolaus Lang
Global Leader for the Global Advantage practice, Managing Director and Senior Partner of Boston Consulting Group
In my view, there are six dimensions in which business leaders must act in the emerging world, embedding geopolitics in corporate decision making, supply chain resilience, investing in people and strategy, innovation, cybersecurity, and accelerating climate action.
Abdullah Al Mazrui
Chairman of the United Arab Emirates Chambers of Commerce and Industry
“Geopolitical changes have a significant impact on the world economic ecosystem, and recent events such as the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic have led to global economic challenges. To minimize geopolitical tensions, businesses can increase their flexibility and resilience, develop practical methodologies for risk management, and adapt to the economic reality.”
Maurice Gourdault-Montagne
Former Ambassador, former Permanent Under Secretary of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
“Multi-alignment” is the new behavior of countries which behave according to their own interests and India is a champion in that respect. The rest of the world is a swarm of middle-sized countries or smaller countries trying to survive because of inflation, security, grain, pesticides. Around 140 countries are following this pattern.
Helle Kristoffersen
President Strategy & Sustainability and member of the Executive Committee of TotalEnergies
In the recent reports on risks published by insurance companies and risk assessment specialists, we can notice that the top three risks identified across all regions are geopolitics, cybersecurity, and climate change. These three risks are inherently linked, and inaction on climate change will lead to geopolitical tensions, migrations, droughts, water conflicts, and more.
Sam Okwulehie
Chairman and CEO of LATC
Sustainability: protection of our future via sustainable business practices is now undoubtedly important in our global ecosystem and could be the natural resilience build that global supply chains require today and tomorrow.
Debate
15:30 – 16:30 | Plenary session 4
Innovative Leaders: Climate Crisis and Circular Economy
Lucia Sinapi-Thomas
Executive Director of CG
The climate warming limit translates into a need to drastically curb carbon emissions by the middle of the century and at this point, some would say that failing national commitments to make it happen, the next-zero by 2050 remains aspirational. As a matter of fact, adapting to climate change comes with a cost.
Andrew Brown
Junior Environmental Policy Analyst at the OECD
We break circular economy down into three particular parts. We think about efficiency, how we can use natural resources more efficiently and get more economic productivity out of a certain amount of resource use. How we can slow our resource use, meaning how we can use and keep products at the highest value possible for the longest period of time possible. Then we also want to close our economic systems.
Yim Hyo-sung
Vice President of the Corporate Strategy Center of Hyosung Corporation
The point I want to make here is that there are many recycled products out there already. The technology is there but the problem is, is there a demand for these products currently in the market? Sadly, the answer is no because no one is willing to pay for it.
Bruno Langlois
Business Development and Partnerships Director at Carbios
It is interesting to see that we have multiplied the quantity of waste by 12 in the last 50 years, when the population has been multiplied by less than three. We are obviously going in the wrong direction in terms of producing more and more at lower cost, making objects with lesser value that are quickly thrown away.
Lívia Ribeiro de Souza
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Mimicrete Ltd.
In the past 10 years or so at Cambridge, we have been investigating self-healing technology for cementitious materials, mimicking what happens in nature. If there is a scratch on a tree or our own skin, our bodies and nature have that intrinsic self-healing capacity. We can learn from nature and apply this ability in our infrastructure.
Florent Andrillon
Global Head of Sustainability Services at Capgemini Invent
A lot of the circular economy principles were just principles and were not easy to implement in the bast beyond burning waste to produce heat or energy. Now, with the development of a lot of new technology and the fact that everything is connected, it is possible to develop circularity.
Yim Hyo-sung
Vice President of the Corporate Strategy Center of Hyosung Corporation
I think government subsidies are undoubtedly the most important factor going forward to bring down the cost of hydrogen and make it affordable for customers.
Andrew Brown
Junior Environmental Policy Analyst at the OECD
I think that the average citizen’s first interaction with circular economy may be with the public sector in terms of their municipality, which are often doing recycling systems, so this starts at a very local stage. However, there are also policies at the national level as well as at international level that are quite important for circular economy.
Lívia Ribeiro de Souza
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Mimicrete Ltd.
It takes time to implement a new technology on a construction, and we are working with a company in the UK for investigate the pathways for this implementation. Currently, we need a departure from a standard, which can take from a couple of weeks to a couple of years.
Bruno Langlois
Business Development and Partnerships Director at Carbios
To move to circularity what is important, if I can say that, is that we square the circle. There are several issues everywhere, we need industrial strengths, investment in biotechnology, which is also close to the chemical sector at the level we see in the pharmaceutical industry, for instance.
Debate
16:30 – 17:30 | Plenary session 5
The Sahel and West Africa: Geopolitics and Geoeconomics
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Executive Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
To shed some light on the subject, we will address the economy, social problems and security issues, in that order. Since many analysts and commentators posit that the social and economic situation is the root cause of insecurity, we will discuss them first.
Romuald Wadagni
Senior Minister in charge of Economy and Finance of Benin
So we focused our efforts on laws and texts to have good governance and on the formation of human capital: training young people. With well-trained, well-educated young people who can use their hands, you create the conditions for better governance and less corruption.
Alain Tchibozo
Chief Economist of the West African Development Bank (BOAD)
Moreover, some people perceive other problems as being more urgent, such as food security. This is a complex issue. Output is insufficient; agricultural productivity is very low.
General Francis A. Behanzin
Co-Founder and Chairman of the Réseau mondial des professionnels de sécurité et de défense pour la prévention et la lutte contre le terrorisme, former Commissioner Political Affairs, Peace and Security of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
The common denominator of all these rebellions lies in their denunciation of the inequalities in development between the regions of the South and the North in the countries concerned and the inability of the states to provide for the needs of the populations of the North.
Nshuti Manasseh
Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in charge of East African Community of Rwanda
I must admit that sometimes bilateral engagements are more effective than multilateral ones but the two kind of work together, so you can have a blend of the two. Bilateral engagements can be effective because we respond in time to a problem we understand. Multilateral engagements take time with bureaucracy, when the problem is not bureaucratic, so we need a blend of the two types of interventions.
Debate
17:30 – 19:00 | Plenary session 6
The Rest of the World Facing the US-China Rivalry
Douglas Paal
Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Program Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Senior Director of Asian Affairs and Special Assistant to the President in the US National Security Council
I would propose this is a good time if China wants to changeits tactics. We are seeing, in various subtle ways, China pulling back on its aggressiveness in the South China Sea, the Senkaku Islands. They are not changing fundamental positions, but they are being less aggressive. Maybe that will be true on the Indian line of actual control as well.
John Andrews
Contributing Editor to The Economist and Project Syndicate
There are only 20 countries in the UN who name the US as their number one trading partner. You take how many countries name China as their lead trading partner, it is at least 120. If push comes to shove, what choice will countries make?
Jean-Pierre Cabestan
Senior Researcher Emeritus at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) attached to the French Research Institute on East Asia (IFRAE) of the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations, Professor Emeritus at Hong Kong Baptist University
Another trend which has taken place for some years – even before these recent tensions in the Taiwan Strait – is the fact that the European Union itself has moved away from a kind of naïve and full engagement with China to a much more balanced China policy. We know the three pillars of this policy now – one is economic cooperation; the other one is economic competition; and the third one is the idea that China and we are systemic rivals.
Renaud Girard
Senior Reporter and International Columnist at Le Figaro
Obviously, France does not want to be stuck in the middle of the rivalry between China and the United States, the collateral victim of some Thucydides trap. That is certain. Moreover, France realizes that it no longer carries enough demographic, economic, trade or military weight to be a major player in the great global game.
Yuichi Hosoya
Professor of International Politics at Keio University in Tokyo
As the world’s third largest economy, Japan is considered a frontline state, vulnerable in the event of a war between the two great powers. However, Japan has close relationships with both countries and has developed two strategies to respond to this difficult question.
Lee Hye Min
Senior Advisor of KIM & CHANG, former G20 Sherpa of Korea
The intensifying and expanding tension between the US and China is a very serious issue to all of the world, but much more serious to Korea, because of history and geography. The international political order that Korea wants to pursue is non exclusive and we highly value cooperation with every country of the world, including China.
Samir Saran
President of the Observer Research Foundation of New Delhi
The lure of money, the lure of return, has made Europe incompetent and incapable of taking a unified position against China. If you think you are going to see a Russia style mobilization against China, we are all living in La La Land. Europe is the weak link for the US if it has to mobilize any sort of consortium against China.
Wang Jisi
President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University in Beijing, Peking University Boya Chair Professor
Europeans share a negative opinion of China regarding human rights, but Europe will maintain its strategic autonomy vis-à-vis China in economic and technological terms. In terms of ideology and geopolitics, the European Union and the United Kingdom will turn to the United States.
Panelists debate
Debate
19:30 | Dinner Debate
Kevin Rudd
President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, former Prime Minister of Australia
Xi Jinping’s visit to Riyadh is a significant one because China has embarked over the last five to seven years on an advanced economic diplomacy towards the Gulf states in particular. There is one background point, however, which is that China has a much longer standing relationship with Iran.
Debate
08:00 – 09:30 | Plenary session 7
The Future of EU and European Security After the Ukraine War
Ali Aslan
International TV Presenter and Journalist
This is one of the most pertinent and timely sessions of this year’s World Policy Conference. The title is, “The Future of the EU and European Security After the Ukraine War”. I wish we could sit here today and speak about the state of the world after the war in Ukraine, unfortunately we are not quite there. However, I could not have asked for a better panel and more esteemed speakers to dive into this very timely and important subject.
Peter Beyer
Member of the German Bundestag, Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation of the Federal Government
I do not buy that we are still lagging behind. Six months ago, we should have made the right political decisions quickly, like delivering heavy weaponry and air space defense, which we have now done.
Bogdan Klich
Senator in the Polish Parliament, Chairman of the Foreign and EU Affairs Committee in the Polish Senate
There are also two more operational goals that are important not only for Ukraine but also for the European and Atlantic communities, I would say the destabilization of the European Union and the paralysis of NATO. They were expressed just before the war began in Ukraine, in the famous ultimatum from President Putin to the West.
Hubert Védrine
Founder of Hubert Védrine Conseil, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of France
A West that shies away from assessing its policies in the 1990s is a West to be worried about. What military circles call “feedback” is essential.
Zaki Laïdi
Personal Advisor to the High Representative and Vice President of the Commission EEAS
We never had a Ukrainian policy, our Ukrainian policy was a by-product of our Russian policy. That led to a certain number of uncertainties, mistakes, and hesitations, including the question of NATO, which I am not personally in favor of in the case of Ukraine, but we did not give a clear precise indication.
Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj
Former President of Mongolia
The global implications mean that the frontline of the Ukrainian is much wider, it is the frontline between the free and totalitarian worlds, and it even goes across Africa and Asia, everywhere. If Ukraine loses, I think it will encourage the autocrats but if it wins, those autocrats will be discouraged.
Peter Beyer
Member of the German Bundestag, Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation of the Federal Government
Support is high but there is certainly that concern. We not only have energy prices shooting through the roof and, I have to say, it is only just the beginning, next winter, by the end of next year, will be much more expensive. […] Taken together, this is really a challenge for any government, be it on a Federal or more regional or local level, to hold the side together.
Bogdan Klich
Senator in the Polish Parliament, Chairman of the Foreign and EU Affairs Committee in the Polish Senate
It is much better than at the beginning of the war. It means that there is a growing understanding in Europe, not just in some parts of Europe, of the role of Ukraine and the principle that the security of Europe depends on Ukraine’s independence. The security of the European Union, at least, depends on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Hubert Védrine
Founder of Hubert Védrine Conseil, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of France
About the future, I think Westerners, and Europeans, will stand their ground, and therefore, Putin cannot win. However, I do not think the Americans will help the Ukrainians attack Crimea, although I may be wrong about that of course. I believe that after various twists and turns there will be a stalemate.
Zaki Laïdi
Personal Advisor to the High Representative and Vice President of the Commission EEAS
We need to have a strong European pillar without NATO capable of dealing with what the French military said, to be prepared for a war of high intensity in Europe. This war is going to cause a sea-change in the perception and the strategic perception of our security, but we do indeed need to take more responsibility.
Debate
09:30 – 10:30 | Plenary session 8
The Relevance of “Indo-Pacific” as a Geostrategic Concept
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Executive Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
The Indo Pacific concept emerged relatively recently and the key question I would like to ask the four panelists is, is this new geopolitical concept meant to represent something like an alliance against China? Most people who partly think the answer is yes, would publicly say no. My question is simple: what do we mean by Indo-Pacific?
Hiroyuki Akita
Commentator of Nikkei, Japan
Then, the highest and most difficult approach is the sharing values approach. Under this approach, likeminded countries that can share values, maybe from the Western point of view, the value of democracy, and will cooperate with each other and try to promote common values.
Mayankote Kelath Narayanan
Executive Chairman of CyQureX Systems Pvt. Ltd., former Senior Advisor and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India (Manmohan Singh
From India’s standpoint, it is the rapid pace at which China is pursuing its version of the Revolution in Military Affairs, largely driven by Artificial Intelligence Systems, that is cause for real concern for countries in the region. […] China’s disregard for international covenants, as also its willingness to use force to achieve its objectives in the South China Sea, are the reasons compelling India to revisit some of its earlier options.
Douglas Paal
Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Program Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Senior Director of Asian Affairs and Special Assistant to the President in the US National Security Council
APEC had its moment in the 1990s and then we went into the period of globalization, and we did not think so much in terms of Southeast Asia, East Asia or Africa, we thought in terms of movement of capital, global supply chains, seeking opportunities.
Panelists debate
Yim Sung-joon
Senior Advisor at Lee International IP & Law Group, former Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, former National Security Advisor to President Kim Dae-jung
From the beginning, the US sought to persuade South Korea to join the FOIP framework, but South Korea refrained from officially engaging in it. South Korea is by location an Indo-Pacific country and a middle power that wields influence as a strong democracy, unchanging ally to the US and the 3rd largest economy in East Asia.
Debate
10:30 – 12:15 | Plenary session 9
Space Governance: The Implications of Globalized Access to Space Technologies
Patrick Nicolet
Founder and Managing Partner of Linebreak Ltd., former Group Chief Technology Officer of Capgemini
The pace at which space technologies are advancing is unprecedented in the history of spacefaring, and the democratized access to such technologies implies that not only a handful of prominent actors are involved and competing, but that corporations, civil society and a plethora of new nations are now in the race too.
Amer Al Ghafri
Senior Director of the Space Engineering Department at the Mohamed bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai
The UAE looks at space as an important and critical sector driving the bigger goal, which is science and technology here in the UAE.
Kazuto Suzuki
Professor of Science and Technology Policy at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo
Today, space 2.0 is all about the democratization and everyone is now a participant in space activities, including the UAE. The second is the commercialization. The third aspect is the militarization, with space now being used for military purposes and commercial services like Starlink also being used for military services.
Daniel Andler
Professor Emeritus at Sorbonne University, member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, Philosopher
While an update of the Five Treaties and international cooperation on such problems as debris and orbit management might help, a much more resolute ethical deliberation is required, one which involves all stakeholders, one in which all relevant factors, including the uncertainties and risks, are taken in due consideration.
Meir Sheetrit
Former member of the Israeli Knesset, former Minister of Intelligence Affairs and the Committee of Atomic Energy, former Minister of the Interior
A new invention from an Israeli company aims to clean up space. With an investment of between USD 100 million and USD 200 million, the first idea was to send a satellite that would push the parts away into deep space. Then they had a better idea to build a satellite that will move close to every satellite that has stopped working and recharge it so that it can work for many more years without just being space junk.
Patrick Trinkler
Founder and CEO of CYSEC
I will start by presenting space as a 3.0 evolution not 2.0. From my point of view, it is really the finalization of the digitalization of the world, to give access to the Internet to two to three billion people, to be able to connect a billion IoT devices in the world.
Geoffrey Bouquot
CTO and Group Vice President Strategy & External Relations at Valeo, former Technical Advisor for Industrial Affairs in the Cabinet of the French Minister of Defense
The blurred frontiers between the civilian and the military activities is very important when it comes to IoT devices and I think that is where we are all heading with the ownership of constellations by some private companies raising the problems you already mentioned. Therefore, independence of technology is still the new frontier, even in space.
François Barrault
Founder and Chairman of FDB Partners, Chairman of IDATE DigiWorld
I think satellites present fantastic opportunities because we have moved from defense and survey, to now giving everybody access. The solution will be a kind of hybrid between fiber, 4G and 5G and access to satellite and maybe, I will achieve my dream of having everybody in the world connected like water, food and electricity.
13:30 – 14:00 | Plenary session 10
Conversation avec Dmytro Kuleba
Dmytro Kuleba
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
One of the outcomes of this war will be full integration of Ukraine into the European Union and NATO because we have to think strategically. Yes, the country is at war now and it is hard to imagine us joining NATO right now, but the future of Euro Atlantic security is being decided on the battlefield in Ukraine, and after the war, Ukraine will have one of the most capable armies in the world and definitely the most capable army in Europe, taking into account its combat experience, morale, and military equipment. Therefore, it would be very unwise for NATO to ignore or not to accommodate such a contributor to Euro Atlantic security.
14:00 – 15:00 | Plenary session 11
Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia Facing the Ukraine War
Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean
Research Fellow and Director of the Russia/NIS Center of Ifri
Ukraine is the first victim of Russian aggression, but other neighboring countries are also suffering from shocks at different levels. I think about the flood of migrants, and I think about energy pressures from Russia.
Question 1
“Olga Rosca The post Soviet or former Soviet Union, that is the parts that we, Moldova, have not chosen and we do not necessarily see that it defines us now. Therefore, the preference is that we use the present and the future to define ourselves, so I would rather hear, instead of post Soviet Moldova, an EU hopeful Moldova, candidate for EU membership Moldova, reform oriented Moldova, western leaning Moldova or, shall I say, freedom loving Moldova.”
Question 2
“Lasha Darsalia Unfortunately, the situation on the ground is not even static but is fast deteriorating regarding the humanitarian and human rights situation. People who are living on the ground literally are used as hostages to put pressure on the government of Georgia. The situation on the ground is, therefore, deteriorating fast, and this is not only about the occupied territories. We see increased pressure on Georgia, and all of these hybrid tools, which were previously implied, have been brought to bear on the rest of Georgia as well.”
Question 3
“Roman Vassilenko In Kazakhstan we do have Russian channels available, but so is Euronews and so is the BBC and so is CNN. However, I will tell you that in Kazakhstan the media itself works in Kazakh and also in Russian, in addition to 10 other languages of some other ethnic groups, such as Germans who live in Kazakhstan. The challenge for us, therefore, is to strengthen the informational independence, if you will,”
Question 4
“Lasha Darsalia I just want to say that Georgia is strongly supporting Ukraine generally, but one of the dimensions of that is the help being given by the government of Georgia to the Ukrainian refugees who are in Georgia. It is several tens of thousands, which is actually a small amount, and there are different programs to support them, including not only physically supporting them, but, for example, several Georgian schools are operating in Ukrainian now for the children who are from Ukraine.”
Question 5
“Olga Rosca European integration and European membership is an absolute priority for the current government. This is also the mandate that the government got from the citizens, so we spare no effort to press on with the reforms despite all the challenges that I have described before. We are aware that there are no shortcuts. We are committed to hard work. We are committed to reforms.”
Question 6
“Roman Vassilenko If we talk about where we stand, we stand for democracy, for the market economy, for the international rule of law, international law primarily, written down, clearly spelled out, and that is also, by the way, a difference with the so called international rules based order. We stand for international law, a law that is written, that is agreed upon by everybody. We also stand for international cooperation.”
Debate
15:00 – 15:30 | Plenary session 12
Conversation with Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak
Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak
Chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority, Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Mubadala
Today, the UAE is home to three of the world’s largest and lowest-cost solar plants. Almost 25% of our power needs are met through clean energy, and we have clean energy projects spanning 70 countries.
15:30 – 16:00 | Plenary session 13
Conversation with Anwar Gargash
Anwar Gargash
Diplomatic Advisor to the President of the United Arab Emirates
I think it is very reductionist and very simplistic to say the UAE is neutral on Ukraine. The UAE is not neutral on Ukraine. The UAE is affected by the crisis in Ukraine and is trying to find the right balance between our principles and the necessity for a political solution and an end to the Ukraine war.
16:00 – 17:00 | Plenary session 14
Critical Raw Materials – How to Secure the Crucial Resources for our Industries?
Friedbert Pflüger
Director of the European Cluster for Climate, Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) at the University of Bonn, Founding Partner of Strategic Minds Company GmbH
We need diversification and that is even more true when it comes to lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, vanadium, and rare earths, which we all need for the devices we need daily in our modern lives. Therefore, this subject has an enormous geopolitical meaning. If we are not able to secure affordable, reliable raw materials, our industries cannot survive.
Philippe Chalmin
Founder of Cercle Cyclope, Professor at Paris-Dauphine University, Consultant for various International Organisations (OECD, EEC, UNCTAD)
For a long time, rare earths were not rare, and the center of rare earth metallurgy was in France. Today, we have all exported, delocalized our environmental problems and, of course, you know now about 80% of rare earths are produced in China.
Jonathan Cordero
Head of Corporate Development at Eurasian Resources Group
Where states and national policymakers find their national boundaries, global market participants need to take responsibility for protecting our environment, for enforcing human rights, for the host communities we operate in, in short transparent and responsible sourcing cradle to grave.
Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde
Non-Executive Director at Norge Mining, former State Secretary for the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy of Norway
The EU has historically imported most of its phosphate from Russia and the invasion of Ukraine has created an urgent requirement to prevent dependency on Russia. There could not be any better time to develop the phosphate industry in a stable environment in the heart of Europe, in Norway. It will create security of supply in Europe and beyond, thereby contributing to food security and positively reflecting thousands of miles away.
Peter Handley
Head of the Energy-Intensive Industries and Raw Materials Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
We will focus on the raw materials that are particularly strategic for the technologies the EU has decided it needs to develop fast for the energy transition, digitalization, and security. We want to encourage EU Member States to do much more systematic exploration.
Debate
17:00 – 19:30 | Parallel Workshops
Workshop #1 – Finance and Economy
Jean-Claude Trichet
Vice Chairman of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, former Chairman of the European Central Bank, Honorary Governor of the Bank of France
What is the likelihood of central banks of the advanced economies succeeding in regaining control of inflation? […] Are we correctly assessing the divergences between the advanced economies, the developing world, and emerging countries? What about the fragility of the developing countries and the probability of major disruptive issues? What is the likelihood of a financial crisis triggered by major market corrections?
Serge Ekué
President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD)
The first [key policy objective] one is addressing food insecurity, which I think is a major threat we have to deal with in a region where the median age of the population is 20, and we all know that our population doubles every 25 years. That is a real threat in the context you previously described.
Raed Charafeddine
Central and Commercial Banker, former First Vice Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon
The Lebanese economy is facing stressful conditions for the third year in a row, resulting from the multi-dimensional crisis it has been going through, aggravated by the global and regional economic turbulences. Lebanon’s crisis emerged after a decade of regional turmoil on the one hand and the difficulties in public finances in terms of deficit in the budget and the exacerbation of public debt and its service on the other hand.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of Government at Harvard University
I think we face a very difficult time in the making of economic policy where monetary policy seems to have no choice but to focus on fighting inflation and fiscal policy that could dampen or soften some of the blows of that restrictive monetary policy is tightly constrained.
Akinari Horii
Special Advisor and member of the Board of Directors of the Canon Institute for Global Studies, former Assistant Governor of the Bank of Japan
China’s exports to the US stopped growing, but at the same time exports of Korea, India, and ASEAN countries are increasing. […] At the same time, US exports to China have continued to increase, and so has US direct investment in China. As long as it is in the interests of American companies to do business in Chinese markets, globalization seems unlikely to become deglobalization soon.
Kyung-wook Hur
President of the Korean Bretton Woods Club, Chairman of the Board of the Korea Center for International Finance, former Vice Minister for the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, former Senior Economist for the IMF
When you have seen such a big rollercoaster movement on the foreign exchange markets, I still think there must be some more structured way for non-convertible currency countries to have reasonable expectations of access to the Fed, which is still missing. The last one was given unilaterally during the pandemic so that may be something that is missing from international financial architecture up until now.
Pierre Jacquet
President of the Global Development Network, Professor at the École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
What I would like to emphasize is that speculative crises are not new. What is new, in each crises, is that it has specific short-term causes that will differ from the previous one. What strikes me is the continuity of the profound reasons for crises, which are very basic: they result from periods of overinvestment followed by periods of excessive disillusion.
André Lévy-Lang
Founder and Chairman of the Louis Bachelier Institute
The fact that finance is used as a weapon has implications in terms of systemic risk, the behavior of financial institutions and the markets, and it is not clear to us, and we are working on that, how finance in general can support and make it feasible to accomplish these huge investments without creating systemic risk, breaking the system of creating major, unmanageable situations.
John Lipsky
Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), former First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF
We have experienced a period of slow growth, low investment, lower than anticipated labor force participation and at the same time, unexpectedly strong corporate profits. That combination has been associated with sustained, unexpectedly low real interest rates.
Jean-Claude Meyer
Vice Chairman International of Rothschild & Cie
Central bankers live in a tragic dilemma because their measures have adverse collateral effects, – such as medicines for doctors –, and therefore fine tuning is difficult for them. Their key question is how much can they increase interest rates to reduce inflation and avoid a recession.
Jean-Claude Trichet
Vice Chairman of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, former Chairman of the European Central Bank, Honorary Governor of the Bank of France
The fact that we have the same level of underlying inflation, core inflation on both sides of the Atlantic and not the same level of headline, underlines what many of us have said, namely that there are differences between the US and Europe because in Europe it is very much more of a supply problem and in the US more of a demand problem.
Debate
Workshop #2 – Energy and Environment
Olivier Appert
Chairman of France Brevets, Scientific Advisor of the Center for Energy & Climate of Ifri, former President of the French Energy Council
The European Union rapidly took embargo measures on coal and oil. We may question the real impact of these measures on the Russian economy. The coal and oil markets are both deep and Russia has been able to redirect its exports. For example, India increased its imports of oil from Russia by a factor of 10. However, the situation is fundamentally different for natural gas. Clearly, therefore, in the near future we may anticipate geopolitical tension on the oil and gas market.
Narendra Taneja
Chairman of the Independent Energy Policy Institute of New Delhi, Founder President of the World Energy Policy Summit (WEPS)
Now we are even thinking of looking at using LNG wherever we can. What we basically need to look at are energy transitions. Transitions: it may depend on your situation, your reality on the ground, your circumstances. In Germany they may do it faster. Good luck to them. In Norway they may do it even faster. However, in India and some other economies it may take longer.
Florent Andrillon
Global Head of Sustainability Services at Capgemini Invent
Green hydrogen is on everyone’s lips. As you know, it is very trendy. There is a lot of money out there. It will probably not reach the level required to decarbonize the economy, which is 15% – we are not on that path – one of the reasons being the lack of green electricity available. That means that large amounts of green electricity will need to be imported from other regions, so the geopolitics will have to change a bit because clearly some regions will be in a new position of exporting energy through the hydrogen carrier.
Igor Yurgens
Scientific Director of MGIMO Centre for Sustainable Development and ESG Transformation
Russia actually has to start renewables from scratch. We had such cheap gas, oil and coal that we didn’t have motivation to use other sources. However, I would say that the prerequisites are all there. Yakutia, which is in the extreme north of Russia and which has temperatures of minus 40 degrees in winter, has more sunny days than France, for example. Russia is a pretty solar area. Winds are no problem at all and of course, plenty of water is available. From this point of view, 20% of the world production of hydrogen was the target for the Russian Federation according to this decarbonization plan.
Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega
Director of the Center for Energy & Climate of Ifri
We mentioned the electricity systems. I mean, frankly, with the inflation that we have, with the money all going to the US, are we realistically going to be able to lay out all the solar panels that we are talking about? I doubt it. However, what is for sure is that even the numbers and the trajectory we are on – that is 2 trillion in investments by 2030 versus 1.2 last year – are two times less than what is needed for a 1.5-degree trajectory. In any case, therefore, we are missing the targets, but then what are the consequences of failure?
Workshop #3 – Africa
Robert Dossou
President of the African Association of International Law, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin, former President of the Constitutional Court of Benin
The first need was to build a nation-state and then the new societies’ socio-economic foundations. Sixty years on, has the mission been accomplished? What are the challenges? Nothing is out of bounds.
Alain Antil
Director of the Sub-Saharan Africa Center of Ifri
There is indeed the question of international terrorism. Nonetheless we can read these revolts as uprisings of the peripheries against the political centers. We can read them as revolts of the countryside against the cities. We can read them as uprisings of yesterday’s dominated […].
Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
President of the Institute for Pan-African Strategies, Peace-Security-Governance, Special Envoy of the OIF, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Senegal
The other big problem today is that there are two foxes in the chicken coop. There are the terrorists, but there are also our Russian friends. Things must be called by their name. Our Russian friends have entered the game, almost without our knowing it. They have occupied the Internet. They have sometimes activated some of their local supporters, who have abundantly used the weapon of fake news.
Elisabeth Guigou
Founding President of Europartenaires, former President of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, former President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly
What should the European Union do to help Africa better? First, I think it should devote as much attention and as many priorities to Africa as it does to Eastern Europe. This is obviously very difficult. It has become even harder since the fall of the Berlin Wall. There was already an imbalance well before the war in Ukraine, but the war has made it even worse.
Aminata Touré
Representative of the Senegalese National Assembly, former Prime Minister, former President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Senegal
Statistics show that if Africa’s 54 countries were taken as a whole, it would be the world’s eighth largest economy. This means that Africa generates wealth and could generate more if we managed to make our voices heard.
Juliette Tuakli
Chief Executive Officer of CHILDAccra Medical, United Way Worldwide Chair Immediate Past (IP), Mercy Ships Africa Ambassador, Medical Director
The impact of inequitable distribution of energy and shortages of energy on health and education is considerable in our continent. An estimated 600 million people in Africa have had no experience of electricity, that is half of the entire population of Africa. In addition, there is growing recognition of our vulnerability to climate shocks and the impact on the livelihoods of our youth, both present and in the future.
Lionel Zinsou
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of SouthBridge, Chairman of Terra Nova think tank, former Prime Minister of Benin, former Chairman of PAI Partners
The percentages show that progress is being made. Only half the population is still in darkness. Only half of people give birth with flashlights. Half of the children are no longer poisoned by kerosene lamps. But the number of people without power has risen from two to six million.
Debate
20:00 | Gala Dinner with Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius
President of the French Constitutional Council, President of the COP 21, former Prime Minister of France
COP21 was a success, not only thanks to French diplomacy but because there was an extraordinary conjunction between what I call the “three planets”: the scientific planet – scientists, engineers –, the civil society planet – cities, regions, public opinion, private companies, financial institutions – and the governments planet.
Debate
08:00 – 09:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
Pierre Jacquet
President of the Global Development Network, Professor at the École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Our debate this year has pointed to some differences between the United States and Europe, with the demand component of the inflationary shock more potent in the United States, while in Europe inflation seems more supply driven, notably given Europe’s dependency on Russian energy. It was observed that monetary policy is a poor instrument to react to supply driven inflationary shocks because it does not act on supply but can only restrain demand to adjust to the new supply equation.
Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega
Director of the Center for Energy & Climate of Ifri
Another point that was raised was how we democratize global energy and climate governance. The view was expressed that this governance was weighted towards the North and that some of the leading institutions are based in the North, driven notably by the OECD or the IEA. Obviously, there is need for rebalancing there and there was a consensus that somehow that needs to be democratized and more dialogue was needed among all the stakeholders. The idea of setting up an energy security council was raised, which is quite interesting although if you start thinking in practical terms you immediately come up with a number of questions and issues.
Robert Dossou
President of the African Association of International Law, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin, former President of the Constitutional Court of Benin
La solution est qu’il faut massivement investir sur les jeunes, dans la formation, dans les débouchés, mais également investir sur les femmes. Cette double donnée est essentielle. Pour investir sur les jeunes et sur les femmes, il faut nécessairement des capitaux et des garanties pour pouvoir orienter les investissements vers le continent africain. C’est en cela que la promotion du secteur privé sur le continent a été soulignée comme une nécessité.
09:00 – 10:00 | Plenary session 15
Perspectives on Covid-19 and Other Pandemic Threats
Michel Kazatchkine
Special Advisor to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Senior Fellow at the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva
The pandemic is not over. As we speak, hospitalizations are increasing again, at least in Europe and the US. The pandemic continues to have a profound impact on lives and livelihoods as economies slowly begin to recover in at least the wealthiest countries, but still falter in low-income countries.
Antoine Flahault
Director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, Deputy Director of the Swiss School of Public Health, former Founding Director of EHESP
Fine particle air pollution is an important determinant of Covid-19 and its severity. The role of fine particles in outdoor air pollution, whether from fossil fuel combustion or desert sands, was already recognized in influenza epidemics. It has been shown to be a major determinant of Covid-19 epidemics, increasing contamination and severity of infection.
Juliette Tuakli
Chief Executive Officer of CHILDAccra Medical, United Way Worldwide Chair Immediate Past (IP), Mercy Ships Africa Ambassador, Medical Director
Vaccine production facilities were developed. There were some existing facilities available, but they have been considerably strengthened and enhanced across six African countries. We have 12 facilities based primarily in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Rwanda and South Africa and these have been particularly effective and strong in their output.
Maha Barakat
Director General of the Frontline Heroes Office and Senior Advisor at Mubadala
The UAE started clinical trials on vaccination as early as summer 2020, by September there was emergency use of vaccination and by June 2022, the United Arab Emirates had achieved 100% vaccination of its target groups. I think this is a key component of a country’s ability to reduce hospitalizations and death.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation
Transparency should be the first principle of dealing with an unknown virus or X disease in the future. By this I mean giving an alert on the virus, gene sequence, evolution and the possible harms to human beings and all this information should be released to the public, government departments and the CDC on time.
Christian Bréchot
President of the Global Virus Network, Senior Associate Dean for Research in Global Affairs and Associate Vice President for International Partnerships and Innovation at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, former President of Institut Pasteur
The coalition for epidemic preparedness and innovation has been a progress for vaccines but still not sufficient for several reasons and we lack support for antivirals and diagnostics. In fact, I personally believe that the importance of diagnostics has been very much underappreciated in this Covid-19 crisis.
Debate
10:00 – 11:00 | Plenary session 16
Global Governance and Public Health
Michel Kazatchkine
Special Advisor to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Senior Fellow at the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva
As the pandemic progressed, health moved from being a sort of soft power agenda to becoming a critical economic and security issue, that took up last parts of the deliberations of regional summits, like the European Council, the G20, the G7, the World Trade Organization. No meeting of the G7, G20 or the European Council in the last two years did not include or had the issue of health as a dominant component.
Anders Nordström
Ambassador for Global Health at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden
The agenda needs to change. I do not think we need a global platform for vaccines in the future, we need stronger regional platforms, but we still need global cooperation to share information, the data, but also ways of working, the management, the flow of then access to products. We need to rethink the global functions based on the fact that we have stronger regions today.
Lionel Zinsou
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of SouthBridge, Chairman of Terra Nova think tank, former Prime Minister of Benin, former Chairman of PAI Partners
While the use of vaccines has become widespread in Africa, Africa produces only 1% of them. While recently there have been major strides in treatments and the use of drugs, a record-breaking 95% of those drugs are imported. On the other hand, the WHO says that Africa accounts for 40% of the volume of counterfeit drugs in the world, a topic that would bring us into a discussion on organized crime.
Haruka Sakamoto
Project Researcher at the Department of Global Health Policy of the University of Tokyo, Senior Fellow at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
In the field of pharmaceuticals, which is a major industry for many countries, there is a desire to continue to protect the industry through intellectual property, but there are also moves to restrain rule-making by China in this field. How to handle IP and technology transfer, especially in times of emergency, will continue to be an important issue to consider.
Farida Al Hosani
Official Spokesperson for Health sector of the United Arab Emirates
Talking about innovation and research is very important because we should not stop in terms of accelerating research. Time was critical during Covid and our governance in terms of research approvals and prioritizations are really very slow and do not match the global needs.
Jacques Biot
Board member and Advisor to companies in the field of digital transformation and artificial intelligence, former President of the École Polytechnique in Paris
Another level of international governance pertains to intellectual property, this one comes under heavy fire, I will not elaborate on related issues today in the interest of time, but this subject will resurface relentlessly in the future. Going down the geographical scale, we have to recognize the fact that all countries, albeit along very different models, do maintain the principle of a national health governance.
11:00 – 12:15 | Plenary session 17
Food Security in a Fragmented World
Jean-Michel Severino
President of Investisseurs & Partenaires, former Director General of the French Development Agency, former Vice President for Asia at the World Bank
There is an underlying global fear of a shortage of production in the world and I think we will address whether this is fantasy or reality, especially in the long run. It also shows how political this market remains. It is not just about exchanging goods it is about being in international relations.
Máximo Torero Cullen
Chief Economist and Assistant Director General for the Economic and Social Development Department of the FAO
Addressing the challenges to move away from business as usual implies facing contrasting objectives. Just to mention a few of them, we have to increase agricultural output while reducing its environmental footprint, pursuing sustainable deals while minimizing land use expansion, and increasing productivity while preserving employment. We need an agricultural system transformation that brings future sustainability and resilience, or these trade-offs will create a great imbalance.
Pierre Jacquet
President of the Global Development Network, Professor at the École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
So we need to think of trade as a way to increase food availability outside the realm of free-trade ideology. A mechanism must be found to make the amounts of food necessary for life available. I think this is the right way to think about it and that trade rules must be designed with this in mind.
Bayu Krisnamurthi
Associate Professor in the Department of Agribusiness the Faculty of Economics and Management of the Bogor Agricultural University, former Vice Minister of Trade and former Vice Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia
I think we need to do something more drastic than business as usual in dealing with this problem. I would recommend that we should strengthen global food governance. First, let us do our utmost to resume and maintain open food trade, build trust again that food is not just a business but part of a shared moral obligation, it is a part of humanity.
Mariam Al Mheiri
Minister of Climate Change and Environment of the United Arab Emirates
Countries must plan because food security, which is not just agriculture by the way, is food and loss, waste, nutrition, food safety, the way we consume, what we buy in the supermarket, what ends up in the bin, that all has a huge influence on our food systems today. Most of us always think agriculture, agriculture but there is actually a huge part on the demand side as well and changing and reflecting on how we are consuming.
Debate
12:15 – 13:15 | Plenary session 18
New Technologies for New Geopolitics of Energy
John Andrews
Contributing Editor to The Economist and Project Syndicate
This is a panel on new technologies and the new geopolitics of energy. I have to make an immediate confession, what is my qualification for being here? I am not a technologist, I am not a scientist, so my only real qualification for being here is that I am […] a human being. Therefore, I do have a vested interest in what is happening to our planet and to this energy future. Also, of course, as a human being I consume energy, so I am part of the problem, and I hope this panel will be part of the solution.
Frank Obrist
CEO of OBRIST Powertrain
Since the 1950s CO2 concentration has been rising from 300 to 421ppm and it keeps going up like hell. But the good news is, if we do have a technology to reduce it just as quickly as released then we can get rid of or biggest problem, in only 100 years.
Franklin Servan-Schreiber
Co-Founder and CEO of Transmutex
What do we want? Of course, energy security but also reduction in CO2. It is very clear that for energy security nuclear is more scalable and it is also more scalable for CO2 reduction; there is no contest.
Nicolas Piau
Co-Founder and CEO of TiLT Capital Partners
The real challenge we are experiencing, which is fundamental to the way we think about the energy system, is that we are moving away from those energy-dense technologies to energy “undense” technologies. That means it is no longer a matter of production, it becomes a matter of logistics and optimization.
Friedbert Pflüger
Director of the European Cluster for Climate, Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) at the University of Bonn, Founding Partner of Strategic Minds Company GmbH
What can we do in this situation? I think we have embarked on the wrong path and that path is goals and government micromanagement, which forbids certain technologies and interferes in markets and that will not go anywhere. What we have to do is to unleash technologies, and there we are.
Debate
14:15 – 15:45 | Plenary session 19
The Middle East in the New Geopolitical Context
Steven Erlanger
Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Europe, for The New York Times
There is so much to talk about: the impact of Russia’s return to the region, China’s Belt and Road, the notion of US retrenchment and whether it is real or not, intensified regional competition. What does it mean for these countries to have a green carbon-free world? […] Then there is the quite interesting question of the return of Bibi Netanyahu at the head of a very different Israeli government. What does this new coalition mean for Israel, for the Palestinians, for Israel’s reputation, frankly?
Memduh Karakullukçu
Founding Board member of the Global Relations Forum, Founding Partner of Kanunum, Chairman of Kroton Consulting
I think we are now at a stage where Middle Eastern players including my country, Saudi Arabia, and GCC, are empowered for different reasons and have taken a hyper-pragmatic approach to regional challenges. That means swift maneuvers, deals, bargains have become the currency of the moment.
Gilles Kepel
Director of the Middle East-Mediterranean Chair of the École normale supérieure, Professor at Paris Sciences et Lettres, Special Envoy of President Macron for the Middle East
What is happening in Iran, regardless of what happens with JCPOA, no JCPOA, pause JCPOA, etc., is now significantly different from whatever happened in the past, with the green revolution or whatever it was called where the police arrested a number of people, sentenced, put them in jail and then it was put down. This is not happening […].
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator, Advisor to the UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations
After the region was reduced to global war on terror and for two decades we heard nothing but that; this is their claim to fame. However, today the Middle East is now seen through the lens of the great power competition narrative. Increasingly, the Middle East is defined as a battleground between the US and China, and to a lesser extent Russia. What is new is the trend towards Middle Eastern strategic autonomy […].
Itamar Rabinovich
Vice Chairman of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution, former Chief Negotiator with Syria
Internationally, we will have to see what the implications of the Ukraine war for its position in Syria and its ability to be effectively active in the Middle East. The US always raises the familiar question of whether it is pivoting away or not. In fact, the number of US troops in the region has not declined but the message is not very clear.
Abdulaziz Othman Sager
Founder and Chairman of the Gulf Research Center
It is also interesting that the region has started making its own sovereign decisions without waiting for the superpowers’ instructions, which is a clear signal. You can see it in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, and many other countries in the Arab world that are starting to say that we need to protect our interests. This is another crucial dimension.
Debate
15:45 – 17:00 | Plenary session 20
The End of Illusions?
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Executive Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Instead of the session that usually ends the World Policy Conference, we will give the floor to five members of our club and ask each of them to talk about an issue of their choice that, in their opinion, has not been sufficiently addressed or that they want to look at from a different angle.
Michel Foucher
Member of the Center for Higher European Studies, former French Ambassador in Latvia
Ukraine is the scene of the fratricidal and deadly revenge of Russia’s leaders for the collapse of their empire upon itself, three decades earlier, as if it were an expiatory victim. Unable to analyze the real causes of the collapse of the Russian-Soviet form of their State, they understood even less about the national consolidation of Ukraine and the other peripheral republics, which they thought was only the insidious result of a US plot.
Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
President of the Institute for Pan-African Strategies, Peace-Security-Governance, Special Envoy of the OIF, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Senegal
The consequence is that we have not moved African unity forward. We have found ourselves saddled with an enormous amount of problems and in a battle where African youth just about everywhere has stood up against what is called sovereignty and independence. They deny everything and denounce everything today.
Marc Hecker
Director of Research and Communications at Ifri, Editor-in-Chief of Politique étrangère
The war in Ukraine can be seen as a shock of illusions. There were an enormous amount of misperceptions and mistaken analyses on both sides. In the West, many leaders and analysts got it wrong. They thought that Russia would never invade Ukraine. In the end, they did.
Holger Mey
Vice President of Advanced Concepts Airbus Defence and Space
Most of the younger officers who write for military journals and magazines often begin their article with “we are the army, the air force, the navy” and systematically prepare for the most likely scenarios. I think this is a big mistake, because one should prepare for risk, and risk is the combination or the product of likelihood times damage level.
Fathallah Oualalou
Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, former Minister of Economy and Finance of Morocco
So we have a sort of fragmentation. This fragmentation is ominous. Bipolarization is dangerous. The world needs something new; the world needs multipolarity. I think Europe can fill those shoes, but under three conditions, which might be an illusion.
17:00 – 18:00 | Plenary session 21
US Foreign Policy After the Midterm Elections
Jim Bittermann
Senior European Correspondent in Paris for CNN
You would think with that makeup of Congress that the next two years could be a disaster. They might be, but it may not be as bad as everybody predicts, especially given Mr. Biden’s deftness at negotiating and handling things. Also, given the fact that there is a lot of bilateral agreement on the main two issues that the US views are confronting the world today, China and Russia-Ukraine.
Stuart Eizenstat
Senior Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP, former Chief White House Domestic Policy Advisor to President Jimmy Carter
With respect to China, even with the midterm elections there is bipartisan support for a hard-line position against China. I think this will continue and Biden going into a potential Presidential race, does not want to be seen or criticized by the Republicans as being weak on China.
Josef Joffe
Professor of Practice at Johns Hopkins, Editorial Advisory Council of the German weekly Die Zeit
On the one hand, Biden did cozy up to Europe. On the other, the Inflation Reduction Act is protectionism with a fancy new label. The gist is that non-US companies will not profit from lavish subsidies, which puts them at a competitive disadvantage on the U.S. market. Worse, the Act may force Europeans to export production and jobs to the U.S.
Jean-Claude Gruffat
Vice Chairman of the American Hospital of Paris Foundation, member of the Leadership Council of United Way Worldwide, Chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute
NATO, which the previous administrations had questioned, is also now strengthened by the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, which would have been unthinkable if we had not had the conflagration in Ukraine. We are in a situation where effectively the US has greatly benefitted from this conflict in Europe, this is only a part of it, but this is the reality.
Renaud Girard
Senior Reporter and International Columnist at Le Figaro
Germany no longer respects France because it has not met its own obligations, in particular financial obligations with respect to the euro. Its public finances are in a mind-boggling mess, which means the Germans do not see it as a serious partner. I think we have forgotten that.
Debate
18:00 | Closing
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia
Last year we actually signed a strategic framework with the European Union, between the GCC and the European Union, which has already brought significant progress. We restarted our FTA talks after they had been stalled for many years, which is a positive sign and I think Europe is still one of our main trade partners and a very important technological partner. There is a lot we can do with Europe, and I would say that Europe needs to be more engaged in this region. We have a lot to offer Europe and of course, we are already a very important energy partner, but we are also a very important partner for the energy transition. Europe cannot achieve its carbon neutrality goals without this region because you cannot produce enough renewable energy in Europe.
2021 Conference proceedings
08:30 – 10:00 | Plenary session 1
How Will Globalization Mutate?
Jean-Claude Trichet
European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, former President of the ECB
Can we address the negative externalities of globalization, on climate, health, economic and financial instabilities during the last years, and inequality, without losing the benefits of the division of labor at a global level and all the benefits to developing countries of catching up to become first emerging countries and, then, as wealthy as the present advanced economies in the future ?
Masood Ahmed
President of the Center for Global Development, former Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF
The process of globalization and its management are going to become more complicated in the years to come. We can think of this in terms of five different forces that are going to work in different directions and must be balanced and managed.
Bertrand Badré
Managing Partner and Founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, former Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank Group
Are we capable of being inclusive with all the world and channeling the money necessary to go the sustainable route and climate ? Or will the OECD countries be too comfortable and say, yes, no, we know the rules and we will protect ourselves ?
Bark Taeho
President of Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute, former Minister for Trade of Korea
In order to see globalization evolve in a desirable direction in the future, it would be crucial to provide the right business environment with transparent and fair multilateral rules in various fields.
Thomas Gomart
Director of Ifri
I think a phenomenon is emerging, the phenomenon of cognitive confrontation, which became quite clear during the lockdowns, when bodies were stuck at home, but bodies with brains that had never been so digitally interconnected.
Yuichi Hosoya
Professor of International Politics at Keio University
I think China is trying to get closer to ASEAN which today, is China’s biggest trading partner. In the current coronavirus situation, China is trying to create a very deep and strong Asian economic space. The question is how the United States, Europe and Japan will try to face the current difficulties.
Mari Kiviniemi
Managing Director of the Finnish Commerce Federation, former OECD Deputy Secretary-General, former Prime Minister of Finland
Covid-19 showed how dependent we are on each other and in that sense, it also made us see how important it also is to make sure that in the future we can ensure that global value chains continue to function.
Debate
10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 2
World Political-Economic Outlook After the Pandemic
Lionel Zinsou
Co-Chair of SouthBridge, Chairman of Terra Nova think tank, former Prime Minister of Benin
I think unprecedented crises are piling up. The current crisis is unprecedented. It has exceptional characteristics, but the previous one, in 2008, was also unprecedented because of its suddenness and the depth of the recession it caused, although now we have broken recession records.
Nicolas Véron
Senior Fellow at Bruegel, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
We will have more problems with scarcity and difficulties of adjustment, with read-across in terms of inflation, which frankly I do not think any economist can predict with certainty at this point.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation
The competition between the United States and China will last for many years in the future. I think that in the future the political and economic outlook of the world will largely depend on the relationship between the United States and China and whether they can handle their relationship successfully.
Aminata Touré
Senegalese politician, former Prime Minister
There is space to grow but we have to go beyond the boundaries and see how we are going to put together this major project, the first being as I said, medical and pharmaceutical independence. The last thing we want to see happen is Covid becoming a permanent public health issue.
Serge Ekué
President of the West African Development Bank
On the question of how in this context, public debt can be paid down without slowing down economic growth and provoking a crisis of confidence, the debt write off can be a very seductive. We do not believe that it is the ultimate situation.
Pierre Jacquet
President of the Global Development Network, former Chief Economist of the French Development Agency, former Deputy Director of Ifri
I believe globalization is here to stay, and the debate is more on how to manage it. This is a deeply political challenge, which involves what used to be called “high politics”, on which the post-war institutional system was agreed on and shaped.
Conclusion Lionel Zinsou
Co-Chair of SouthBridge, Chairman of Terra Nova think tank, former Prime Minister of Benin
Even in Africa, what we have seen is better collective governance in the African Union, which means that multilateralism at the level of a continent has progressed enormously.
11:30 – 13:15 | Plenary session 3
Transatlantic Relations, Russia and China
Karl Kaiser
Senior Associate of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
We have to look beyond the tumultuous events of contemporary international politics and try to identify how the key actors and regions are affected by the ongoing tectonic shifts of geopolitics. That also applies to the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan and the AUKUS agreement.
Jean-Claude Gruffat
Chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, member of the Leadership Council of United Way Worldwide
There has been in transatlantic relationship, a continuity of policies, largely with a bipartisan consensus, in DC. Some elements of protectionism, more so with the Democrats. Trump changed effectively the focus from Russia to China.
Elisabeth Guigou
Founding President of Europartenaires, President of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, former President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly
I hope there will not be a new Cold War, for I fail to see how the climate crisis can be solved if we are in the middle of a Cold War with China, the world’s leading CO2 emitter. Europeans must refocus on their priorities.
Bogdan Klich
Senator in the Polish Parliament, Chairman of the Foreign and EU Affairs Committee in the Polish Senate
Russia is trying to re-integrate as big part as possible of the post-Soviet space and we are witnessing the soft annexation of Belarus, which is not recent, it began before the Freedom Revolution there but accelerated recently.
Zaki Laïdi
Senior Advisor to the High Representative and Vice President of the European Commission, Professor at Sciences Po
In comparison to the Cold War, there is a difference which is that the competition between the United States and China is much wider. Indeed, it includes an economic and technological component that did not exist during the Cold War.
Ana Palacio
International Lawyer, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the World Bank Group
Law is not what it used to be; it is not just treaties, but soft law. But what is very striking today is how it is contested.
Wang Jisi
President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University
As for China’s reaction to the changes in Afghanistan, Beijing regards it as a failure of Western-type democracy in a poor country, as well as a reflection of the “East rising, West declining” tide in global politics in general and the waning of US power in the greater Middle East in particular.
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, Vice President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs
The new dangerous situation is in Afghanistan. I will not analyse Biden’s decision to withdraw, but it is a smart move from the point of view of US-Russia confrontation, because it puts Taliban problems on the Russian border.
Debate
13:15 – 14:45 | Lunch debate
Louise Mushikiwabo
Secretary-General of the International Organisation of La Francophonie
Country groupings will increasingly be by mutual interest or by theme, rather than by geographical location or even the geopolitical groupings we see presently, as with the G7 or the United Nations itself. Increasingly, we will see nations joining forces over a specific issue.
Debate
14:45 – 15:15 | Plenary session 4
Conversation with Josep Borrell Fontelles
Josep Borrell Fontelles
High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Vice President of the European Commission
If Europe wants to be a pole in a multipolar world, we must fight against the force that is pushing us to shrink, i.e., to remain in our own immediate environment. We must have an Indo-Pacific strategy, just as we must have a Gulf strategy.
Debate
15:15 – 16:45 | Plenary session 5
The Digital World After the Pandemic
François Barrault
Founder and Chairman of FDB Partners, Chairman of IDATE DigiWorld
When you add the impact of the pandemic to the technological revolution, there is a culture shock and the virtuous circle of innovation is quite easy to understand. Technology changes uses, uses change business models and business models change investments in technology.
Benoît Coeuré
Head of the BIS Innovation Hub, former member of the ECB’s Executive Board
We should not fool ourselves: there are powerful forces acting against international cooperation in this field. First, as I said, money is an attribute of sovereignty, so in the end that is something to be decided nationally. Second, we are talking about technology, and today’s wars are technological wars.
Kazuto Suzuki
Professor of Science and Technology Policy at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo
There are different ways for handling data. The United States focuses on the company and the company does all the collection, maintenance and management of the data. Whereas in China, data is collected and controlled by the state and in Europe, the EU model focuses more on the ownership by the individual.
Agnès Touraine
Chief Executive Officer of Act III Consultants, McKinsey Senior Advisor, former Chairwoman of the French Institute of Directors (IFA)
Can we let anonymity continue? This is a real issue that, once again, touches on economic sovereignty, when it comes to cyber, etc., political and obviously social sovereignty.
Patrick Nicolet
Founder and Managing Partner of Line Break Capital Ltd., former Capgemini’s Group Chief Technology Officer
The token economy can also be considered a sustainable development if we ensure there is a proper business market for it. As with all things pertaining to money, authorities are often reluctant to allow parallel systems to emerge, for it has always been considered sovereign.
Carlos Moreira
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of WISeKey, former UN Expert on cybersecurity
This morning, everyone was talking about the Cold War and we are actually no longer in that, we are in an invisible war. The invisible war between countries that want to control the metaverse.
Jean-Louis Gergorin
Senior lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, owner of the cyber and aerospace consultancy JLG Strategy
What is needed is to integrate discussions of the underlying geopolitics of conflicts with talks on moderating and limiting the weaponization of cyberspace. A forum is needed for that, and I think the most legitimate one is the United Nations Security Council.
17:00 – 19:00 | Official opening
Welcoming remarks by Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan
Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi has seized its opportunities and become a truly global city, not only a center for finance, business, education, health, energy, technology, and culture but also a nurturing source of innovation and creativity that promises to benefit the whole world.
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
More than ever, I believe in the WPC’s calling as it has been defined since its inception in 2008: medium-sized powers must work together to put across their views on the conditions required to keep the world reasonably open.
HH Bartholomew Ist
Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
Cooperation and joint action are imperative in the face of this towering contemporary crisis. No state, religion, institution, leader or science alone can face major problems without the collaboration of other bodies.
Edi Rama
Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania
At these times of global challenges, which are also times for trust challenges, a global approach is required. The commitment of all of us within the structures we have set up is required.
Patrick Achi
Prime Minister of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire
I want to believe that the extraordinary times we are going through, which has quickly imposed many unprecedentedly complex, multiple challenges on Africa, my continent, will also be one of redoubling ideas and commitments.
Message of Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia
Joining the world in achieving a sustainable recovery also means working together to find creative ways to tackle climate change while maintaining energy security and efficiency.
19:30 | Dinner debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Paul Kagame
President of the Republic of Rwanda
Another area where good partnerships can produce results is in the fight against insecurity, terrorism, extremist ideologies, including genocide ideology. There are cross-border challenges that require close cooperation.
Panelists debate
Debate
08:30 – 10:00 | Plenary session 6
Asia and the Sino-American Rivalry
Thomas Gomart
Director of Ifri
What is the nature of this rivalry. In which fields it should be observed. Is it in the military field, for example, what about Taiwan? Is it more about technology and chips, a topic we dealt with yesterday?
Hiroyuki Akita
Commentator of Nikkei, Japan
The United States and China are escalating into more intense and deeper competition. Before this pandemic, two powers competed over the high-tech hegemony and the geopolitical primacy, mainly on the maritime domain.
Renaud Girard
Senior reporter and war correspondent at Le Figaro
I think main goal of Xi Jinping – his legacy to China from his time in power – is getting back Taiwan. I even think his attitude towards this borders on obsession. However, I do not think that China wants to fight in this conflict.
Lee Hye Min
Senior Advisor of KIM & CHANG, former G20 Sherpa, former Deputy Minister for Trade of Korea, former Chief Negotiator for the Korea-EU FTA
How to remain a good and reliable partnerof the US without confronting and provoking China is the most serious challenge for Korea in the coming years.
Mayankote Kelath Narayanan
Executive Chairman of CyQureX Systems Pvt. Ltd., former Senior Advisor and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India
The Asian continent has possibly the largest number of rivalries between nations today. Sino-American rivalry has far reaching consequences for an Asia already plagued by tensions between India and China.
Marcus Noland
Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
American attitudes toward China across the political spectrum have been hardening at both the elite and mass level. That consensus appears to be largely attributable to the assumption that the government of China is engaged in increasingly oppressive behavior internally as well as aggressive external behavior.
Wang Jisi
President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University
The external environment is not favorable to China. First, many media reports indicate that public opinion in Western countries, Japan, South Korea and India is increasingly unfavorable to China.
Debate
10:00 – 10:30 | Plenary session 7
Conversation with Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, former Prime Minister of Australia
I think we should not anticipate any early move by China against Taiwan. That is not because China has eschewed the use of force but because China believes that the balance of power will be more to its advantage against the United States by the end of the decade rather than at the beginning.
Debate
10:30 – 11:45 | Plenary session 8
Health as a Global Governance Issue: Lessons from Covid-19 Pandemic
Michel Kazatchkine
Former Executive Director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, Senior Fellow at the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva
The world was not prepared. Although public health officials, experts, and previous international reviews had warned of potential pandemics since the first outbreak of SARS, Covid-19 took large parts of the world by surprise.
Christian Bréchot
President of the Global Virus Network
We should also never forget the pending issue of the longterm medical consequences and the real impact of, for example, what we call long Covid. I believe that this is something where there is still uncertainty.
Juliette Tuakli
Chief Executive Officer of CHILDAccra Medical, Chair of the Board of Trustees of United Way Worldwide
The pandemic highlighted health inequities that had been ongoing, also other systemic weaknesses such as insufficiencies, ineffective and unequal national health systems.
Jean Kramarz
Director of the Healthcare activities of the AXA Partners Group
Health is a strategic issue and as such, governments should invest in Health massively before a crisis occurs, not after. Stocks of medical goods should be looked after with the same focus as military assets.
Robert Sigal
Chief Executive Officer of the American Hospital of Paris
What makes the fight effective is coordination between general practitioners and hospitals, and less obviously, between the private and public sector. Most important, was the coordination orchestrated by public agencies.
Haruka Sakamoto
Assistant Professor at the School of Medicine, Department of Health Policy and Management, Keio University
Global health governance is often discussed in negative terms, such as the weakening of the World Health Organization, the absence of leadership and the structure of the US-China conflict being brought into global health.
Conclusion Michel Kazatchkine
Former Executive Director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, Senior Fellow at the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva
We have to adapt our governance structure and work on preparedness and response culturally and politically to regional patterns.
Debate
11:45 – 12:45 | Plenary session 9
Global Health: Technology, Economics and Ethics
Patrick Nicolet
Founder and Managing Partner of Line Break Capital Ltd., former Capgemini’s Group Chief Technology Officer
Innovation must be socially acceptable, economically viable, and technologically feasible. In the field of healthcare, too often have we considered the later with little to no consideration to the other two criteria.
Jacques Biot
Board member and Advisor to companies in the field of digital transformation and artificial intelligence, former President of the École Polytechnique in Paris
My presentation addresses the difficulty of reconciling supply and demand in the ever-burgeoning field of healthcare services and products, and proposes to introduce some strategic drive to maximize the benefit for society in this domain which to-date is guided by no invisible hand.
Daniel Andler
Emeritus Professor at Sorbonne University, member of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences
Ethics is important in healthcare. Not because people have a human right to health, and it is our individual and social duty to provide it, but because discharging this duty is no simple matter.
Kim Sung-Woo
Chief Executive Officer of MiCo BioMed Co. Ltd.
We will enter the ubiquitous healthcare era with the innovative tele-diagnostic system in the near future. Wide applications can be adapted to the many global institutes such as WHO, USA CDC and Institut Pasteur.
Carlos Moreira
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of WISeKey, former UN Expert on cybersecurity
In the 4th Industrial Revolution, the power of better health will increasingly be placed into the hands of the individual. As this power is transferred, groups of individuals will be both inspired and empowered to share the benefits.
Patrick Nicolet
Founder and Managing Partner of Line Break Capital Ltd., former Capgemini’s Group Chief Technology Officer
If we get together some more holistic views, we should be able to map some ways forward and anticipate, as was said before, and prepare for the future. I am not Utopian, but rather on the optimist side of the technology.
Debate
12:45 – 13:15 | Plenary session 10
Conversation with Didier Reynders
Didier Reynders
Commissioner for Justice in charge of Rule of Law and Consumer Protection at the European Commission
Since the banking crisis and sovereign debt crisis 10 years ago, we have enhanced controls on the budget. Now maybe with the evolution in some member states to authoritarian regimes, we are also paying more attention to values and that is very new.
Debate
15:00 – 15:30 Plenary session | Plenary session 11
Conversation with Anwar Mohammed Gargash
Anwar Mohammed Gargash
Diplomatic Advisor to the President, United Arab Emirates
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the international system witnessed a very brief American moment. Although the United States remains dominant and most important, the international system is clearly not unipolar.
Debate
15:30 – 16:30 | Plenary session 12
Geopolitical Dimensions of the Future Supply of Critical Raw Materials
Holger Bingmann
President of the German Section of the International Chamber of Commerce, Honorary Chairman of the German Emirati Joint Council for Industry and Commerce
Climate focused politics are here to stay in Europe, so the economy and the industry need a constant and secure supply of necessary resources in order to comply with the Green Deal.
Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde
Non-Executive Director at Norge Mining
As a former Minister for Public Security, I will say that it is at least a huge challenge because 30 million jobs in the EU are directly dependent on access to raw materials.
Peter Handley
Head of the Energy-Intensive Industries and Raw Materials Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Growth
When the then Chinese President said, “The Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths” that was the starting signal for China to build a strong position in the metals and minerals value chain.
David Wurmser
Founder and Executive member of the Delphi Global Analysis Group, former Senior Advisor to the US Vice President on Middle East
We are discarding essential current knowledge and human capital. The lowering of value creation and outsourcing, especially in fields like mining, by Western countries, has led to a rise in the atrophy in key talent.
Debate
16:30 – 19:00 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Money and Finance
Jean-Claude Trichet
European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, former President of the ECB
I do not therefore consider at all that it is a catastrophe that we have inflation ! I consider first that it is exactly what the central banks were aiming at. It is positive from that standpoint.
Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mashreq
Financial players will need to massively set up their technology, their partners, their relationships with developers and to think strategically on how to survive.
Raed Charafeddine
Central and Commercial Banker, former First Vice Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon
Monetary policy measures would remain of limited impact in terms of timeframe and macroeconomic factors if they are not accompanied by and integrated with the development of a comprehensive and integrated economic financial plan in the short, medium and long term.
Serge Ekué
President of the West African Development Bank
Emerging countries in Africa, with vaccination rates of between 2% and 4%, face an additional hurdle with a risk of being marginalized from international trade flows.
Jean-Claude Meyer
Vice Chairman International of Rothschild & Cie
We are at a crossroads with a lot of uncertainty. Overheating and inflation are threatening as the Federal Reserve has shifted its stance to give more leeway to inflation and greater priority to employment.
Jacques Michel
Chairman of BNP Paribas Middle East and Africa for Corporate and Institutional Banking
We have been in a new paradigm since 2015 when oil prices dropped by more than 50% and the Gulf countries came to take loans on the bond market.
Debate
Workshop #2 – Energy, Climate and Sustainable Development
Introduction
Arnaud Breuillac
Senior Advisor to the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of TotalEnergies
Gas is an enabler of the energy transition, both in power and in industry. Development of greener liquid and gas as fuel is going to be an important contributor.
Debate
Mariam Al Mheiri
Minister of Climate Change and Environment, United Arab Emirates
Food security as a subject itself is about food trade, nutrition, food loss and food waste, food safety and ensuring you have national reserves, especially for a country that does not have the typical agricultural lands.
Debate
Isabelle Tsakok
Economist, Consultant on Agriculture and Rural Development, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South
Governments and markets must work together – not a laissez-faire approach. This holistic approach can also be looked at in terms of the Development Trilogy of growth, equity and stability.
Olivier Appert
Chairman of France Brevets, Scientific Advisor of the Energy Center of Ifri, former President of the French Energy Council
The power system has to balance supply and demand in real time everywhere around the network, taking into account the fact that electricity storage is difficult and very expensive, especially on a large scale.
Debate
Débat
Peter Handley
Head of the Energy-Intensive Industries and Raw Materials Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Growth
We are also sitting down and talking to the European Investment Bank to see how we can finance these things and where European funds like InvestEU can be deployed.
Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega
Director of Ifri’s Center for Energy & Climate
Gas is being singled out in Europe, but the real enemy is coal. European countries (especially Germany) are not doing enough to phase out coal, and the G7 should mobilize to help South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia and India gradually do without it.
Conclusion
Workshop #3 – Africa
Robert Dossou
President of the African Association of International Law, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin, former President of the Constitutional Court of Benin
Why cannot African countries get organized so that their own armies can fight this scourge?
Sheikh Shakhbut bin Nahyan Al Nahyan
Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, United Arab Emirates
There is no doubt that the UAE is wholeheartedly invested in the future of Africa and its people and of course we continue to hopefully play a proactive and valuable role in Africa.
Nathalie Delapalme
Executive Director of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation
If Africa’s youth prospects continue to shrink, we will see more uncontrolled migration, a growing attractivity of terrorist and criminal networks, more social unrest, and more conflict.
Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
Vice President of the National Assembly of Senegal, President of the Pan-African Institute for Strategies, Peace-Security-Governance
The profound leadership crisis is especially visible in security management because terrorism is the main threat to the African continent.
Elisabeth Guigou
Founding President of Europartenaires, President of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, former President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly
An extremely thorough study of special industrial zones across Africa reveals that the most successful ones use labor and favor structural transformations that benefit Africans.
Aminata Touré
Senegalese politician, former Prime Minister
Africa is talked about as though we speak the same language, dance to the same music and have the same funeral rites. We do not. Africa is a diverse place. It has diverse cultures and paths.
Juliette Tuakli
Chief Executive Officer of CHILDAccra Medical, Chair of the Board of Trustees of United Way Worldwide
I noted at the onset of Covid-19, it struck me how in Africa we seemed to have terrific strategy with an enormous lack of capacity. In the West, there was an abysmal strategy with enormous capacity.
Lionel Zinsou
Co-Chair of SouthBridge, Chairman of Terra Nova think tank, former Prime Minister of Benin
We have to lament the fact that we had to go into debt during Covid, albeit much less than Europe and infinitely less than North America. But still, we had to go into debt like everyone else to meet emergency expenses and deal with the effects of the lockdown.
Nardos Bekele-Thomas
UN Resident Coordinator in South Africa
We have to bring our youth into the center and at the front, we have to bring our learning institutions, research institutions and technology centers in the planning and implementation of our programs.
Alain Antil
Director of the Ifri Sub-Saharan Africa Center 20:
15 or 20 years of high growth has sometimes left huge swaths of the country untouched. This is a major governance problem that I want to ask you about. How can this be addressed?
Debate
20:00 | Gala dinner with Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak
Introduction – Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak
Chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority, Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Mubadala
As a gateway between East and West, the UAE is deeply invested in strong diplomatic ties around the world, undoubtedly strengthened during the pandemic.
09:00 – 10:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Report
Pierre Jacquet
President of the Global Development Network, former Chief Economist of the French Development Agency, former Deputy Director of Ifri
We had a lively exchange on the current economic and financial situation, during which we also addressed some structural transformations that are taking place.
Workshop #2 – Report
Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega
Director of Ifri’s Center for Energy & Climate
If we are to feed a growing world population then we obviously look again at genetically modified crops, but also develop a more resilient agriculture to manage the climate change challenges we are facing.
Workshop #3 – Report
Robert Dossou
President of the African Association of International Law, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin, former President of the Constitutional Court of Benin
Colonization cobbled together several entities that since independence that have not succeeded in turning the administrative apparatus inherited from colonization into a real state exempt of patrimonialism.
10:00 – 10:30 | Plenary session 13
Conversation with Nabil Fahmy
Nabil Fahmy
Founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo, former Foreign Minister of Egypt
We are actually engaging with Europe quite strongly economically but the debate on general policy issues is more formal than intense. I would love to see a stronger European engagement on how we work on the Mediterranean
Debate
10:30 – 11:30 | Plenary session 14
The Middle East and External Powers
Fareed Yasseen
Ambassador of Iraq to the United States
So we have a stage that is set: a region where you have an interplay between global powers, the ambitions of emerging regional powers and national interest by countries who want to assert their sovereignty.
Khalifa Shaheen Almarar
Minister of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, United Arab Emirates
The Middle East and our region, especially over the last decade or so, has gone through a lot of crises and conflicts that have taken a lot of efforts and resources and shook the foundation of national state institutions.
Vitaly Naumkin
President of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Senior Political Advisor to the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the UN for Syria
One example of how Russia is trying to help its different partners or different players I should say, even those who are not very friendly to Russia, is our dialogue with the Taliban.
Stuart Eizenstat
Senior Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP, former Chief White House Domestic Policy Advisor to President Jimmy Carter
Even if there is a re-entrance of the US and Iran into the JCPOA or a slightly expanded JCPOA, the US continues to maintain separate sanctions on Iran for its nuclear missile program and its support for terrorism.
Memduh Karakullukçu
Founding Board member of the Global Relations Forum, Founding Partner of Kanunum, Chairman of Kroton Consulting
The whole region unfortunately rests on centuries old rifts, fault lines, ethnic, sectarian, religious and it is all over the place. At the sub-state level, state level, subregional level, regional, region-wide, it is just a fragmented, ethnically sectarian fragmented geography.
11:30 – 13:00 | Plenary session 15
Afghanistan
Ali Aslan
International TV Presenter and journalist
Welcome back to what is promising to be a very insightful session on probably one of the most pertinent, imminent, geopolitical challenges of our times, of the 21st century.
Debate
The current situation in Afghanistan
I think the withdrawal from Afghanistan basically is a signal that the US is not going to fight any further regional conflicts that do not make a big difference to their strategic ambition, whatever the strategic policy is for the United States.
Debate
The failure of the USA-led “nation building”
This is something that the American military always makes a mistake at – and that is to teach them how to use our high-tech weapons and things like that; and then, when the infrastructure for the high-tech weapons goes away, they are at sea.
Debate
Dealing or not with the Taliban
I think we should engage with the Taliban, or the government, and also with the people. So, it is not a matter of limiting our engagement to the government. Afghanistan has had enough, so we need to support the Afghan people.
Debate
The consequences of US domestic politics on Afghanistan
We have to remember that there is something worse than political dictatorship, which is anarchy. There is something worse than anarchy, which is civil war. Now, in Afghanistan, we are between dictatorship and anarchy, a little bit of both. Please let us not go back to civil war.
Panelists debate
Debate
15:00 – 16:15 | Plenary session 16
The Middle East in 2030: Geopolitical and Economic Aspects
John Andrews
Contributing Editor to The Economist and Project Syndicate
If you think of outsiders’ influence and interventions in the Arab world and Iran, an awful lot of it has been because of oil and gas and the struggle to control them. The past has been quite complicated but perhaps we are moving towards a post-oil era.
Ebtesam Al-Ketbi
President and Founder of the Emirates Policy Center
The entanglement of security, economy and politics with history, religion and questions of identity are highly likely to continue and both societal agreement on the legal system and the management of public sphere, the system of rights and freedom, are all linked to a single question.
Itamar Rabinovich
Vice Chairman of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, former Israeli Ambassador to the US, former Chief Negotiator with Syria
The dominant trends in the current Middle Eastern arena are the continuing unrest in the Arab World, the rise of Iran and Turkey as two major regional powers, the pivoting away of the United States, and the dramatic improvement in Israel’s relationship with part of the Arab world mitigated by the lingering effect of the Palestinian issue.
Bernardino León Gross
Director General of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy
Demography is going to be a huge factor and I would say the main one in the coming decade, affecting and influencing at the same time economic and political issues. The subfactor that is important to bear in mind here is migration.
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator, Advisor to the UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations
I would say that the access to energy resources has unquestionably long been a driver for foreign policy. Therefore, the challenge for any state is working out how to use energy as a geo-economic asset and to successfully turn it into both a source of income and of state power.
Volker Perthes
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan and Head of the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan
The main difficult part but also the most interesting dimension of this transition for this region, the Middle East and North Africa, is the political transition. This is the most difficult because power sharing between the military and the civilians is rather exceptional in this part of the world.
Panelists debate
Debate
16:15 – 17:00 | Plenary session 17
Stakes of Space Competition
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Nowadays everybody is interested in space. It is a question of technology and the future world economy is going into space and that will be based on technology and all technology today depend on space one way or another.
Sarah Al Amiri
Minister of State for Advanced Technology, President of the UAE Space Agency
What better and more challenging sector can you use to expedite the development of your technological capabilities in a short amount of time? That is why the space sector was used from the start.
Philippe Baptiste
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the French Centre for Space Studies (CNES)
While space traffic in low Earth orbit has been doubling every two years, we observe new space players from both the public and private spheres arriving with new ambitions.
Panelists debate
Debate
17:00 – 18:00 | Plenary session 18
Young Leaders: Gov Tech
Lucia Sinapi-Thomas
Executive Director of Capgemini Ventures
There is a clear acceleration in the pace of innovation with technology driving change and data-driven digital calling for transformation.
Debate
Defining the concept of GovTech
GovTech is a contraction of “government” and “technology” and to put it simply, I define it as the use and purchase of innovative technological solutions by state actors to carry out a defined policy.
Debate
Big tech and state sovereignty
Citizens have to be able to express themselves on the subject of GovTech because in the end it is the quality of public services that it is at stake and eventually, their personal data.
Debate
Healthcare data governance
The data is critical because it brings in AI which brings a more powerful tool to make diagnoses and empower people and maybe one day everybody will be using ultrasound because it is non-invasive and safe.
Debate
Europe’s stance on tech
I think that European sovereignty very much lies on its ability to foster an ecosystem of industrial actors in the GovTech sector and in that sense, the pandemic has raised awareness.
Conclusion
Looking at Europe’s demographic trees we have a big boomer generation that is now in all the power positions, in society, business and government especially. I think that is a big problem.
Debate
2020 Conference proceedings
09:00 – 09:30 | Opening
Global Governance and Public Health
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
We are living through the greatest of all shocks since the beginning of the WPC, COVID-19, which probably belongs to the highest category of conceivable shocks. As a result, we will have to introduce health as a fundamental subject in all the discussions and reflections about the future of global governance.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Director-General of the WHO
The pandemic has shown us that international cooperation is the only solution to an international crisis. Working together might not always be easy, but it is essential. We must rethink and strengthen multilateralism to address the pressing challenges of our world in a coordinated and coherent way.
09:30 – 11:30 | Session 1
The lessons of COVID-19
Michel Kazatchkine
Special Advisor to the Joint United Nations Program on AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Senior Fellow at the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
Against a certain lack of interest in certain health issues that has prevailed in recent years, the world is now realizing how much among all global issues, it is health in the short-term that has the greatest potential for disruption in our globalized world.
Antoine Flahault
Director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva
In a collaboration between the University of Geneva and the two engineering schools of Zürich and Lausanne (ETHZ and EPFL), we provide on a dashboard […] with daily updates of COVID-19 forecasts for 209 countries and territories.
Debate 1
Alexandre de Germay
Senior Vice President Global Head of Cardiovascular and Established Products at Sanofi
Overhauling healthcare systems is an onerous undertaking – and requires many actors engaging in concert behind common or complementary objectives. But the COVID-19 crisis has shown us that it is possible to effect wide and large-scale change […]
Jean Kramarz
Head of Business Line Health at Axa Partners
The purpose of Insurance is to cover for unexpected events in a predictable, measurable environment. COVID-19 taught us in a hard way that the Health environment was less predictable and measurable than we all thought.
Juliette Tuakli
Medical Director, Chief Executive Officer of Family, Child & Associates, Chair of the Board of Trustees of United Way Worldwide
Agile coherent leadership was noted in the most COVID-19 resilient African nations. Whilst there was some politicization of COVID-19 management, as in other parts of the world, Africa fared much better than feared.
Elhadj As Sy
Co-chair of the WHO/World Bank Global Pandemic Preparedness Monitoring Board, Chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation Board
This time, we are being reminded that perhaps we should not go back to normal because normal has not worked.
Debate 2
11:30 – 13-30 | Session 2
Technology, Economics, Health Ethics
Introduction
Jacques Biot
Board Member and Advisor to companies in the field of digital transformation and artificial intelligence, former President of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris
Innovation in the field is still mostly science and technology driven, a favorable feature to provide disruptive remedies to some major health issues, but which allows for no reasonable marketplace to reconcile demand with supply and rationalize economic flows.
Alexandra Prieux
President of Alcediag, Founder of SkillCell
The extensive use of technologies permanently changes medical practice as well as the role of the doctor who becomes more and more a technology user. Alongside with the progresses carried by technologies come new challenges that will need to be overcome.
Debate 1
Daniel Andler
Emeritus Professor at Sorbonne University, Member of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences
Over the last three decades health technologies have produced a steady flux of revolutionary inventions, disrupting established practices and common understandings of some basic ethical and anthropological notions. Hence the need for guidelines, which provide a legible representation of the ethical and legal issues which allows agents in the field to navigate the situations they encounter daily.
Arthur Stril
Chief Business Officer and member of the Executive Committee of Cellectis
The 21st century will be the century of biology and medicine, fuelled by the rapid accumulation of biological engineering breakthroughs such as viral vectors, gene editing, and reproductive medicine, which are drastically reshaping human healthcare. But does the end justify such technological means?
Debate 2
Patrick Nicolet
Capgemini’s Group Chief Technology Officer
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) form the backbone of our societies, but their usage so far has been centered on short-term convenience slowly taking a toll on the Earth finite resources. In this context, what if the most pressing healthcare challenge for mankind isn’t COVID-19 itself but a deeper transformation of our individual and collective practices and behaviors through planet-centric design.
Carlos Moreira
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of WISeKey, former United Nations Expert on Cybersecurity and Trust Models
We must rethink the way the internet is built in order to unleash the potential of technology for healthcare as this sector is still mainly an analogue sector waiting to be digitally transformed.
Conclusion
14:30 – 16:00 | Session 3
Mental Health and Addiction
Introduction
Michael van den Berg
Health Economist and Policy Analyst at the OECD
Slowly but surely, a paradigm shift is taking place in the way we think about healthcare, with a focus on the people who use it. Policymakers, academics, healthcare providers and patients are joining forces to make health systems more people-centered.
Roberto Burioni
Professor of Microbiology and Virology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan
Together with a pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, we must face a second pandemic, made of fake news that are widely circulated and believed by the general population.
Jean-Pierre Lablanchy
Medical Doctor and Psychiatrist, member of the Supervisory Board of Edeis
Mental health issues that have emerged for some time in the public debate are not new, but COVID-19 contributed to exacerbate some of them.
Debate
Conclusion
2019 Conference proceedings
08:30 – 09:45 | Opening session
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
At the 11th WPC a year ago in Rabat, the prevailing view among experts was that the world economy was doing well and had a bright outlook, subject only to political shocks that might affect it. However, there was no shortage of them, even beyond the trade war.
Amadou Gon Coulibaly
Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire
The event bringing us together today also offers us an opportunity to reflect in depth on the challenges facing Africa and the world.
Édouard Philippe
Prime Minister of France
“Politics is a bit like the weather. Whether it’s a clear or cloudy day, you always have to break through the clouds of the future.” You probably recognize these words of His Majesty King Hassan II.
Debate
09:45 – 11:15 | Plenary session 1
World political economic outlook in the context of the rise of China
Gabriel Felbermayr
President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Professor of Economics and Economic Policy at Kiel University
Olivier Blanchard
Former President of the American Economic Association, former Chief Economist of the IMF
Interest rates are amazingly low; as you know the yield curve, the structure of interest rates looking forward, for the Eurozone is negative for 25 years, which has never been seen before, similar in Japan, and not terribly far from this in the US […].
Arkebe Oqubay
Senior Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Since 2007, […] the global economy is in a slowdown mode; it has not yet been able to return to the growth rates that were observed a decade back before the financial crisis.
Salaheddine Mezouar
President of the General Confederation of Moroccan Companies, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Industry
[China] has allowed African leaders to regain some sovereignty in investment and development policy decisions.
Sergey Storchak
Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation
There is plenty of evidence that China has become a new super-power, and, from a Russian point of view, we enjoy the fact and, frankly speaking, we are relying on the fact, and it helps a lot in terms of overcoming some difficulties in terms of different economic and financial restrictions.
Il SaKong
Chairman Emeritus of the Institute for Global Economics, former Minister of Finance of the Republic of Korea, former Chairman of the Presidential Committee for the G20 Summit
With slowing exports and decreasing business investments, Korea’s economy is currently growing only at around 2%.
Naoki Tanaka
President of the Center for International Public Policy Studies, Tokyo
I want to pick up the potential growth rate of China: Three factors exist when we measure the potential growth rate: labor input, capital input, and innovation. China’s labor population is decreasing, and as to capital input I am not so optimistic.
Debate
11:15 – 12:00 | Plenary session 2
Sustaining globalization – the Chinese position
Ronnie C. Chan
Chairman of Hang Lung Properties
I cannot help but think about what the most anti-globalized country in the world is today. It is no longer China; after having been a part of globalization, China closed itself off, and now is finally globalized again.
Eric Li
Founder and Managing Partner of Chengwei Capital
We [need to] create a more networked world. It is networked pluralism, as opposed to hegemonically led universalism, and that is, I think, what China’s proposition will be. It is still in a nascent stage, but I think the world should […] work with China on this.
Leung Chun-ying
Vice Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, former Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China
Hong Kong is not a sovereign state, Hong Kong is part of China, so when we look at democracy or the process of democratization in Hong Kong, we should not compare Hong Kong with a sovereign state.
Debate
12:00 – 12:30 | Plenary session 3
Conversation with Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of L’Oréal
Jean-Paul Agon
Chairman and CEO of L’Oréal
I think the future belongs to the light footprint, which means having a smaller presence with more mobile, more agile and more adaptable investments allowing you to shift your priorities and plans depending on which way the world is heading.
Debate
12:30 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar
Although the Middle East is a region of turmoil, we in Qatar view it as a critical region with global importance. It is the global intersection of air, sea and land, and even the birth of faith.
Debate
14:30 – 15:45 | Plenary session 4
Trade, direct investment and Trust
Virginie Robert
Foreign Desk Editor, Les Echos
The new Head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, issued a stern warning for her first public speech, worldwide growth is slowing because of commercial tensions.
Debate
US-China’s partial deal
Donald Trump is an avowed protectionist. The people who surround him are not friends of the WTO. They would like to return to the world of the GATT when there was no dispute settlement mechanism.
Debate
Damage of the US-China trade war
If you look at the big macroeconomic aggregates, investment is by far the most volatile, and it reacts most to news or to changed information, and also to uncertainty. You can postpone investment but you cannot postpone consumption so much.
Debate
Revision of trade deals
There is a positive side and a negative side of this most recent Japan/US trade agreement. First of all, from a Japanese perspective, it was quite a good agreement because we could avoid the imposition of 25%, duties on Japanese cars exported to the US.
Debate
WTO’s governance
The US has been the positive leader for more than 70 years in trade policy, starting before the GATT, and they have used trade policy as an element of their foreign policy, as an instrument of peace policy.
Debate
15:45 – 17:00 | Plenary session 5
The politicization of the international system of payments and the future of the international monetary system
John Lipsky
Peterson Distinguished Scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, former First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF
The Dollar’s dominance survived the end of the formal Bretton Woods system in the sense it moved to floating exchange rates, survived the oil shock, survived the Latin debt crisis and in 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the entry of China and India into the global trading system, began the period of what I call true globalization, and the Dollar remained dominant again.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of Government at Harvard University
Dollar dominance has rested in large part on the expectation that the American political order would protect and defend the real value of the US currency, along with the stability and openness of its financial system.
Akinari Horii
Special Advisor and Member of the Board of Directors of the Canon Institute for Global Studies, former Assistant Governor of the Bank of Japan
Market confidence matters a lot for an actively-used international currency. It is not only confidence in the value of the currency, but confidence in its integrity that matters. The integrity of a currency is maintained only when it functions properly as a means of exchange, unit of account and store of value.
Hélène Rey
Professor of Economics at London Business School, Member of the French National Economic Commission, Member of the High Council for Financial Stability
Clearly, the number two currency is currently the Euro. However, we still miss a euro area safe asset, the equivalent of US Treasuries. Europe needs to complete the financial architecture of the Euro area for the Euro to become a truly global currency.
Sergey Storchak
Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation
We are living in a world where the monetary system, or I could better say financial infrastructure of one particular country is being used as a political weapon. It is a really bad story. However, it is happening […] Therefore, it can be done in different ways, but what is really interesting about US Dollars, you cannot escape the fact that the biggest invoicing is taking place in US Dollars.
Jean-Claude Trichet
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bruegel, European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, former President of the ECB
The main problem we have, in my opinion, in Europe, if we want a Europe establishing an appropriate balance with the US, is mainly of a political nature. Both the treasuries and the safe bonds, which are not there, and the geopolitical capacity to tell our partner(s): if you blackmail us, then we will blackmail you.
Debate
17:00 – 18:00 | Plenary session 6
The weaponization of Law and globalization
Laurent Cohen-Tanugi
Member of the Paris and New York Bars, former Chairman of French governmental task force on Europe in the global economy
We seem to be moving from an era – from the end of World War II through the past 70 years – where law has been key to the building of an international world order based on the rule of law […] to a more chaotic system of international relations where law seems to be used more and more as a pretext for arbitrary or unilateral action.
Anne-Thida Norodom
Professor of Public Law at the University of Paris Descartes, Secretary-General of the French Society for International Law
Lawfare can be a useful tool when it comes to communicating how to utilize the law in modern conflicts and appears as a substitute for traditional weapons.
Stuart Eizenstat
Senior Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP, former Chief White House Domestic Policy Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, former US Ambassador to the European Union
Why is there an upswing in lawfare? There is a positive reason, that is that major nation states know it would be catastrophic to engage in shooting wars in a nuclear age.
Lee Hye-min
Senior Advisor of KIM & CHANG, former G20 Sherpa, former Deputy Minister for Trade and Chief Negotiator for the Korea-EU FTA
The reappearance of unilateralism, wherein the members are abusing the national security exception and paralyzing WTO dispute system, abusing the principle of consensus are important examples of the weaponization of the law in the international trade.
Michael Møller
Former Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva
Underlying the framing of our debate today on the weaponization of law and globalization is a pervasive concern that fundamental tenets of the international and indeed national order are fraying.
Debate
19:00 | Dinner debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Paul Kagame
President of the Republic of Rwanda
Africa is nobody’s prize to win or lose. Not at all. It is our responsibility as Africans to take charge of our own interests and develop our continent to its full potential.
Debate
08:30 – 09:45 | Plenary session 7
Technology, society and politics
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor to The Washington Post
François Barrault
Chairman of IDATE DigiWorld, Chairman and Founder of FDB Partners
The machine will never take control of our life as long as we are reasonable.
Jean-Yves Le Gall
President of CNES, President of the International Astronautical Federation, Chair of the Council of the European Space Agency
For climate change, space is very, very important, because out of the 50 essential climate variables which are defined to measure the climate, 26, which are more than half, can be observed just from space and with satellites.
Susan Liautaud
Lecturer in Public Policy and Law at Stanford University, Interim Chair of Council at the London School of Economics, Founder and Managing Director of Susan Liautaud & Associates Ltd
We need to reconceptualize what it means to have a society in which democracies function, because the reality is that it is no longer about individual human beings and their institutions. The connective tissue is machines, apps and data.
Holger Mey
Vice President, Advanced Concepts, Airbus, Munich; former President and CEO of the Institute for Strategic Analyses, Bonn
Freedom and security is not a trade-off relationship, as it is often being put. […] I think without a certain degree of security, we probably have no freedom and cannot enjoy any freedom.
John Sawers
Executive Chairman of Newbridge Advisory, Senior Advisor at Chatham House, former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) of the United Kingdom
The role of technology is central to the great power rivalry which is going to be the design model of the world of the coming decade or two.
Debate
09:45 – 10:30 | Plenary session 8
Cyber powers and the cyber threat
Thomas Gomart
Director of Ifri
Patrick Nicolet
Group Chief Technology Officer and Group Executive Board Member of Capgemini
Despite the governments’ efforts to retain it, a large part of cyber power is now owned by a very limited number of companies.
Jean-Louis Gergorin
Former Director of the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The cyberthreat is growing for three reasons: the acceleration of the digital transformation in every activity, the fact that the more we digitalize the more vulnerable we become and the growing involvement of states in cyberattacks on companies and critical infrastructure.
Meir Sheetrit
Former Member of the Knesset, former Minister of Intelligence Affairs and the Committee of Atomic Energy, former Minister of the Interior
This was done from far away. Nobody has been there. Nobody touched it. Nobody attacked it, and still they ruined all the infrastructure of Iran for producing, for enriching uranium.
Debate
10:30 – 11:15 | Plenary session 9
Climate and environment
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Laurent Fabius
President of the Constitutional Council, former President of the COP 21, former Prime Minister of France
Governments, some of which deny climate change or have taken a wait-and-see attitude, bear an eminent responsibility because they must work for their countries’ general welfare, and more widely.
Patrick Pouyanné
CEO of Total
The good substitute for coal is gas. It is the only choice allowing us to have a reliable, sustainable energy mix that meets demand in all seasons. […] It is unrealistic to think that renewables will solve the problem.
Debate
11:15 – 12:15 | Plenary session 10
The status of health care delivery in Africa: challenges and opportunities
Brian A. Gallagher
President and CEO of United Way Worldwide
Africans endure 17% of all the disease in the world and yet are 11% of the population.
Nardos Bekele-Thomas
Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in South Africa
There are two countries in one country: the country that has high tech and expensive health care system which caters for 10% to 15% of the population and the country that has poor to mediocre health services, with the characteristics of any least developed country.
Juliette Tuakli
Founder and Medical Director of Family CHILD & Associates, Ghana; United Way Worldwide’s Chair of Governance Committee
There needs to be some refinement such that NHS empowers and advocates more for access, for women specifically. We have done a good job with lowering child mortality, and morbidity.
Robert Sigal
CEO of the American Hospital of Paris
If you look |…] at how many physicians you have per 10,000 people in Algeria, you have 18 doctors, in Morocco 7. If you look at South Africa, you are at 9. […] it can go as low as 0.5 physicians per 10,000 people in Nigeria, so there is clearly a quantitative problem.
Pierre M’Pelé
Mercy Ships Ambassador for Africa and Africa Bureau Director
In a country of 100 million people, it is about 18,000 health posts. That is amazing. […] Nurses and women community leaders of the “Women Health Development Army” have been at the center of the progress made in improving the health of the people in Ethiopia. Women are agents of change for health in Ethiopia.
Panelists debate
Debate
12:30 – 14:15 | Lunch debate
Kevin Rudd
President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, former Prime Minister of Australia
On Xi Jinping’s worldview, I always think the beginning of wisdom in international relations is to understand how the other side thinks and why they think that way.
Panelists debate
Debate
14:15 – 15:45 | Plenary session 11
European uncertainties
Steven Erlanger
Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Europe, for the New York Times
Hubert Védrine
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of France
A distinction must be made between immediate, short-term uncertainties and deep, structural, perhaps even vital uncertainties.
Volker Perthes
Executive Chairman and Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), former UN Assistant Secretary-General
A rising power, China, is not a benign partner but still has to be a partner because we do not want to decouple, as some Americans probably think they should.
Ana Palacio
Former Member of the Council of State of Spain, former Senior Vice President of the World Bank, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain
What we see today is a pervasive irrationality and emotion everywhere. In the end, however, Europe is a legal construction and all our instruments are geared towards that end.
Artem Malgin
Vice-Rector of the MGIMO University, Professor of the Department of International Relations and Russia’s Foreign Policy
It brings additional problems when it comes to overall organization of world trade and makes all the EU’s agreements with its neighbors and traditional partners, including African or ACP partners, more complicated since the US behaves in the world trade system in an absolutely, let us say, non-WTO way.
Michael Lothian
Member of the House of Lords, former Conservative Member of Parliament
I think there is a very big void now in Europe for a military force and I do not see it being a European one, for the reason that there are certain countries that would not want to join it.
Enrico Letta
Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po Paris, former Prime Minister of Italy
I think Europe can be a third superpower, only by being united and taking leadership on two main subjects, which are subjects for the future: […] climate change and the second one is technological humanism, if I may say.
Panelists debate
Debate
15:45 – 16:45 | Plenary session 12
Where is Latin America heading?
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor to The Washington Post
Andrés Rozental
Senior Policy Advisor at Chatham House, President of Rozental & Asociados, former Mexico’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom
The region is not doing well. Countries like Brazil and Mexico, the two largest economies in the region, are growing at either minimal rates or, in the case of my country, not at all.
Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal
President of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil
The disaster manifested itself at full force after the beginning of the second term for Dilma Rousseff and it was very fast. GDP started falling. The rate of investment fell enormously. There was a lack of trust and Dilma was actually impeached after two years of her second term for disobeying the fiscal laws.
Miguel Ángel Moratinos
High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain
Do you know what the pressure of fiscal reform in Latin America is? The average is 10%, compared to 40% in Germany, 38% in Spain, and 50% in Sweden. They do not pay taxes and they have not been introducing this fiscal reform.
Bertrand Badré
Founder and CEO of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, former Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank
If you look at the continent as a whole, which, in addition, is pulled down by Venezuela, a country that weighs heavily on Latin America’s macro growth, we are just above zero according to the IMF’s latest estimates for this year, although they forecast an upturn next year, driven mainly by Brazil’s recovery.
Debate
16:45 – 19:15 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Finance and economy
Jean-Claude Trichet
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bruegel, European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, former President of the ECB
I see populism and a level of frustration among the citizens, in all the advanced economies without exception. I see that inflation is extraordinarily low, and I cannot help making the connection. There is an anomaly in the functioning of our system which means that Phillips curve has not functioned since the crisis as it did in the past.
Bertrand Badré
Founder and CEO of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, former Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank
The social purpose of business is to find profitable solutions for the planet and its people. It is not profit as an end to an end but profit as a means to an end. […] At the end of the day, we connect capitalism with people, the territories etc.
Daniel Dăianu
Chairman of the Fiscal Council and Advisor to the Governor (Euro Area Affairs), former Board Member of the National Bank of Romania
There is an increasingly wild world, with a lot of fragmentation and dissonance among actors in many respects. There is a massive erosion of multilateralism, in view of what prevailed after the Second World War, the so-called liberal international order.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of Government at Harvard University
There are perceptions that globalization has created pools of wealth that are undeserved, and it has contributed to the decline of communities, and of entire regions. This is a perception that is very widespread. It is not just American. It is not just French. It is not just Brazilian. It is virtually global […].
Akinari Horii
Special Advisor and Member of the Board of Directors of the Canon Institute for Global Studies, former Assistant Governor of the Bank of Japan
Manufacturing in the world economy is in large part influenced by the so-called silicon cycle. The most recent expansionary phase began in early 2016 and peaked in early 2018. If the two year rule continues to hold good, then it will be early 2020 or around the turn of the year, when the cycle hits the bottom and begins to recover.
Hur Kyung-wook
President of Korean Bretton Woods Club, former Advisor to the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office, former Vice Minister for the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, former Senior Economist for the IMF
During the 2008 crisis, we had global coordination. We all remember that the G20 played a very instrumental role. […] Now we do not have it, and we conveniently say there is a so-called new normal about this low interest rate.
André Lévy-Lang
Affiliate Emeritus Professor of Finance at Paris-Dauphine University
I would like to focus quickly on the state of the global financial industry 12 years after the crisis. The US is in very good shape and the US financial system is in good shape. There is no question about that. In Europe, we have a problem. Today, the market value, the market cap of the major European banks is well below their net book value.
John Lipsky
Peterson Distinguished Scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, former First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF
One common thread connecting the sluggish outlook for global growth is the widely experienced weakness in fixed investment in capital goods, equipment and software.
Hélène Rey
Professor of Economics at London Business School, Member of the French National Economic Commission, Member of the High Council for Financial Stability
We do not understand exactly why [real rates] are so low. That constrains monetary policy massively. That creates huge financial risk, not just potentially on the banking sector, but also, and people have not talked about this, on the insurance sector and various types of asset management, on pension funds etc.
Debate
Workshop #2 – Energy and environment
Nobuo Tanaka
Chairman of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, former Executive Director of the IEA
Women are hit much harder by climate change, especially in African countries, because more women are farmers, and with climate change, much more effort is required to fetch water from more distant places.
Olivier Appert
Scientific Advisor of the Energy Center of Ifri, former President of the French Energy Council (French Committee of the World Energy Council)
Most of the attention today is focused on solar and wind, thanks to their spectacular expansion and cost reduction. However modern bioenergy is playing the dominant role because it is the only renewable source that can provide energy for all end use.
Leila Benali
Chief Economist, Head of Strategy, Energy Economics and Sustainability at the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation
The energy sector is really competing with other sectors that are deemed much more attractive for investors in terms of returns. The problem is that the gap is really wide.
Richard Cooper
Professor of International Economics at Harvard University, former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, former Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
I see in my own view that in the end, we will do solar. The end is several decades away, and I see natural gas as being the bridging fuel to solar. In particular, natural gas is a great substitute for coal in generating electricity, as well as other uses.
Cosmin Ghita
CEO of Nuclearelectrica, Romania
Today’s realities call for immediate action, and based on IEA data that was vehiculated here, energy consumption worldwide grew by 2.3% in 2018 alone. This is nearly twice the average rate of growth since 2010.
Tatsuo Masuda
Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Nagoya University of Commerce and Business on energy-climate nexus, Chairman of FairCourt Capital in London, Strategic Committee Member of Elion House in Singapore
Many heads of state came to Rio to make wonderful speeches and agreed upon an action oriented declaration. […] But did actions follow? No, nothing serious happened. We have to do something real and we cannot leave all these younger generations behind or keep the generation gap wide open.
Ali Zerouali
Director of Cooperation and International Development of the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy
Can we imagine going back to fossil fuels for a moment? There would be so much pressure on the price of fossil resources that it would jeopardize the already sluggish growth taking place at the moment. Renewable energy differs from fossil fuels in that there is no competition between countries.
Debate
Workshop #3 – Africa
Robert Dossou
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin, former President of the Constitutional Court, President of the African Association of International Law
The 1990s saw the rise of great expectations in Africa, which came onto the international stage. In addition, Africa’s heads of state have grown aware of the need to solve all the old problems that were holding Africa back.
Sean Cleary
Founder and Executive Vice Chairman of the FutureWorld Foundation, Chairman of Strategic Concepts (Pty) Ltd
We must also consider how to use the African regional organizations and the African Union, the continental institution to enable growth and sustainable development.
Elisabeth Guigou
President of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures, former Minister, former Member of the French Parliament and President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly
Uncontrolled migration is a tragedy for Africa because it is being drained of talent, and you’ve seen the effects of this in Europe: the rise of extremes and populism and the closing of borders. There is no solution unless we tackle these issues together.
Sheikh Tidiane Gadio
President of the Institute for Pan-African Strategies, Peace, Security and Governance, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Senegal
For 20 years I’ve argued that the EU was not our model. We want the model our leaders and great thinkers—Kwamé Nkrumah, Sheikh Anta Diop and Marcus Garvey—laid out before us. We want the United States of Africa. We want a united Africa.
Karim Lotfi Senhadji
CEO of OCP Africa
We see, on the one hand, that the world will have to overcome the challenge of food security. On the other hand, Africa has today all the potential to meet the challenge of global security, not only for its population, which will rise to one billion by 2050, but also for the rest of the world.
Pierre M’Pelé
Mercy Ships Ambassador for Africa and Africa Bureau Director
We said that Africa has made tremendous strides in the field of health. Life expectancy has risen because mortality has dropped by nearly 37%. Life expectancy has increased from 40 to over 60 and even 65 years in many countries.
Juliette Tuakli
Founder and Medical Director of Family CHILD & Associates, Ghana; United Way Worldwide’s Chair of Governance Committee
Our poor citizens build their homes and even cities on ground that we now know is going to be submerged in a few years! We must start considering green economies seriously, […] this might be another space for civic society to play a role.
Aminata Touré
President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Senegal, former Prime Minister of Senegal
Corruption is an issue, but it is an issue for the whole world. This is another stereotype that we have suffered from for a long time: Africa, the land of corruption. However, the biggest corruption scandals are not in Africa: Enron, Exxon, Madoff.
Debate
08:00 – 09:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Report
Hélène Rey
Professor of Economics at London Business School, Member of the French National Economic Commission, Member of the High Council for Financial Stability
There is a lot of weakness in investment, which has been linked to deep uncertainty.
Workshop #2 – Report
Nobuo Tanaka
Chairman of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, former Executive Director of the IEA
Carbon dioxide emissions are growing 2% per year, and this is the trajectory of the average growth of C02 since the Industrial Revolution.
Workshop #3 – Report
Robert Dossou
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin, former President of the Constitutional Court, President of the African Association of International Law
Le passé colonial pèse encore à certains égards et la bonne gouvernance appelle la mise en oeuvre de meilleures normes.
09:00 – 10:15 | Plenary session 13
Middle East and North/West Africa
Volker Perthes
Executive Chairman and Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), former UN Assistant Secretary-General
In quite a number of the states in the region, it is on state level, whether Libya, Mali, Syria or Yemen: order is being undermined through either civil war, war or the weakness of states that has undermined institutions and societal relations.
Mohamed Ibn Chambas
Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel
In general, that is the threat in the Sahel, which is particularly linked to terrorist groups that have been known to exist in the north of Mali that have declared links with international terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda, Islamic State, etc.
Memduh Karakullukçu
Vice Chairman and Founding President of the Global Relations Forum
The Middle East would be better off with constructive engagement from external parties, provided that they, particularly the EU and the US, adjust to the new realities of the power configuration both globally and in the region.
Abdulaziz Othman bin Sager
Chairman of the Gulf Research Center, Saudi Arabia
Today, Saudi has very strategic challenges on both its north and south borders, because on the north side Iran continuously supports all the militia groups, which are fully-funded, trained and supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and at the same time in Yemen.
Dong Manyuan
Vice President of China Institute of International Studies
China seeks no proxy in the Middle East; does not seek to fill the power vacuum; and does not seek regime change.
Debate
10:15 – 11:15 | Plenary session 14
Cross-border illegal trade: a destabilizing factor for the global economy
Alvise Giustiniani
Vice President for Illicit Trade Prevention of PMI
The OECD issued a report a couple of years ago on illicit trade and quantified its dimensions: they came up with a staggering figure above USD 2 trillion around the world for the turnover in illicit trade.
Laurent Marcadier
Former Magistrate, Senior Advisor in charge of Legal Affairs of LVMH Group
Counterfeiting is now the world’s second-leading criminal activity after drug trafficking.
Carlos Moreira
Founder and CEO of WISeKey
In the last five years a new technology has arrived with the name blockchain, which could be the beginning of solving the problem.
Jean-François Thony
Prosecutor-General, President of the Siracusa International Institute
There are as many different kinds of illicit trade as there are products. Furthermore, the criminal organizations behind them are not of a single type but protean.
Panelists debate
Debate
11:15 – 12:45 | Plenary session 15
The consequences of Trump, Act III
Jim Bittermann
Senior European Correspondent for CNN in Paris
When you look at a geographic frame where has Trump had some kind of impact, some consequences from his three-year old Presidency? Well, it is just like everywhere.
Renaud Girard
Senior reporter and war correspondent for Le Figaro
Macron, in my opinion, was smart enough to understand that Trump was highly sensitive to personal dealings, and that he did not really read the memos he was given, receptive to direct explanations between leaders. He was well aware of that, and this particular aspect of Trump’s character may be detrimental further down the line.
Motoshige Itoh
Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo, Professor at the Gakushuin University, Member of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Japan
My point is Mr. Trump may be populism stage one, and there may be populism in stage two. As long as globalization continues there is always a pressure for democracy to be loaded by populism. […] Whether Mr. Trump continues or we have another, maybe leftist, Democrat or whatever, we still have to prepare to work on the populism.
Jean-Claude Gruffat
Chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington DC
American citizens care about international policy when it affects their own personal selfish interests, or when they belong to a community that is very important and has some influence on the political process.
Josef Joffe
Publisher-Editor of the German weekly Die Zeit
It is important to notice continuities. I don’t want to compare Obama to Trump in terms of breach of etiquette and nastiness, but in foreign policy there is more similarity between them than meets the eye.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation
Xi Jinping said one thing that has not been mentioned by many people particularly in the West. He said, we have 1 000 reasons to have good relations with the US, no single reason to have worse relations with the US. That is very important, so the general feeling is that China wanted to make some compromise.
John Sawers
Executive Chairman of Newbridge Advisory, Senior Advisor at Chatham House, former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) of the United Kingdom
The disdain for alliances means that other countries around the world, […] they will simply not rely on America in the same way they did before. They will have to balance those relationships and they will have to be more autonomous for their defence and security. That may not be a bad thing, but it is a consequence of Trump.
Panelists debate
Debate
13:00 – 15:00 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Aminata Touré
President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Senegal, former Prime Minister of Senegal
About the democracy, we have changed presidents peacefully over time. We have what we call a republican army, which means we have an army that follows the rules of democracy.
Arkebe Oqubay
Senior Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Ethiopia does not have petroleum, diamonds or other large resources, and its entire growth was achieved by the hard-working people of Ethiopia and its focus on attracting investment.
15:00 – 16:30 | Plenary session 16
Young Leaders
Patrick Nicolet
Group Chief Technology Officer and Group Executive Board Member of Capgemini
James Stuewe
Manager, Public Sector, Canada
I actually do not think it is reasonable that for us to assume people will just submit to changes in taxes, higher prices, submit to their behaviors being changed because of climate change. This is the challenge.
Xavier Ploquin
Former Advisor for Energy, Industry and Innovation at the French Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition
President Macron had a climate plan in his political program, which was adopted in 2017. There are many things in this plan so I would just say that it leads to the adoption of carbon neutrality in 2050, which is a huge step.
Peter Bruce-Clark
Operating Partner at Social Impact Capital
That circular economic ways of thinking will actually be the foundation upon which countries will prosper going into this century. I believe countries who aggressively drive this way of thinking, financially supporting, underwriting and generating huge industries that tackle the climate crisis, will be richer than the ones that do not.
Jihane Ajijti
Head of Business Development, Digital and Communication within OCP Africa
Africa needs to increase its yields to be able to feed the growing population in the context of climate change and to do that, we need to support the agricultural value chain throughout the continent, to be able to invest and modernize agriculture.
Wu Liang
Co-Founder and CIO of Green City Solutions
We did some research and discovered that there is a technology millions of years old capable of partially solving the pollution problem. We have discovered special moss cultures, which we have patented in our own system, which are literally able to eat-up the air pollution and convert it into biomass.
Polina Vasilenko
Founder and CEO of HelioRec
I am founder and CEO of HelioRec, which builds floating solar power plants, an innovative and cost-effective solution for electricity production.
Debate
16:30 – 17:30 | Plenary session 17
New foreign policy trends in East Asia
Steven Erlanger
Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Europe, for the New York Times
Chiyuki Aoi
Professor of International Security at the Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo
It is the currents of our time that liberal ideals and values are intensively challenged from within, from forces favoring populism and unilateralism as opposed to multilateralism, and also from without, from entities that challenge fundamentally liberal ways of managing political relations.
Kim Hong Kyun
Former Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Issues
South Korea is on the verge of divorcing with its closest neighbour country, Japan, with which we share common values, common security interests and the ally.
Douglas Paal
Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Director of Asian Affairs in the US National Security Council
The movement of US policy with respect to China from engagement to containment is eroding those spokes and making it difficult for the various countries, each of which has its own relations with China, to sustain a kind of counterbalance that will come if they also try to remain close to the United States.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation
Trump tried to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue by establishing personal relations with Kim Jong-un, but so far has not been successful.
Panelists debate
Debate
17:30 – 19:00 | Plenary session 18
Final debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of Ifri and the WPC
Assia Bensalah Alaoui
Ambassador-at-large of His Majesty the King of Morocco
Can we get rid of these lifestyles that are devastating the planet? Without naivety and with a strong will, I could say – and this will obviously shock many people, because that is the paradox – that here and now, could the Mediterranean, thanks to over 2,000 years of adaptive wisdom, become the world’s laboratory?
Karl Kaiser
Senior Associate of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Adjunct Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, former Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, former Advisor to Chancellors Brandt and Schmidt
In the G2 world of US-China rivalry, the United States will continue to need Europe in this competition. The US cannot allow China to dominate the western rim of Eurasia. That is a geopolitical given. Europe also needs the United States in order to survive in this kind of rivalry.
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator, former Member of Parliament, Distinguished Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the American University in Cairo
If Egypt and Saudi Arabia succeed in their ambitious economic and social plans and break through to high levels of growth and employment, that would raise living standards and relive domestic pressure.
Manuel Muñiz
Dean of the School of Global and Public Affairs at IE University and Rafael del Pino Professor of Practice of Global Transformation
I think that the collision with China […] is very structural and is connected to very deep trends in how economics work in the digital area and in the capacity for technology to change the sustainability of an authoritarian regime.
Fathallah Oualalou
Former Minister of Economy and Finance of the Kingdom of Morocco
Africa and the Southern Mediterranean countries […] must come together and make their political system and economic strategy credible. This would seek to restore the Mediterranean’s peace, dynamism and centrality, which are necessary for a more balanced, more multipolar world […].
Yoichi Suzuki
Adjunct Fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs, former Special Assistant to the Foreign Minister of Japan, former Chief Negotiator of the Japan EU Economic Partnership Agreement
China talks about each country having its own specific model. That is not enough. Drawing up multilateral guidelines is indispensable to avoid falling into debt traps or accelerating climate change.
Debate
2018 Conference proceedings
08:30 – 09:45 | Opening session
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Some said technology would eventually erase borders and promote the rapid onset of a blissful globalisation. Instead, we are witnessing an exacerbation of nation-based realities, which irresistibly mirrors the past two centuries back to us.
Amadou Gon Coulibaly
Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire
Africa has solid foundations for becoming a pillar of global growth and prosperity.
General Michel Aoun
President of Lebanon
The recognition of the unity of the human family in its diversity and plurality and the attention paid to the unified dignity of each person must be given impetus in the responsibility to protect every human being
His Holiness Bartholomew I
Arcbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenial Patriarch
Global interdependence was expected to bring about more equality, freedom and even democracy. But by using the failures of globalisation as a scapegoat, populism fuels hatred of others.
09:45 – 11:45 | Plenary session 1
09:45 – 11:45
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of government, Harvard University
Kemal Dervis
Senior Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, former Head of the UNDP, former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey, former Vice president of the World Bank
We are in a much more multipolar world, although the US and China are by far the two big giants that are dominant.
Marcus Noland
Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Former senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President of the United States
The bottom line is the Trump administration is focused on undoing past deals and instituting border restrictions. It remains unclear whether this protectionism is a means to an end.
Il SaKong
Chairman of the Institute for Global Economics, former Chairman of the Presidential Committee for the G20 Summit, former Minister of Finance of the Republic of Korea
It is therefore urgent for the G20 countries to make efforts togethers to resuscitate the G20 Summit process to fill the global leadership gap for adequately facing the global economic challenges of the next 5 years.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation (SDRF)
The most important is how China deals with trade escalation with the US. Everybody knows that the trade war was not initiated by China, but in this regard, I guess China can do more.
Panelists debate
Debate
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of government, Harvard University
Karl Brauner
Deputy Director-General at the WTO
The WTO is about rule-guided globalisation and replacing the rule of law by the deal of the day would be very bad.
Patrick de Castelbajac
Head of Airbus Strategy and International
For all of us large companies today, the Brexit uncertainty and the possible consequences forces us to revise our view on what we will do in the UK tomorrow.
Suzanne Hayden
Former Senior Prosecutor for the US Department of Justice, PMI Impact Expert Council Member
Governments particularly, tend to focus on the thing that is most harmful to them at any given time in terms of trade, whether it is drugs, wildlife, nuclear trafficking, fissile materials, etc. However, criminals are not so discriminating.
Itoh Motoshige
Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo, Professor at the Gakushuin University, Member of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Japan
Abenomics is a very, very unorthodox expansionary policy, combined with an inflation target and it was successful. To just get out of the very serious lack of demand, you may need some kind of very unorthodox method.
Debate
11:45 – 12:15 | Plenary session 2
Conversation
Jean-Paul Agon
Chairman and CEO of L’Oréal
An international company is a company that is based somewhere and sells its products everywhere in the world. A global company is a company that is already based everywhere in the world.
Debate
12:15 – 12:45 | Plenary session 3
Conversation
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
Jean-Yves Le Gall
President of the Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), President of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), Chair of the Council of the European Space Agency (ESA)
Africa is now opening a space chapter. Because of digitalisation and militarisation, the cost of the satellites is decreasing very strongly, and you have more and more countries that have a space program.
Debate
13:00 – 14:45 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the WPC
Olivier Blanchard
Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, former Chief Economist of the IMF
The big challenge for an economist is to think about how the political and geopolitical risks can translate into economics in the relatively short run.
Debate
15:00 – 16:00 | Plenary session 4
Migrations and the future of multiculturalism
Sean Cleary
Founder and Executive Vice-Chairman of the FutureWorld Foundation and Chairman of Strategic Concepts (Pty) Ltd
Migration seems likely to increase, firstly because of levels of geopolitical instability, uncertainty, gaps between personal circumstances, economic and otherwise, in the developing and the developed worlds, and the uncertain impact of climate change on significant parts of the developing world.
Jean-François Copé
Former Minister of the Budget, Mayor of Meaux, Lawyer at the Paris Bar
What is new today is that if you have a look at the political deal in democracies, the divide is between populists and traditional government parties. […] What is a stake now is the capacity for democracies to face this kind of problem.
László Trócsányi
Minister of Justice of Hungary
The States need to be given their freedom; Europe’s values need to be demonstrated in practice. That is why the Schengen Agreement is very important.
Bogdan Klich
Senator, Minority Leader of the Polish Senate, former Minister of Defense and Member of the European Parliament
In some countries of Central and Western Europe, we have the re-emergence of very dangerous political tendencies, which are populism and nationalism.
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
The migration pressures that we have seen have driven populist victories, but I am not sure we have seen populism and populist parties come up with solutions to the pressures that created their victories.
Panelists debate
Debate
16:00 – 17:00 | Plenary session 5
Preparing children and youth for jobs in the 21st century
Brian A. Gallagher
President and CEO of United Way of America/United Way Worldwide
Every child born in the world is going to develop their brain most substantially within the first few years of life. If we would like to make a positive intervention, early in a child’s life seems to be the time to do it.
Juliette Tuakli
Member of United Way Worldwide Leadership Council, CEO and Chief Medical Officer of CHILDAccra, Ghana
Health in Africa is critical for the preparation of youth for the future. Nothing is more painful to witness than the young with access to education, unable to learn because of their suboptimal health. It is painful because it is preventable!
Eduardo de Campos Queiroz
CEO of the Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation, Brazil
Health, education and social development must work together to help the families, especially the vulnerable ones.
Chittaranjan Kaul
Director of the Centre for Learning Resources, India
Having long term goals helps us navigate skilfully through the short-term challenges of bringing up our children.
Panelists debate
Debate
17:00 – 17:45 | Plenary session 6
Religion and politics in China
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the WPC
Franciscus Verellen
Director of the EFEO Hong Kong Centre, former Director of the Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient
International relations and sovereignty are important dimensions of Chinese religious policy today, especially bringing foreign religious organisations under the authority of the Communist Party and regulating the religious activities of foreigners in China.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan
Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Professor and Head of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University
The fact that among the elites and the counter-elites in China you have more and more Christians is both an issue for the authorities and a factor of potential political change.
Debate
17:45 – 19:15 | Plenary session 7
Middle East
Steven Erlanger
Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Europe, New York Times
Renaud Girard
Senior reporter and war correspondent, Le Figaro
I will look at the Middle East from the outside. The most striking thing I see is the West’s strategic impotence.
Odeh Aburdene
President of OAI Advisors, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations
The way the Middle East is structured today you have several major regional powers. It would remain unstable but no one power would dominate.
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator and former Member of Parliament, Distinguished Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the American University in Cairo
Egypt holds several geopolitical cards that, if it is played rationally, can be major assets.
Miguel Ángel Moratinos
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain, former EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process
Why do not the South Eastern Mediterranean countries, instead of fighting for demarcation of the oil and gas reserves, create something like a European high authority that can share and coordinate the use and exploration of energy?
Itamar Rabinovich
President of the Israel Institute (Washington and Jerusalem), Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at the Tel Aviv University, Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution
The normalisation of Syrian life, statehood, and politics will take several more years and the region and the world will have to continue to live with a Syrian problem that needs to be better managed in the future, than it has been in the past.
Panelists debate
20:00 | Cocktail & Dinner debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the WPC
Laurent Fabius
President of the Constitutional Council, former Prime Minister, France
The threat faced by the environment and the climate is not of the same magnitude as the others. It is thus a race against the clock, between the action we can take and the aims we need to pursue.
Debate
08:30 – 10:15 | Plenary session 8
The consequences of Trump
Steven Erlanger
Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Europe, New York Times
Michael Fullilove
Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, former Adviser to Prime Minister, Australia
President Trump is not really interested in solving policy problems; he is interested in being seen to win.
Rozlyn Engel
Former Senior executive in charge of the Office of Macroeconomic Analysis in the U.S. Treasury Department, Non-resident Scholar in the Geo-Economics and Strategy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Trump phenomenon is really built around a struggling, white, lower middle-class American voter, who has been in a lot of pain over the last two decades.
Ichiro Fujisaki
President of Nakasone Peace Institute, former Deputy Foreign Minister, former Ambassador to the United States, Japan
It is a pity that the US have opted out from TPP and the Paris Accord, but we are going to do this by ourselves with likeminded countries.
Wang Jisi
President of the Institute of the International and Strategic Studies at Peking University
Some people say that Trump is helping China. He is damaging the US in the world, making way for China’s rise.
Ryu Jin Roy
Chairman and CEO of Poongsan Group, Vice Chairman of the Korea-US Economic Council, Vice Chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries
America and the world will survive Donald Trump, whether it takes two more years or four more years.
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, Russia
Protectionism, demagoguery, populism are not the way forward but are the retrograde movement. By moving backwards we exhaust the planet and civilization we live in.
Hubert Védrine
Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs
The United States will one day return, not to the theory of multilateralism, but to the practice of international cooperation, once it has seen the relative failure of the “every man for himself” motto during Mr. Trump’s term, on the Chinese question and other issues.
Panelists debate
Debate
10:15 – 10:45 | Plenary session 9
Conversation
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the WPC
Carlos Ghosn
Chairman and CEO of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, Chairman and CEO of Renault, Chairman of Nissan Motor Company and Mitsubishi Motors
People are ready to cooperate when they have a common project as long as this cooperation is not a threat to their identity. It is the same with companies.
Debate
10:45 – 12:00 | Plenary session 10
The North Korean issue
Vuk Jeremić
President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia
The North-Korean issue has been dominating the agenda of international relations for decades.
Tsakhia Elbegdorj
Former President of Mongolia
I do not believe that North Korean society will change in the face of the current leadership.
Wang Jisi
President of the Institute of the International and Strategic Studies at Peking University
One thing that is very peculiar between China and North Korea is their long-term ideological affinity.
Douglas Paal
Vice President for studies of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Trump will have satisfied the American desire to keep the Koreas separate from China.
Yim Sung-Joon
Senior Advisor at Lee International IP & Law Group, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea
For the first time in the US-NK negotiations, Washington has essentially accepted, whether or not graciously, NK’s wish list on sequencing.
Hosoya Yuichi
Professor at the Faculty of Law of Keio University, former Member of the Advisory Board at Japan’s National Security Council (NSC)
Japan can also play a very significant role in the process of reconstructing North Korea once the rapprochement and peace talks are advanced.
Georgy Toloraya
Director of Asian Strategy Center at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Now we have the most peaceful and promising period in the Korean situation for many years.
Panelists debate
Debate
12:00 – 13:00 | Plenary session 11
One Belt, One Road
Ronnie C. Chan
Chairman of Hang Lung Properties
The Silk Road accomplished something geo-economically and a little bit geopolitically, but the cultural exchange has perhaps affected the world more than anything else.
Leung Chun-Ying
Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, former Chief Executive, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China
Much has been said about the successes and failures of the international and regional infrastructure projects, but there are actually five connectivities under the BRI – policies, facilities, trade, capital and people-to-people connectivity.
Shiv Vikram Khemka
Vice Chairman of SUN Group, Executive Chairman of The Global Education & Leadership Foundation, India
Russia today sees BRI as a tremendous opportunity to encourage growth within Russia, to create greater connectivity with Asia, and a viable strategy to engage with the East.
Bayu Krisnamurthi
Former Vice Minister of Trade of Indonesia
BRI needs to serve the Sustainable Development Goals – poverty reduction, food security, energy security, employment creation and so on.
Panelists debate
Debate
13:15 – 15:00 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the WPC
Mustapha Bakkoury
President of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen)
Today, where renewable technologies are concerned, there is a proven maturity that is indisputable. However, what is not necessarily so is our approach to using such and such a technology.
15:15 – 16:15 | Plenary session 12
The future of the euro
Jean Pisani-Ferry
European University Institute, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa chair, and Senior Fellow at Bruegel
We are facing a new situation in Italy, not so much about the sort of short-term disputes between the Italian Government and the EU about the budget but more fundamentally about how Italy has failed in the Euro area.
Ashoka Mody
Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University
The Euro has been a source of division and will continue to be so, because the interests are naturally different.
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of Bruegel and former President of the ECB
What is lacking in Europe vis-à-vis the US is a full-fledged banking union and capital union, because it plays a more important role in the US in terms of countering, stability and asymmetric shocks than the fiscal channel itself.
Olivier Blanchard
Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, former Chief Economist of the IMF
At the euro level, we need a higher average inflation, to allow countries which need to depreciate to do it without requiring decreases in nominal wages. This is the job of the ECB.
Panelists debate
Debate
16:30 – 19:00 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Finance and economy
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of Bruegel and former President of the ECB
Conflicts and geopolitical tensions in many regions of the world could also be adverse to sustained global growth.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Shanghai Development Research Foundation (SDRF)
If the two largest economies are in the phase of going down in the economic cycle, it will drag down the economy of rest of the world.
Jean-Claude Meyer
Vice-Chairman International of Rothschild & cie
Our only hope is that we will not see a deep crisis, – but just a correction, a soft landing scenario.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor, Harvard University
The financial system is in many ways a creature of public policy, and it is heavily affected by public policies.
Daniel Daianu
Member of the Board of the Central Bank of Romania, Member of the European Council for Foreign Relations, former Finance Minister of Romania
In spite of global supply chains and strong interdependencies in the world economy, there is a shift toward emphasizing regional arrangements as well.
Itoh Motoshige
Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo, Professor at the Gakushuin University, Member of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Japan
Drastic monetary policy is very important when we are in a critical position of deflation.
Bertrand Badré
Founder and CEO of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, former Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank Group
We are starting to be obsessed with the tree of the next financial crisis and we have forgotten about the forest of the climate crisis.
Debate
Workshop #2 – Energy and climate
Nobuo Tanaka
Chairman of The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, former Executive Director of the IEA
Can Japan compete with other countries if the cost of electricity is so high? How can we make a cheaper mix of electricity by using more renewables etc. and be competitive?
Olivier Appert
President of the French Energy Council and of the French committee of the World Energy Council
The clear objective is to make America energy-independent, and the energy independence of Obama has been replaced by an energy dominance.
Leila Benali
President of the Arab Energy Forum
There is a growing awareness in the industry that energy storage is of incredible and paramount importance.
Richard Cooper
Professor of International Economics at Harvard University, former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, former Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
In the short run, the thing we need to do above all is prevent the building of new coal fired power plants, which contribute greatly to climate change and are heavily polluting.
Tatsuo Masuda
Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (NUCB)
From a climate policy perspective, China is consolidating the leading position in both the deployment of renewable energy and the establishment of a huge carbon market.
Ladislas Paszkiewicz
Senior Vice President-Strategy & Climate at Total SA
We do genuinely believe that an oil and gas company like ours can gradually decrease the carbon intensity of the energy products that it sells to its customers.
Debate
Workshop #3 – Africa
Nathalie Delapalme
Executive Director (Research and Policy) of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation
The ability to offer job prospects to young people arriving on the labour market in massive numbers is a major challenge for Africa and its immediate vicinity.
Uri Dadush
Senior Fellow at the OCP Policy Center and non-resident scholar at Bruegel
Convergence, international trade liberalisation, only works in conjunction with the strengthening of domestic policies.
Elisabeth Guigou
President of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures, former Member of the French National Assembly and President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly
If we want Franco-African relations, and especially European-African relations, that are up to the challenges we face together, we need to establish a new and equal partnership.
Mostafa Terrab
Chairman and CEO of OCP Group
We have to ask ourselves what good is free trade if we cannot produce the goods and services that we will trade within the continent.
Othman El Ferdaous
Secretary of State to the Minister of Industry, Investment, Trade and Digital Economy, in charge of investment, Kingdom of Morocco
A free trade agreement will not work without territorial continuity.
Juliette Tuakli
Member of United Way Worldwide Leadership Council, CEO and Chief Medical Officer of CHILDAccra, Ghana
We really have to build our domestic policies to have a much sounder social contracts between the state and populations they should serve.
Lionel Zinsou
Co-chair of SouthBridge, former Prime Minister of Benin
I strongly believe that the digital modernisation of the informal sector is extremely useful because it is a remarkably productive and efficient sector.
Hailemariam Desalegn
Former Prime Minister of Ethiopia
CFTA is one of the ways that we can integrate our continent; it is very important milestone.
Debate
20:00 | Cocktail & Gala Dinner
Nasser Bourita
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Kingdom of Morocco
The fundamentals of international relations are shaking. Borders, sovereignty, responsibility, even applicable law—threats and opportunities know no frontiers.
08:30 – 09:45 | Plenary session 13
Young Leaders
Patrick Nicolet
Group Chief Technology Officer and Group Executive Board Member of Capgemini
Mathilde Pak
Economist in the Structural Policy Analysis Division of the Economics Department at OECD
Gig economy platforms seem rather excitingly innovative. […] Policy makers first challenge is to adapt existing regulations.
Marco Janmaat
Founder and Director of VR Owl, Netherlands
Currently, we have built up a digital system with screens everywhere. […] But in the future with AR, we have the possibility to replace this digital information and show it via a glass.
Natasha Franck
Founder and CEO of EON Group, United States
The Internet of Things (IoT) also introduces new challenges at the intersection of policy, big-data and environmental product stewardship.
Tarek Ouertani
Head of Marketing, ProGlove, Germany
The pace of technological change is high, and we need to keep up with this pace in terms of regulation.
Hermine Durand
Head of division at the French Nuclear Safety Authority
Going digital is necessary to improve the regulation of nuclear power plants for the benefit of citizens but must be undertaken carefully.
Debate
09:45 – 11:00 | Plenary session 14
Some basic European strategic issues
Ali Aslan
TV host and journalist, Deutsche Welle TV
Josep Borrell
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, former President of the European Parliament
Migration is not limited to a period or a circumstance. It is not a matter of effective management, but of strategy for the future. It will not pass; it will amplify.
Karin Kneissl
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria
To make progress together, we will need well-enforced rules, transparency, openness in the awarding of public contracts, in particular intellectual property and risk-sharing.
Michael Lothian
Member of the House of Lords, former Conservative Member of Parliament
The UK is leaving the European Union with Brexit, but it is not leaving Europe. […] We are an inextricable part of Europe.
Nicolas Veron
Senior Fellow at Bruegel and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
Completing the banking union and building it into a capital markets union is what will make or break the international role of the Euro going forward.
Jean-Louis Bourlanges
Member of the French Parliament, former Member of the Court of Auditors and of the European Parliament
We are now seeing, after a period of illusion during which the threat faded away, a strong surge in all the threats, which is creating, once again, extremely strong pressure for Europe to unify.
Panelists debate
11:00 – 12:30 | Plenary session 15
Some impacts of a connected world
Virginie Robert
Chief Editor of the international desk, Les Echos
François Barrault
Chairman of IDATE DigiWorld Institute, Chairman and Founder of FDB Partners
What the big revolution technology has brought is instant access to knowledge and information anytime, anywhere.
Chang Dae-Whan
Chairman and Publisher, Maekyung Media Group, Member of the Global Commission on Internet Governance, former acting Prime minister of Korea
Smart cities can solve problems that even nations cannot and they are very important factor in global governance in this connected world.
Patrick Nicolet
Group Chief Technology Officer and Group Executive Board Member of Capgemini
Trust is fundamental to all human interactions, whether in business or between states, and technology is fundamentally changing how trust will be handled.
Tobby Simon
Commissioner with the Global Commission for Internet Governance (GCIG), Member of the Trilateral Commission, Founder and President of Synergia Foundation
The biggest challenge at the national level for politicians and policymakers worldwide is the need to balance the enormous benefits of global openness and connectivity with national priorities and policies.
Francis Gurry
Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Regarding the impact of the connected world on governance, the greater the connection, the greater the dependence that is created, and the greater the dependence, the greater the vulnerability and risk.
Debate
12:45 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the WPC
Hailemariam Desalegn
Former Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Many of us relegate young people to the future but they continue to assert that they are equally the current leaders of Africa.
Lionel Zinsou
Co-chair of SouthBridge, former Prime Minister of Benin
Fertility does not explain our demographic growth. Our demographic growth comes from life expectancy, which is rising due to better nutrition, education and health care.
Panelists debate
14:45 – 15:45 | Reports from parallel workshops
Ihssane Guennoun
Program Officer, OCP Policy Center
Tatsuo Masuda
Visiting Professor, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Graduate School, Japan
China is greening its energy system very fast and it will be accelerated.
Ihssane Guennoun
Program Officer, OCP Policy Center
Migrants should not be perceived as a threat but rather as an opportunity to contribute to the growth of the European continent but also to the African continent.
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of Bruegel and former President of the ECB
Leverage has continued to grow after the crisis and has augmented less than before in the advanced economies but much more than before in the emerging economies.
15:45 – 17:45 | Plenary session 16
Final debate
Thomas Gomart
Director of Ifri
Assia Bensalah Alaoui
Ambassador-at-large of HM the King of Morocco
The tremendous rapidity of technological change is already a source of anxiety. […] The rising inequalities and disparities, in that respect may mean massive “digital refugees”.
Stuart Eizenstat
Partner, Covington and Burling LLP
Trump has transformed decades of bipartisan American trade policy, showing a deep distrust of multilateral trade agreements, and seeking instead through unilateral actions to reach bilateral or regional deals that he asserts are essential to our national security.
Donald Johnston
Chair Emeritus of the McCall MacBain Foundation, former Secretary General of the OECD
As the US leaves the global stage, China may become the international rule setter and global leader in commerce and finance.
Tadakatsu Sano
Attorney-at-law at Jones Day, Former Director-General of the Trade Policy Bureau and Vice Minister for International Affairs, Japan
In fact, the US-China trade war is about hegemony, in particular in the field of cyber-technology, cyberspace, AI and so forth.
Bernardino León Gross
Director General of the Emirates Diplomatic Academy in the UAE, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya
The idea of an Arab NATO, of this military alliance of the Gulf countries with Egypt and Jordan, is stronger than ever.
Pierre Morel
Director of the Observatoire Pharos, former EU Special Representative for Central Asia and the Crisis in Georgia
Everyone is against unilateralism officially, but everyone is starting to practice it. […] We have multi-unilateralism.
Artem Malgin
Vice-rector of MGIMO-University
We need multilateralism, because multilateral regulations usually build through great tendencies, great changes.
Manuel Muñiz
Dean of the School of International Relations at IE University and Rafael del Pino Professor of Practice of Global Transformation, Senior Associate at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
We will live in a place with more walls and less movement of people and less commerce, and that basically means that we are living the return of history.
Fathallah Oualalou
Senior Fellow at the OCP Policy Center, former Minister of Economy and Finance, Kingdom of Morocco
The multipolar world, the world of sharing, is a world that recognizes the contribution of all civilisations.
Debate
17:45 | Envoi
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
2017 Conference proceedings
9:00 – 10:00 | Opening session
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Over the years the WPC has continuously stressed the importance of medium powers and the need for each State to include the structural stability of the international system and its components in formulating their own national interests.
HM The King Mohammed VI
King of Morocco
In-depth reflection and constructive debate will certainly lead to the emergence of new ideas and fresh solutions that will further improve our countries’ development models.
Emmanuel Macron
President of France
I could easily take on WPC’s goal as my own – thinking about ways to maintain reasonably open global governance, capable of absorbing shocks while also facilitating desirable changes
Bartholomew 1st
Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
We must therefore note the imperative need for dialogue in order to respond to contemporary conflicts, beyond the religious or non-religious nature of these conflicts. Dialogue is not a negotiation. Nor is it a controversy. There are no winners or losers in it.
10:00 – 10:45 | Plenary session 1
The future of South-East Europe
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Ana Brnabić
Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia
There is basically one key disagreement, but we are trying to find a way to discuss it and talk about it in a way that will bring us closer to a resolution, and show that we do not want to leave this for the generations that will follow.
Edi Rama
Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania
People are no longer so frustrated and so reluctant to meet with each other, to come and go, to build business projects, to have cultural projects and so on, so it is a new way to live in the Balkans, which is fundamentally in discontinuity with our culture of living in the past.
Panelists Debate
10:45 – 12:00 | Plenary session 2
Investing in Africa
Jean-Michel Severino
President of Investisseurs & Partenaires
Miriem Bensalah-Chaqroun
President of the General Confederation of Moroccan Companies (CGEM)
As investors, we see education as human capital skills. We need skilled human resources, so we can match our competitiveness and productivity.
Christoph Beier
Vice Chair of the management board, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
I think we are at the stage to rethink and re-evaluate our joint experiences, and then to come up with a more coherent, more comprehensive, more selective, and more promising development approach.
Mostafa Terrab
Chairman and CEO, OCP Group
Indeed, we are Arabs, we are part of MENA, but it overlooks the fact that we are fully African, and this has consequences.
Rémy Rioux
CEO of the Agence française de développement (AFD), Chairperson of the International Development Finance Club (IDFC)
In 1900, there were 100 million Africans. Now, there are 1.2 billion. As on all continents, that will spur endogenous employment and economic growth with a speed and power no other part of the world has ever seen.
Shinichi Kitaoka
President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
In the recent past, I think that resourceless countries are making, generally speaking, better progress, development than resourceful countries.
Debate
12:00 – 12:30 | Plenary session 3
With Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Peter Maurer
President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Confidentiality and transparency are two different things. Transparency does not necessarily mean that everybody must know everything all the time. But accountability mechanisms must be set up.
Debate
12:45 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
With Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, Minister of Foreign Affairs, State of Qatar
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al-Thani
Minister of Foreign Affairs, State of Qatar
We hope that one day, wisdom will prevail and that the countries who are trying to avoid engagement, avoid talking and addressing any of the security concerns, will understand they are our concerns too. They have to come to the table and solve the issues.
Debate
14:45 – 16:15 | Plenary session 4
Trends in the Middle East
Miguel Ángel Moratinos
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain
Youssef Amrani
Chargé de mission, Royal Cabinet, Morocco
The major challenge today in our region, in the entire Arab world is to deconstruct the jihadist narrative and also to propose an alternate narrative.
Jihad Azour
Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department, IMF
It is important that we develop a forward-looking perspective on how things can develop in the years to come, so that we can define a certain number of actions that can have an impact and change the economic and social conditions of the people in the region.
Stuart Eizenstat
Partner, Covington and Burling LLP
The upsurge of nationalist, populist, protectionist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiments and the weakening of the political centre are the thread that connects Brexit, the Trump election, the rise of right-wing anti-EU parties and attitudes in the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Poland and Hungary.
Renaud Girard
Senior reporter and international columnist at Le Figaro
Does the return of national feeling mean the proliferation of wars, the war of all against everyone in the Middle East?
Odeh Aburdene
President of OAI Advisors, member of the Council on Foreign Relations
The Arab region has to combine good education, science, and technology to achieve economic growth and jobs for their young population.
Itamar Rabinovich
President of the Israel Institute, former Ambassador to the United States, Israel
We are now in what we call the post-Arab turmoil phase. We had an Arab Spring. We then had the Arab turmoil and the foundations of several Arab states have been shaken.
16:15 – 17:30 | Plenary session 5
Trust and truth in the digital age
Steven Erlanger
Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Europe, New York Times
Haïm Korsia
Chief Rabbi of France
The truth does not lie in the affirmation of one thing, but in an ethical tension between two positions, which requires finding a balance.
Susan Liautaud
Founder and Managing Director, Susan Liautaud & Associates Limited
Technology has disempowered state institutions. Starting with the law, we see that legal systems lag very far behind technology, which is constantly changing and at an increasingly fast pace, and the law simply cannot keep up.
Oliver Bussmann
Founder & Managing Partner at Bussmann Advisory, Zug/Switzerland, former UBS and SAP Global CIO
In the end, we are talking about significant financial benefits, such as simplification, speed and transparency, so the technology itself is a new technology of trust that the community will build and there is momentum across the region that I think is unstoppable.
Anne-Thida Norodom
Professor of public law at the University of Rouen, France; Member of the Strategic Advisory Board of Ifri
What is at stake is sovereignty in the digital age, the idea that States can protect their laws, protect their values, by justifying the application of their national law to digital activities, knowing that American companies basically have a monopoly on those activities.
Stefan Heumann
Member of the management board of Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV)
Fake news and disinformation on the Internet have become major challenges. We need to study this problem more carefully to better understand it. Coming up with solutions won’t be easy as we need to avoid undermining freedom of speech.
Debate
17:30 – 18:45 | Plenary session 6
The world economy
Richard Cooper
Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Uri Dadush
Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center, Non-Resident Scholar, Bruegel
Protectionism in the United States is bound to be profoundly destabilising, both at home and abroad, and it is going to give a very bad example to the developing countries that we hope would be the future of our long-term prosperity.
Kemal Dervis
Vice President and Director of Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution, former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey
On the one hand, you have this booming technology innovation, and on the other hand, you have measured productivity, which in terms of GDP statistics, is actually slowing down, where growth is slower than it has been for decades.
Jung Sung-Chun
Vice President, Department of International Macroeconomics & Finance, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
The real wage growth is weak in the European economies, and that is, I think, the main barrier to the active recovery of the European economies.
Itoh Motoshige
Emeritus Professor of University of Tokyo and Professor of Gakushuin University, former Advisor to the Prime Minister
There are many discussions about the increasing protectionism, and yes, that is a concern, but at the same time, we can still have some prospects about the increase of a free-trade regime.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman & Secretary General, Shanghai Development Research Foundation
The income inequality has been reduced among different countries, but in each country, no matter whether advanced or developing, how do we solve the wide gap of income inequality?
Debate
18:45 – 19:45 | Plenary session 7
The future of transportation: connectivity and governance
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
François Barrault
Chairman of Idate/DigiWorld Institute; former CEO of BT Global Services and a BT Group PLC board member
You are not smart because you know better than somebody else, you are smart because you share, and young people and the Internet have put us in the sharing economy.
Patrick de Castelbajac
Head of Airbus Strategy and International
How close are we to urban air mobility and to the dream of flying around? From a technological standpoint, we are not very far.
Jean-Yves Le Gall
Chair of the ESA Council and President of the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France
There is a strong need to conduct trials, to allow industry to design innovations for autonomous vehicles and to give governments enough data to inform policy decisions and legislation.
Panelists Debate
20:30 | Dinner debate
With Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Total
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Patrick Pouyanné
Chairman of the Board and CEO, Total
The first huge effort we thus need to make collectively is an effort to save energy and achieve energy efficiency. We need to avoid consuming energy.
Debate
09:00 – 10:30 | Plenary session 8
America and the world one year after Trump’s election
Richard Burt
Managing Director, McLarty Associates, former US Ambassador to Germany
Juan Gallardo
Chairman, Organización Cultiba SAB de CV, Mexico
Where are we right now in the renegotiations of NAFTA? I think we are facing a great opportunity, and at the same time a great threat.
Yukio Okamoto
President, Okamoto Associates, Inc., former Special Advisor to two Prime Ministers of Japan
Mr. Trump or the United States’ most serious concern is North Korea, which is the same for Japan. It is our highest national security agenda.
Ryu Jin Roy
Chairman and CEO, Poongsan Group, Republic of Korea
The good days of an entire family immigrating to America for better lives and opportunities are almost over unless you are qualified with some skill sets and are able to speak English
Alexander Panov
Member of the Advisory Board of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Professor and Head of the department of diplomacy of MGIMO
Political dialogue on all levels has almost frozen. If witch hunts continue in the United States I cannot see a possibility of improving bilateral relations.
Hubert Védrine
Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs
The entire planet reacted very well to Trump’s decision on climate change, saying, “Whatever he does, we will continue honouring the agreement.”
John Sawers
Former head of the Secret Intelligence Service, United Kingdom
China is now replacing America in many places as the supporter and upholder of public goods, like action against climate change and in support of global trade.
Debate
10:30 – 11:00 | Coffee break
11:00 – 12:00 | Plenary session 9
Artificial intelligence and the future of human labor
Ali Aslan
TV host and journalist, Deutsche Welle TV
Masood Ahmed
President, Center for global Development, former Director, Middle East and Central Asia Department, IMF
Artificial Intelligence is happening, and it is coming much faster than we anticipated.
Mari Kiviniemi
Deputy Secretary-General, OECD; Former Prime Minister of Finland
When it comes to the basics of elementary education, people need a mix of strong cognitive and soft skills, to complement their ICT skills.
Holger Mey
Vice President, Advanced Concepts, Airbus
Once we start with automation and autonomous systems we automatically run into liability problems.
Patrick Nicolet
Group Executive Board Member, Capgemini
The way we look at the world compared to the past is fundamentally different and the type of work organisation will be completely distributed, so the hierarchical, social model, none of our institutions are geared to address these elements.
Debate
12:00 – 13:15 | Plenary session 10
The future of trade and international investments
Nicolas Barré
Managing Director, Les Echos
Marcus Noland
Executive Vice President and Director of Studies, Peterson Institute for International Economics
The real threat is the interaction between the macro policy and the trade policy.
Bark Taeho
President, Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute, former Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea
There seems to be a growing consensus about the need to help all citizens share the opportunities and benefits of trade liberalisation.
Francis Gurry
Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
The vacuum that is being left by the policies of the current Trump administration is creating an opportunity for many countries to move into the space, and in particular China.
Stefan Mair
Member of the Executive Board, Federation of German Industries (BDI)
There is no alternative to resort to global governance, even if it means weakening national sovereignty. We have to strengthen supranational governance in the European Union.
Yi Xiaozhun
Deputy Director-General, WTO
We must be aware that many people feel disconnected from economic progress and attitudes towards trade and globalisation have hardened recently.
Debate
13:30 – 15:00 | Lunch debate
With Ahmet Davutoglu, Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey
Thierry De Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Ahmet Davutoglu
Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey
We need integrity, inclusivity, institutionalisation, interest optimisation and implementation of decisions.
Debate
15:15 – 18:15 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Finance and economy
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
Despite the good news, US business investment has remained relatively weak, which explains the slow productivity growth that has been accompanied, despite the low unemployment, by low labour participation.
Akinari Horii
Special Advisor and a member of the Board of Directors of the Canon Institute for Global Studies, former Assistant Governor of the Bank of Japan
In economics terms, inflation expectation is more adaptive than rational, or more backward looking than forward looking. People have to see actual inflation through their eyes, before they believe that the inflation is reality.
Bertrand Badré
Founder and CEO, Blue Orange Capital; Former Managing Director, World Bank
For 10 years we were miserable talking about the Eurozone and for once, I think it is okay.
André Levy-Lang
Former Chairman & CEO of Banque Paribas, Affiliate emeritus professor in Finance at Paris-Dauphine University
I think that France is now realising that it has to take care of itself and not wait for Germany and I think that this is what is going to happen.
Jeffrey Frieden
Professor of government at Harvard University
I think that one of the unheralded and perhaps unexpected successes of the last 10 years was the extent of multilateral cooperation in the aftermath of the September/October 2008 crisis.
Raed Charafeddine
First Vice- Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon
What the Central Bank did was actually stimulating the economy and at the same time, taking the precautions so as not to impact inflation.
Debate
Old sins cast long shadows and the shadow that Argentina’s restructuring casts on the region and beyond is still quite dark.
Daniel Daianu
Member of the Board of the Central Bank of Romania; former Finance Minister of Romania
In spite of the efforts to maintain what is called the liberal international order, deep currents are working against it.
Debate
Workshop #1 – Finance and economy – Synopsis
Bertrand Badré
Founder and CEO, Blue Orange Capital; Former Managing Director, World Bank
The system needs to think out of the box and is paralysed, because the system does not allow you to think out of the box. How can we move this?
André Levy-Lang
Former Chairman & CEO of Banque Paribas, Affiliate emeritus professor in Finance at Paris-Dauphine University
I think that there is no bank in Europe that creates a systemic risk. The European banking system is sound, but there is a problem in terms of profitability […] partly because of the vagaries of the capital markets.
Raed Charafeddine
First Vice- Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon
What the Central Bank did was actually stimulating the economy and at the same time, taking the precautions so as not to impact inflation.
Daniel Daianu
Member of the Board of the Central Bank of Romania; former Finance Minister of Romania
Financial innovation goes on and toxic products are put on the market and used, in spite of an allegedly more effective regulation and supervision system.
Jeffrey Frieden
Professor of government at Harvard University
I worry that, when the next crisis comes, intervention by the major powers, and in particular by the US, will be more destructive than constructive.
Akinari Horii
Special Advisor and a member of the Board of Directors of the Canon Institute for Global Studies, former Assistant Governor of the Bank of Japan
The dearth of active mangers makes the market prone to herd behavior, which could induce runs in the market when a shock is applied to it.
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
The IMF’s lack of an effective crisis prevention instrument remains a systemic weakness that can and should be addressed.
Workshop #2 – Energy and climate
Nobuo Tanaka
Former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Chairman of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation
The energy sector is probably one of the most impacted by the unpredictability or uncertainty of the US policy.
Olivier Appert
Chairman of the Conseil Français de l’Energie
I will make a non‑politically correct statement by saying that Trump’s energy policy will have no direct impact on the CO2 emissions of the US.
André Caillé
Director of Junex Inc., former Chairman of the World Energy Council and Deputy Minister of the Environment of Quebec
It is not only the withdrawal from the Paris Accord but also the resurrection of coal fired power plants, supposedly clean, and the retirement of many regulations that could greatly impact US emissions.
Lee Hye-Min
G20 Sherpa, Ambassador for International Economic Affairs, Republic of Korea
The developing countries led by India and Turkey in particular stress the importance of parallel implementation of the Paris Agreement obligations, which are mitigation, adaptation and climate financing.
Tatsuo Masuda
Visiting Professor, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Graduate School, Japan
We should not wait for governments to act, but rather communities, companies and civil societies can do everything.
Ladislas Paszkiewicz
Senior Vice President Strategy and Climate, Total
The difficulty for us as a corporation is how to supply this energy while at the same time decreasing our carbon footprint, which of course energy has an impact on.
Friedbert Pflüger
Director, European Centre for Energy and Resource Security, King’s College London
We will continue to need oil for a long time, especially in the developing nations, but gas can be a low-emission partner of renewables in the long run.
Discussion
Debate
Workshop #2 – Energy and climate – Synopsis
Nobuo Tanaka
Former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Chairman of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation
To produce a transport revolution, very strong government intervention is necessary.
Lee Hye-Min
G20 Sherpa, Ambassador for International Economic Affairs, Republic of Korea
The Paris Agreement is irreversible and the global community will move towards its implementation, though the road ahead will be very bumpy.
Friedbert Pflüger
Director, European Centre for Energy and Resource Security, King’s College London
Politicians tend to set goals for a distant future, in which they cannot be held accountable anymore.
Olivier Appert
Chairman of the Conseil Français de l’Energie
Trump’s energy policy will have no direct impact on the CO2 emissions of the US.
André Caillé
Director of Junex Inc., former Chairman of the World Energy Council and Deputy Minister of the Environment of Quebec
Natural gas should be used to replace coal.
Tatsuo Masuda
Visiting Professor, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Graduate School, Japan
I think technology is a real game-changer in fighting climate change. Even people’s mindset will change accordingly.
Ladislas Paszkiewicz
Senior Vice President Strategy and Climate, Total
The difficulty for us as a corporation is how to supply this energy while at the same time decreasing our carbon footprint, which of course energy has an impact on.
Workshop #3 – China
Park, In-kook
President, Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS)
In the wake of 19th Party Congress, what kind of economic reforms will we see? What impact will they have on the world economy?
Jia Qingguo
Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University
The message is that you do not have to follow the Western approach in your development. Instead, you can find you own path of development according to your situation.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman & Secretary General, Shanghai Development Research Foundation
The conclusion is that China is moving towards the centre of the world stage. The detail is that we will continue to make a great contribution to the global GDP growth.
Douglas Paal
Vice President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
There are many more positives in addressing the challenge that China presents to the long-term American presence in the region.
Richard Cooper
Professor of Economics, Harvard University
These are poor countries west of China; they can use some help, and if China is willing to give the financing, we should applaud it so long as it turns out well.
Bark Taeho
President, Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute, former Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea
After the conclusion of the Party Congress, there seems to be an agreement that China’s policy of reform and opening will be continued.
Yuichi Hosoya
Professor, Department of Political Science, Keio University
Without strong American commitment, I think that Japan has to change a previous strategy for the region, to create something like TPP without the United States.
Jean-François Copé
Mayor of Meaux, former delegate Minister of the Budget, France
I think that the European Union today is ready, provided it has its own capacity to continue and intensify the structural reforms, to be at a good level to be one of the major partners for China and Asia.
Debate
Workshop #3 – China – Synopsis
Douglas Paal
Vice President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The United States ought to be coming forward with a policy of co‑optation of China’s new desire to be a more responsible stakeholder in the world.
Park, In-kook
President, Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS)
The most critical factor is whether the Trump administration continues to maintain the North Korea challenge as its top priority.
Bark Taeho
President, Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute, former Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea
If certain industries enter into the restructuring process, the implementation of the market opening policy may face difficulties and possibly be delayed.
Richard Cooper
Professor of Economics, Harvard University
These are poor countries west of China; they can use some help, and if China is willing to give the financing, we should applaud it so long as it turns out well.
Jia Qingguo
Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University
The principal contradiction facing Chinese society is the contradiction between the unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing need for a better life.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman & Secretary General, Shanghai Development Research Foundation
The Chinese people is still and will remain for a long time, in the initial stages of socialism.
Yuichi Hosoya
Professor, Department of Political Science, Keio University
It is essential for the Japanese Prime Minister or government to try and invite the United States to come back to the regional order as a leader of this region.
Jean-François Copé
Mayor of Meaux, former delegate Minister of the Budget, France
Globalisation is changing shape and the “new Silk Road” symbolises this change.
Workshop #4 – Russia in twenty years
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, Russia
The fourth industrial will probably make the distances in Russia, that were our curse in many ways, a nonissue.
Alexander Dynkin
President, Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russia
If nothing were to happen and Russia were to continue with the growth of an average of 2% a year, what does it mean in the global hierarchy?
Michel Foucher
Chair of applied Geopolitics at College of World Studies; Former Director of the policy planning staff of the French Foreign Ministry
Russia is certainly one of the countries that took less benefit from globalisation.
Donald Johnston
Chair of the McCall MacBain Foundation; Former Secretary-General of the OECD
Russia, with its rich human resource base, has the capacity to become once again a major global force in twenty years.
Yaroslav Lissovolik
Chief Economist, Eurasian Development Bank
A key issue for Russia will be quality rather than quantity. In terms of quantity, Russia is currently one of the highest recipients of labour markets in the world.
Artem Malgin
Vice-rector for general affairs and corporate relations, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO)
There will be strong growth with Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, because now, there are no more emotions when it comes to Russia’s policy towards the Balkans.
Alexander Panov
Member of the Advisory Board of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Professor and Head of the department of diplomacy of MGIMO
For Russia and China, if both countries would like to be the leaders of the world, it will be a chance to create a new international order using new international laws.
Debate
Workshop #4 – Russia in twenty years – Synopsis
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, Russia
The fourth industrial will probably make the distances in Russia, that were our curse in many ways, a nonissue.
Alexander Dynkin
President, Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russia
The demise of empires almost always brings tectonic shifts in the world order, and it also leaves long‑lasting territorial conflicts.
Michel Foucher
Chair of applied Geopolitics at College of World Studies; Former Director of the policy planning staff of the French Foreign Ministry
If we are not able to set up a new European order in the next 20 years, a new European concert, we will remain weak in the international sphere and be unable to promote stability in the critical neighbourhood that EU and Russia are sharing.
Donald Johnston
Chair of the McCall MacBain Foundation; Former Secretary-General of the OECD
Russia, with its rich human resource base, has the capacity to become once again a major global force in twenty years.
Yaroslav Lissovolik
Chief Economist, Eurasian Development Bank
Russia is doing it together with the European Economic Union, but there are dozens of countries that are waiting in line to forge a free trade area with Russia and its Eurasian partners.
Artem Malgin
Vice-rector for general affairs and corporate relations, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO)
In 20 years, Russia will be much more self‑centred and self‑concerned, with policy and ambitions made-to-measure.
Alexander Panov
Member of the Advisory Board of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Professor and Head of the department of diplomacy of MGIMO
For Russia and China, if both countries would like to be the leaders of the world, it will be a chance to create a new international order using new international laws.
20:00 – 20:30 | Cocktail
20:30 | Gala Dinner
With Nasser Bourita, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Morocco
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Nasser Bourita
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Morocco
Morocco does not consider itself a “power” (sub-regional, regional or international) but a “hub” of diplomacy, action and ideas for building an imaginative new paradigm.
08:30 – 09:30 | Reports from parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Report 1
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
Even though in the medium-term there are certainly fundamental issues that need to be faced, the principal risks in the near-term are those stemming from political or geopolitical developments.
Workshop #2 – Report 2
Nobuo Tanaka
Former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Chairman of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation
International coordination is necessary, but private sector efforts will yield a very significant improvement for the future of climate change mitigation.
Workshop #3 – Report 3
Park, In-kook
President, Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS)
In the next five years, China will have more continuity than change in foreign policy, and there will be more of a Xi imprint, and Chinese foreign policy will be more pragmatic.
Workshop #4 – Report 4
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, Russia
Negative scenario: in 20 years, we are in a real fight between autocracy and democracy, and positive scenario: we manage to build bridges, to create new ideas, and we make a huge step forward in terms of global governance, of togetherness.
09:30 – 11:00 | Plenary session 11
The European Union and the world
Ali Aslan
TV host and journalist, Deutsche Welle TV
Richard Burt
Managing Director, McLarty Associates, former US Ambassador to Germany
We are going through a really crucial and historical change in which the message from Washington to Europe and the EU is now: ‘You are on your own.’
Steven Erlanger
Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Europe, New York Times
The Germans are desperate to have a France that is in better shape, partly to share the responsibility and the blame for European leadership, because there is a lot of anti-German feeling in Southern and Eastern Europe.
Elisabeth Guigou
President of The Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures, Former Member of Parliament and President of the Commission of Foreign Affairs at the Assemblée nationale, France
But Brexit is also an opportunity for the 27, who, for the moment, have stood united in the negotiations in order to overcome their divisions, agree on their common interests and take their destiny in the global world into their hands.
Bogdan Klich
Senator, Minority Leader of the Senat, former minister of Defense, Poland
That is why, in this deteriorating environment, we have to do something with our European capabilities in the sphere of security and defence. It means that Europe should take more responsibility for its own security.
Michael Lothian
Former Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
One of the keys to the change we are seeing around us in the world is the growth in anti‑establishment feeling.
Yukio Okamoto
President, Okamoto Associates, Inc., former Special Advisor to two Prime Ministers of Japan
Who in the world can we partner with? There is only the EU. The EU is the best partner for Japan in this new campaign.
Debate
11:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 12
With Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj, Former President of Mongolia
Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj
Former President of Mongolia
We are really proud of our history, we are really proud of our present state, and Mongolia is the only liberal political and economic establishment since 1990 in the region.
Debate
11:30 – 12:30 | Plenary session 13
The development of Africa
Sean Cleary
Founder and Executive Vice-Chairman of the FutureWorld Foundation and Chairman of Strategic Concepts (Pty) Ltd, South Africa
Nizar Baraka
Chairman, Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE)
How to integrate our entire continent? (…) I believe that this is the real bold move that will enable us to enjoy endogenous growth, growth that carries Africa, and that will truly make Africa the master of its fate, looking ahead to a time of involvement and integration with its partners.
Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
President of the Institute for Pan-African Strategies (IPS), Former Foreign Minister of Senegal
For Africans and their friends, it is time for a change in paradigm; it is time to reflect again on how to save this continent.
Aminata Touré
Former Prime Minister of Senegal
We also need to build solidarity, to tackle challenges such as corruption, terrorism, illegal migration, climate change impact, and solidarity in sharing progress.
Lionel Zinsou
Co-President of the Fondation AfricaFrance, Former Prime Minister of Benin, Former President, PAI Partners
We have no economic suspense, but we have a political and social suspense, because our model does not resolve any of our social problems on its own, unless we design policies that are extremely well-suited to this very particular constraint.
Debate
13:00 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
With Aziz Mekouar, Ambassador of Morocco, in charge of the negotiations on climate
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
Aziz Mekouar
Ambassador of Morocco, in charge of the negotiations on climate
If you look at all the decisions taken by many countries, especially China, but also in Norway and other countries (…), we see a lot happening in terms of research, in terms of science, and in terms of transforming science into implementation.
Debate
15:00 – 16:30 | Plenary session 14
Security in Asia
Marcus Noland
Executive Vice President and Director of Studies, Peterson Institute for International Economics
Yim Sung-Joon
Senior Advisor at Lee International IP & Law Group; Former Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and National Security Advisor to the President, Republic of Korea
Continuation of stringent sanctions on North Korea plus extended US deterrence and show of strength would be the best option to deter North Korean provocation.
Yuichi Hosoya
Professor, Department of Political Science, Keio University
The Japanese strategy is, of course, to avoid war but, at the same time to try to denuclearise North Korea.
Jia Qingguo
Professor and Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University
The good news is that President Xi and President Trump seem to have gotten along with each other so far, it is quite impressive that these two strong characters find each other worthy of respect.
Michael Yeoh
Founder & CEO of the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI)
We need to have more intelligence sharing among countries in Asia because that is so important in the fight against terrorism.
Jusuf Wanandi
Co-founder, Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Senior Fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Foundation, Indonesia
On the one hand the rise of China, and especially with President Xi Jinping’s strong leadership, and on the other the election of President Trump, with his capriciousness, have created many uncertainties for us, because we cannot follow his thinking and where he would like to go.
Mayankote Kelath Narayanan
Former Governor of West Bengal, The Raj Bhavan, India
Afghanistan may be in South Asia, but I think it is the heart of Asia.
Debate
16:30 – 17:45 | Plenary session 15
Young Leaders session
Patrick Nicolet
Group Executive Board member, Capgemini
Natalie Cartwright
Co-founder of Finn.ai
I think AI is going to bring amazing changes. Our challenge is how we build governance structures, policies, and systems that are as nimble, innovative, and equitable as the companies they will support.
Edouard Nattée
Founder and CEO of Fox Intelligence
Transparency and accountability are the only way towards change. Starting by setting transparency as the default mode, while always protecting privacy and personal information, is the first step any leader should take.
Allen Ali Mohammadi
Co-founder, Hippogriff AB
We are living in a time where we have access to advanced technologies and high‑quality infrastructure that can empower us to tackle the challenges we are facing.
Arthur Stril
Co-founder, Zinc
We are on the cusp of a healthcare revolution and that there is truly a time, which is now, where healthcare is going to profoundly change, especially in the way it is delivered.
Aurélien Billot
Head of the Commercial and development policies Unit at the General Secretariat for European Affairs, France
In this thriving environment, we need an entity with democratic ownership that can address these issues of data governance, of access versus security, and of a level playing field, and I think that the EU has a chance here and could help fill this gap for all of us.
Debate
17:45 – 19:45 | Plenary session 16
The state of the world
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
Assia Bensalah Alaoui
Ambassador-at-large of HM the King of Morocco
It is clear that if you do not give people the chance to take up real issues in their societies, you do not provide the sustainable foundation for security. That is what we are trying to do in Morocco, thanks to the ambitious democratisation programme.
Kriengsak Chareonwongsak
Former Prime Ministerial Advisor of Thailand, Senior Fellow Harvard University and Chairman, Nation-Building Institute
There is a need for revolution coming that will change the entire architecture of the new global order so that economic, political, and social paradigms will be shifted and changed because today we experience a broken world that we cannot repair.
Ju Chul Ki
President of the Overseas Koreans Foundation, Former Senior Secretary for Foreign Affairs and National Security, Office of the President of the Republic of Korea
It is my view that the Iranian nuclear deal should be upheld. It would be very difficult to envisage another solution. I hope, personally, that the US Congress will take some decision on this matter.
Ashwani Kumar
Senior Advocate Supreme Court; Former Union Minister for Law & Justice, India
We are all individually and collectively duty bound – not once, not twice, but over and over again, to repeat what we believe is right because as Dante cautioned us – the hottest places in hell, said Dante, are reserved for those who in period of moral crises, which we face today, preserve their neutrality.
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator, Distinguished Lecturer, Political Science Department, American University in Cairo
The corollary to the growing influence of the security establishment has been the neutralizing of civilian politics. Civil society is under relentless pressure and its activities have been severely curtailed.
Fathallah Oualalou
Former Minister of Economy and Finance, Morocco
From the torment between this globalised present and the depths of culture and history, we must move on to managing coexistence between modernity, globalisation, and the depths of historical and cultural specificity.
Meir Sheetrit
Member of Parliament, Israel
I believe the only solution to reach peace with the Middle East is through what we call the Saudi Initiative, or the Arab Peace Initiative.
Yukari Niwa Yamashita
Board Member, Director, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ)
I believe that we do not need more signatures on a piece of paper, but we need far more conviction and actions.
19:45 | Envoi
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and Chairman of the World Policy Conference
2016 Conference proceedings
08:30 – 09:30 | Welcome coffee
09:30 – 10:30 | Opening session
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
A quarter of a century after the end of the cold war, the age is no longer conducive to dreaming of naïve globalisation and of the end of History. But we must learn to live better with globalisation as it really is, i.e. with a degree of interdependence that will deepen even more considerably.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Naser bin Khalifa Al-Thani
Prime Minister, Qatar
We are probably all aware that our contemporary world is going through an unprecedented phase, abundant with grave challenges to safety, stability and sustainable development in the shadow of the impaired world order that suffers from double standards in dealing with people’s affairs.
Jean-Marc Ayrault
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, France
Faced with the world’s disorders, the only response is to join our forces, to show solidarity and to find collective solutions to shared problems. We need to continue our action. To act ceaselessly. To act while remaining loyal to our principles. Never to give up. That is France’s conviction.
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
Ahmet Davutoglu
Former Prime Minister of Turkey
The question is clear. Are we going towards global governance or towards world disorder? If you visit these capitals, you will see that there is a source of concern everywhere. What will be the future of international systems? What will be the future of the EU? What will be the policy of the new American president, Donald Trump? What will be the future of the Middle East?
10:45 – 12:30 | Plenary session 1
The future of the Middle East
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
Youssef Amrani
Royal Cabinet, Morocco
Fear took over and now, globalisation is seen as the root of all evil. So do we abandon the globalisation experiment? Or do we try and save it as it is and engage in a useless fight to save “business as usual”. Of course, the answer is neither.
Saeb Erekat
Palestinian Chief Negotiator, Palestine
Mark my words very carefully; what is going on in the Arab world is exactly what Europe went through on 15 March 1848, when Chancellor Metternich had to flee his palace after three weeks of peaceful demonstrations in Vienna.
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
Xiaosheng Gong
China’s Special Envoy on the Middle East Issue
First, passing initially through Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, those four hot spots in crisis should be considered together. The international community should not emphasise the crisis in just one or two and forget others, especially Palestine issues.
Riad Hijab
Former Prime Minister, Syria
This escalation of the war waged by the regime and its Russian and Iranian allies falls under the shadow of pivotal transformations at all regional and international levels.
Miguel Ángel Moratinos
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain
We can and should try to solve this lasting conflict because instability in the Middle East will continue if the Palestinian Israeli issue is not resolved, even if we want to defeat Daesh or make peace with Syria internally.
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
Abdulaziz Othman bin Sager
Chairman of the Gulf Research Center, Saudi Arabia
Today, six years later, we could say that this Arab Spring was only able to achieve a few of its objectives.
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
Itamar Rabinovich
President of the Israel Institute, Distinguished Global Professor at New York University (NYU) and Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution
What we are witnessing now is the collapse of a large number of states, at least six or seven states in the region meet the classic definition of failed state.
Panelists Debate
Debate
12:30 – 13:30 | Plenary session 2
Ethics and Government-Business relations
Susan Liautaud
Vice Chair of Court London School of Economics and Political Science, Founder and Managing Director Susan Liautaud & Associates Limited
Kriengsak Chareonwongsak
President of the Institute of Future Studies for Development; former Prime Ministerial Adviser, Thailand
The main idea is that all sectors, public, private and people, should collaborate fully to take charge of social well being.
Mari Kiviniemi
Deputy Secretary-General, OECD; Former Prime Minister of Finland
The ease with which individuals can avoid tax by shifting profits offshore has been simplified and as a result, multinational companies can move their most valuable assets to offshore low or no tax centres, where value creation does not happen.
Ashwani Kumar
Senior Advocate to the Supreme Court; Former Union Minister for Law & Justice, India
While the technological revolution has empowered people with unprecedented access to information and knowledge, questions arise about the ethical dimensions of a technology driven society.
Bruno Lafont
Co-chairman of the Board of Directors, LafargeHolcim
There is one interesting topic, which is rarely spoken about, which is whether we are all working for the general interest.
Panelists Debate
Debate
13:30 – 14:45 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
Guillaume Pepy
Chairman of SNCF’s Executive Board and Chairman and CEO of SNCF Mobilités
The only option we have is to address three game changes: the impact of climate change, of course; the urban population explosion; and the increasing scarcity of resources.
15:00 – 15:30 | Plenary session 3
Turkey’s European and international role
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
Ali Babacan
Member of Parliament and former Deputy Prime Minister, Turkey
In these kinds of organisations, the followers are asked to stop thinking, close their minds, lock their minds and do every kind of crazy things.
Debate
15:30 – 16:30 | Plenary session 4
Health: Technological development and global governance
John Andrews
Contributing Editor, The Economist
Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Thani
Director of Public Health, Ministry of Public Health in Qatar
Modern technology has changed the structure and organization of the entire medical field.
Christian Bréchot
President of the Institut Pasteur, France
Scientists in the field of biomedical research do need infrastructures, equipment and technological platforms. This is at several levels.
Zhu Yan-Mei
Executive Vice President of the Beijing Genomics Institute
Last year, from the year 2000, the human genomics project has almost completely deciphered the genome.
Panelists Debate
You are making such advances in science and medicine. At some point, there must already be ethical boundaries.
16:30 – 18:00 | Plenary session 5
Technological change and the New Social Contract
Masood Ahmed
Director, Middle East and Central Asia Department, International Monetary Fund
Tobby Simon
Founder and Chairman, Synergia Foundation
Every couple of generations, we script new social contracts, and they keep evolving to better reflect our social norms and values.
Chang Dae-Whan
Chairman and Publisher of Maekyung Media Group, Republic of Korea
The fourth industrial revolution covers IoT, and I just learned IoL, which means life. There are robotic sensors, driverless cars or drones, and the genetic engineering, and fintech.
Patrick Nicolet
Group Executive Board Member, Capgemini
There is no question that technological change is drastically disrupting both workplaces and the social environment.
Sébastien Bazin
Chairman & CEO, AccorHotels
You are going to have more job destruction over the next 3 4 years than job creation. You have a gap of time for people to adapt to this new evolution.
Debate
18:00 – 18:30 | Coffee break
18:30 – 19:00 | Plenary session 6
UK after Brexit
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
John Kerr
Member of the House of Lords, former British Ambassador to the United States and the EU
The die will not be cast irrevocably when, by March, the government triggers the withdrawal proceedings.
Debate
Are we making too big a deal of Brexit? […] Basically, the UK has become a lot more competitive than it was before.
19:00 – 19:45 | Plenary session 7
Security and Economic Development in Africa
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
President of IPS, Former Foreign Minister of Senegal
Africa is gradually becoming the epicentre of global terrorism.
Nathalie Delapalme
Executive Director, Research and Policy, Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Africa is 54 countries with 54 geographies, 54 different histories, 54 often-divergent trajectories.
Panelists Debate
Africa is becoming a battleground for the world’s great powers. The tragedy is that Africans are often sitting on the sidelines.
20:30 | Dinner debate
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Chey Tae-won
Chairman, SK Group, Republic of Korea
Instead of genuinely contributing to society, many CSR activities tend to focus on building the company’s image and promoting the brand.
Kevin Rudd
President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, Australia’s 26th Prime Minister and Former Foreign Minister
It can be argued that historical forces of inertia, entropy and chaos constitute the “steady state” of international relations.
08:30 – 09:45 | Plenary session 8
European Union: what next?
Steven Erlanger
London bureau chief of The New York Times
Elisabeth Guigou
Member of the French Parliament and President of the Commission of Foreign Affairs at the Assemblée nationale
The shock of the Brexit provides all the more evidence of the preexisting necessity to reshape the European project.
Norbert Röttgen
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs’ Committee, Bundestag, former German Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
We are at a point and situation not seen since World War II. There have not been so many crises at the same time, abroad and internally, in Europe and confronting Europe.
Panelists Debate
Germany still has a long way to go in this objective of a greater contribution to a foreign and defence policy. The only option I can see is for France and Germany to work on more coherent policies.
Debate
10:00 – 12:30 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Workshop 1: Finance and Economy
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of Bruegel; Former President of the European Central Bank
John Lipsky
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
Taking stock of where things stand today in regards of those goals, I would conclude that none of the [G20] goals have been attained.
Raed Charafeddine
First Vice- Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon
After the 2008 crisis, Central Banks have shifted from being pure regulators overseeing the financial sectors into important players in the real economies.
Daniel Daianu
Member of the Board, Central Bank of Romania, former Finance Minister of Romania
The impact of the financial crisis is also significant: estimates are that the Great Recession has brought GDP potential growth below 1,5% in the EU for the next 5-10 years.
Hur Kyung-Wook
Senior Advisor to Bae, Kim & Lee LLC; Former Vice Minister of Strategy and Finance, Republic of Korea, former Ambassador of Korea to the OECD
Most Asian countries have turned to domestic consumption as well as investment, fuelled by Asian money both domestic and from abroad as well.
Kiyoto Ido
Vice Chairman, Institute for International Economic Studies, Japan
Abenomics is based on the three arrows of monetary easing, flexible fiscal policy and growth strategy.
André Levy-Lang
Affiliate emeritus Professor at Paris-Dauphine University, former CEO of Banque Paribas
Banks and insurance companies are no longer active players in capital markets and they used to be one of the stabilising forces in capital markets.
Debate
Workshop #2 – Workshop 2: Energy and Climate
Donald Johnston
Chair of the McCall MacBain Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland, Former Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris
Olivier Appert
Chairman of the Conseil Français de l’Energie
Every two years, a new Norway has been put into production in the US, and the US has become the most significant oil producer, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Ladislas Paszkiewicz
Vice President Strategy & Climate, Total
Oil and gas is responsible for about 37% of the GHG emissions […]
Debate 1
Tatsuo Masuda
Professor, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Graduate School, Japan
Maybe technology is the solution to all the problems that we face regarding energy and climate change.
Daniela Lulache
Chief Executive Officer, Nuclearelectrica, former Counselor of the Vice-Governor of the National Bank of Romania
We cannot reach this target of decarbonisation and we cannot solve all the climate change problems that are occurring without nuclear.
Lee Hye-Min
G20 Sherpa and Ambassador for International Economic Affairs, Republic of Korea, Former Ambassador to France, former Deputy Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea
We need to implement a commitment regarding mitigation and adaptation, but developed countries should provide financial means.
Debate 2
Workshop #3 – Workshop 3: China in transition
Park In-Kook
President, Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS), former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations
Jia Qingguo
Professor and Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University
The country biggest challenge is how to sort out the rules so that people can do things legitimately and quickly.
Qiao Yide
Vice Chairman & Secretary General, Shanghai Development Research Foundation
The Chinese government defines six industries as ‘emerging industries with strategic importance’: cyber economy; high-end manufacturing; digital economy; green and low carbon; bio economy.
Richard Cooper
Professor of Economics, Harvard University
What can we expect of a Trump administration? And how will it affect China?
Douglas Paal
Vice President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
It will be a good time for China. That is widely felt in the business community and outside official ranks.
Bark Taeho
Professor, GSIS, Seoul National University
The Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations is stalled going nowhere.
Michel Foucher
Chair of applied Geopolitics at College of World Studies (FMSH-ENS), former Director of the policy planning staff of the French Foreign Ministry
It’s important to understand that the general context has changed. […] So classical Realpolitik is the new norm, with areas of influence, pacts and alliances, logistical and military facilities abroad.
Yuichi Hosoya
Professor, Department of Political Science, Keio University
President Trump will focus on an ‘America First’ policy, which means that the United States will reduce in some way its engagement in East Asia.
Debate
12:45 – 14:15 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
Shivshankar Menon
Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi, and Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, Former National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, India
India is undergoing massive internal change, so rapid that we really still have to come to terms with it.
14:15 – 16:00 | Plenary session 9
Post-American Elections
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor, The Washington Post
François Bujon de l’Estang
President, FBE International Consultants, former Chairman of Citigroup France
Many questions also have been posed about a deeply divided America, which was really the background to this election.
Ichiro Fujisaki
Chairman of the Institute of International Relations, Sophia University, Japan, Former Ambassador of Japan to the United States
What will happen? On three fronts, policy may have to be watched in the following areas: environment, trade and the Middle East.
Jin Roy Ryu
Chairman and CEO, Poongsan Group
President elect Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America great again” captured the hearts of those who voted for him.
Juan Gallardo
Chairman, Organizacion Cultiba SAB de CV, Mexico
There are also more Mexicans coming back to Mexico than going to the US now for at least two to three years running. The idea of having a well-controlled and properly monitored border has been alive and working strongly.
Vuk Jeremic
President, Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (Cirsd), former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Serbia
One can see how Donald Trump’s election victory may serve as a boost to populist movements, ideas, and candidates in the forthcoming Western European elections.
Wang Jisi
President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University, and professor of the School of International Studies, Peking University
China has been one of the largest beneficiaries of economic globalization, and the next step of reform and opening will continue to depend on open markets and free interflow of capital.
Ryan Evans
Founder, CEO, Editor – War on the Rocks
We actually have to be prepared for the breakdown of democracy in the United States and perhaps even the introduction of some form of autocracy.
Debate
16:00 – 16:30 | Plenary session 10
Space as a major technological and governance adventure
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
Jean-Yves Le Gall
President of the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), President of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), co-Chair of the Council of the European Space Agency
Satellites are crucial instruments supporting efforts to curb climate change.
Debate
16:30 – 17:00 | Coffee break
17:00 – 18:30 | Plenary session 11
Fighting Terrorism
Justin Vaïsse
Directeur du Centre d’analyse, de prévision et de stratégie du ministère des Affaires étrangères, France
Sergei Karaganov
Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the non-governmental Council on Foreign and Defense Policy of Russia, Founder and former Deputy Director of the Institute of Europe of the Academy of Sciences of USSR/Russia
[Terrorist organisations] are also the result of unjustified, totally incompetent and irresponsible intrusion by foreign powers.
Mayankote Kelath Narayanan
Former Governor of West Bengal, The Raj Bhavan, Former Senior Advisor and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India
The Internet will become a crucial weapon in the hands of the ISIS, once it morphs into ISIS 2.0. Already the ISIS has plans to use the ‘deep web’ and the ‘dark net’.
Jamal Khashoggi
General Manager, Editor in Chief Of AlArab News Channel
We have to go for the root cause of the problem. The root cause of the problem is chaos and anarchy.
Wang Jisi
President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University, and professor of the School of International Studies, Peking University
Anti-terrorism has assumed a higher place on China’s domestic agenda – it occupies a higher place on the list of priorities.
Jehangir Khan
Director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) and the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) in the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) in the UN Secretariat
The reason we are concerned about terrorism is that it has a human face. What is that human face? It is the face of the victim.
Panelists Debate
Debate
18:30 – 19:30 | Plenary session 12
Political and Economic Stability in East Asia
Richard Cooper
Professor of International Economics, Harvard University
Ichiro Fujisaki
Chairman of the Institute of International Relations, Sophia University, Japan, Former Ambassador of Japan to the United States
Japan is seen as one of the countries bringing stability to the region. This is because our relations with countries around us have changed very drastically.
Jia Qingguo
Professor and Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University
One of the hotspots is North Korea’s nuclear development. This challenge is approaching a threshold.
Ju Chul-Ki
President of the Overseas Koreans Foundation, former Senior Secretary for Foreign Affairs and National Security to the President, Korea
There are always sources of instability in East Asia for it to continue to leap forward.
Debate
20:00 – 20:30 | Cocktail
20:30 | Official Dinner
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Qatar
The State of Qatar has played a key role in mediation to reach peaceful settlements to conflicts in several areas of the world.
08:45 – 10:00 | Plenary session 13
Virginie Robert
Foreign desk Editor, Les Echos
Panelists Debate
Maurice Obstfeld said that turning back the clock on trade can only deepen and prolong the world economy’s current doldrums, yet we see less and less support for trade agreements in the US, as in Europe.
Debate
The US cannot be isolated from the global economy, so what alternative could there be?
10:00 – 11:15 | Plenary session 14
Steven Erlanger
London bureau Chief of The New York Times
Panelists Debate
Hydrocarbons are very important in this region and will remain an important for decades for many reasons.
11:15 – 11:45 | Coffee break
11:45 – 12:30 | Reports from parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Report 1
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of Bruegel; Former President of the European Central Bank
The poor level of investment was quoted frequently as one of the reasons why growth was so mediocre; the abnormal level of investment is not preparing the way for growth and labour productivity programmes, because the stock of capital is not what it should be.
Workshop #2 – Report 2
Marie-Claire Aoun
Director of the Center for Energy at the French Institute for International Relations (Ifri)
While peak oil supply threats were dominating the debates 10 years ago, today we are more talking about the peak oil demand which will probably be the outcome of energy transition policies.
Workshop #3 – Report 3
In-kook Park
President, Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS), former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations
Chinese economy’s structural transition from export oriented economy to domestic consumption-led economy has already begun to manifest.
12:30 – 13:00 | Plenary session 15
Education and the role of women
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator and former member of Parliament, Distinguished Lecturer, Political Science Department, American University in Cairo
Two main issues concerning education and the role of women: one of them is flagship educational programs in the Arab world; the second is women as an untapped resource in the fight against terrorism.
Hamda Hassan Al-Sulaiti
Secretary General, Qatar National Commission for Education, Culture and Science
Qatar has [long] been interested in teaching young girls. This started in 1956, when it embarked on providing education to women.
Debate
13:00 – 14:30 | Lunch
14:30 – 15:45 | Plenary session 16
Diversification, Education and Employment in the Middle East
Mohamed Kabbaj
President of Lafarge Morocco, Chancelor of Euro-Mediterranean university of Fès and member of the Hassan II Academy of Science and Technology, former Advisor to His Majesty the King Mohammed VI, former Minister of Finance and Foreign Investment, Morocco
Uri Dadush
Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center, non-resident scholar, Bruegel
Over the next several years the demographics will be favourable for solving the unemployment problem, not in the sense that it will be good, but that is will not be as bad as it has been in the past.
Masood Ahmed
Director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department
Going forward, GCC governments are not going to have the resources to be able to employ all the nationals in the public sector, so they have to be employed increasingly in the private sector.
Mona Makram Ebeid
Egyptian Senator and former member of Parliament, Distinguished Lecturer, Political Science Department, American University in Cairo
It is simple: Egypt cannot reach its full potential without women. Great nations draw their strength from all their people. Harnessing that strength means tolerating differences that are peacefully expressed.
Hassan Al-Derham
President of Qatar University
With the discovery of oil and the exploitation of oil, people took the easy road, and that means the more comfortable road. This involves heavy reliance on government subsidies, government allowances, and government jobs as well.
Debate
15:45 – 17:00 | Plenary session 17
Young Leaders Session: Disruption, Populism and the World of Tomorrow
Manuel Muñiz
Director, Program on Transatlantic Relations, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Li Yi-Fan
CEO, Hesai Photonics Technologies
In this fast-evolving world, we are trying to see things in a different dimension, where you can jump out of this 2D dimension and to look at it in a different angle. And you come to a complete different conclusion and it is always disruptive.
Lionel Baraban
Co-Founder & CEO, FAMOCO
Populism is basically a lack of trust, and in the real world, like the digital world, you need to bring trust.
Caroline Goulard
CEO & Co-Founder, Dataveyes
Our ability to implement smart technologies exceeds by far our ability to understand how the algorithms that feed them work.
Pierre Dubuc
Co-Founder, OpenClassrooms
There needs to be a much stronger link between learning and employment. Today, recent graduates are struggling to find work that matches their skills.
Essa Al-Mannai
Executive Director at Reach Out To Asia, Qatar Foundation, Qatar
The youth are asking to be not just on the other side of the table as the recipient of the humanitarian work but to have an active, engaged, responsible player within the process itself.
Debate
17:00 – 17:30 | Coffee break
17:30– 19:30 | Plenary session 18
Final Debate
Bertrand Collomb
Honorary Chairman, LafargeHolcim
Hubert Védrine
Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs
Current events challenge not so much the present global order […] but the hopes and illusions of Westerners and of all the globalised elites.
Renaud Girard
Senior reporter at Le Figaro
Given their education and philosophical background, it is reasonable to think that Western leaders would take only rational, carefully considered decisions. They do not.
Michel Foucher
Chair of applied Geopolitics at College of World Studies (FMSH-ENS), former Director of the policy planning staff of the French Foreign Ministry
During a period of threats, it is appropriate to strengthen the exercise of basic sovereign functions and let it be known to opinion makers.
Manuel Hassassian
Ambassador of Palestine to the United Kingdom
Peace, stability and security in the Middle East have been lacking for decades now. The simple answer to this is the lack of a resolution to the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo
Chancellor, Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
The real solutions lie in making a heartfelt effort to defend human dignity and the liberty not only of every individual, but also of different populations.
Donald Johnston
Chair of the McCall MacBain Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland, Former Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris
You cannot imagine what a miracle the post war evolution of Europe has been. That is too often forgotten.
Yim Sung-Joon
Senior Advisor, Lee International IP & Law Group; Former President, Korea Foundation
As election day approached, these media even rated the chance of Clinton winning by over 90%.
Tadakatsu Sano
Attorney-at-law at Jones Day; Former Director-General of the Trade Policy Bureau and Vice Minister for International Affairs; Chief Executive Assistant to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama
The real loser seems to me to be the traditional establishment. Trump attacked career politicians, Media, Academia, business people in the finance industry and international institutions.
François Barrault
Chairman and Founder of FDB Partners SPRL
We have two worlds. There is the 1.0 world which is an extrapolation of the past […] Then there is the 2.0 world, which is the digital world.
Panelists Debate
Debate
19:30 | Envoi
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the World Policy Conference
Hassan bin Ibrahim Al Mohannadi
Director of Diplomatic Institute, MOFA, Qatar
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […].
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.
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 […].
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.
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.
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.
Jean-Claude Trichet
Former President, ECB
It is absolutely normal that the central banks are concentrating on their own problems.
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.
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.
Debate
13:00 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
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.
Debate
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.
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.
Debate
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
16:30 – 17:30 | Plenary session 5
Do Firms have a Nationality?
Nicolas Barré
Managing Director, Les Echos
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
20:30 | Dinner debate
Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
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.
Debate
08:00 – 09:30 | Plenary session 7
Security in Asia in a Historical Perspective
Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor, Ifri
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Panelists debate
Debate
12:15 – 13:45 | Lunch debate
Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
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.
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.
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.
Panelists debate
Debate
14:00 – 14:45 | Plenary session 10
Israeli-Palestinian dialogue
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor to The Washington Post
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.
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.
Panelists debate
Debate
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 […].
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Debate 1
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.
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.
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.
Debate 2
Conclusion
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.
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.
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.
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.
Conclusion, Jean-Claude Trichet
Former President, ECB
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […].
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.
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.
Debate
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.
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.
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 […].
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.
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.
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.
Debate
09:45 – 11:30 | Plenary session 13
Climate and Environment
Introduction, Richard Cooper
Professor of International Economics at Harvard University
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
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.
Q & A
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Debate
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
16:45 | Envoi
2014 Conference proceedings
09:15 – 10:00 | Opening session
Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
We aim to contribute to improving all aspects of local and regional governance, with a view to promoting a world that is more open, more prosperous, fairer and more respectful of the diversity of states and nations.
Park Geun-Hye
President of the Republic of Korea
I believe that building a framework of trust and cooperation on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia will be crucial for a more peaceful and secure future for our world.
10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 1
“Security governance in East Asia and in Europe”
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Jean-David Levitte
Distinguished Fellow, Brookings Institution
In my view, the US, both in Europe and Asia, has to play the role of balancing power, like the UK did in the 19th century in Europe.
Richard Haass
President of the Council on Foreign Relations
Asia is a much more complex geography than Europe with much less institutionalism and it is much more about territorial and other kinds of disputes.
Han Sung-Joo
Former Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs
With its rebalancing policy, the US appeared to be placing more weight on its Asia policy and presence, but it now finds itself with problems elsewhere around the globe from which it cannot easily pivot away.
Igor V. Morgulov
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
In the time of a fundamental transformation of the system of international relations, the world faces growing number of conflicts and challenges.
Shotaro Oshima
Chairman, Institute for international Economic Studies (IIES) and Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo
One of the most important elements in East Asia is obviously the rise of China, and it is creating certain instabilities in the region.
Debate
11:30 – 13:00 | Plenary session 2
“Prospects for the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia”
Introduction by Choi Young-Jin
Professor at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies; former Ambassador to the US; former Head of the UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire.
The rise of East Asia will be recorded in history as the most significant phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century, along with the Cold War.
Thomas Bagger
Head of Policy Planning, German Federal Foreign Office
I think the German/Korean relationship is far broader than the rather superficial similarity of having a history of division, but it is quite interesting that we come back to this issue of division and unification on the Korean Peninsula.
Ju Chul-Ki
Senior Secretary for Foreign Affairs and National Security, Office of the President of the Republic of Korea
Unification can be the silver bullet to resolving many of the key challenges that plague the Korean Peninsula such as the nuclear issue, human rights abuses, and North Korea’s social economic challenges.
Thierry Mariani
French Member of Parliament for French Citizens Abroad (Asia, Russia, and Oceania)
The economic dynamism of Northeast Asia except, of course, North Korea, has enabled them to carry weight on the international stage. South Korea is an example.
Marcus Noland
Executive Vice President and Director of Studies, Peterson Institute for International Economics
The first scenario is one side conquers the other one militarily. The second one is that the peninsula experiences a peaceful, gradual consensual unification that is measured in decades […] The third possibility is […] an abrupt German-style collapse of the North and its absorption by the South.
Anatoly Torkunov
Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations
The Korean Peninsula remains the hub of bilateral, regional and global problems.
Debate
13:15 – 14:45 | Lunch debate
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Lee Hong-Koo
Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea
The most crucial requirement is to bring the major powers together to guarantee the peaceful coexistence of two Korea working together towards an eventual unification.
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
15:00 – 16:30 | Plenary session 3
“Inequalities and globalization”
Introduction by Susan Liautaud
Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society; Founder of Susan Liautaud & Associates Limited (SLA)
Our topic for this 90‑minute session is vast and it is inequality and globalisation. It is indeed a topic that Christine Lagarde and others have called one of the most important stories of our time.
Mari Kiviniemi
Deputy Secretary General of OECD; former Prime Minister of Finland
Inequality is not only bad socially, ethically and on a human level, it is also bad economically.
Rhee Changyong
Director, Asia and Pacific Department, IMF
We have to be very careful when we talk about inequalities. It is not about inequality in general; it is more about inequality in opportunities, and excessive inequality is quite detrimental to growth.
Richard Cooper
Professor of International Economics at Harvard University
The Gini coefficient is a very clever coefficient, but it is a single number, and inequality is typically much more complicated than can be captured in a single number.
Il Sakong
Chairman of the Institute for Global Economics; former Finance Minister of Korea
Income and wealth inequality have been rising throughout the world during the last three decades or so, particularly in the advanced economies.
Jean Pisani-Ferry
General Commissioner for Strategy, Office of the Prime Minister, France
The WTO and the IMF are increasingly concerned about inequality. Paradoxically, the EU, which is a political institution with a mandate in the treaties of improving the whole of society, has proved relatively indifferent to these issues of inequality.
Debate
16:30 – 17:15 | Plenary session 4
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
H.R.H. Prince Turki Al Faisal
Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
Governance in Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria is in such a tenuous condition, and the perfect conditions for terrorist cells to take root […]. This is something that will continue to happen as long as we do not treat the illnesses and continue to treat the symptom. The main disease in that area is the failing states.
Debate
17:15 – 17:45 | Coffee-break
17:45 – 19:15 | Plenary session 5
“Africa in a global context”
Introduction by Marie-Roger Biloa
CEO, Africa International Media Group
Nowadays, conversations about Africa no longer tend simply to vilify it as hopeless, but instead highly praise its economic progress and golden business opportunities.
Wu Jianmin
Executive Vice Chairman of China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy
Asian countries have been very active in Africa’s rise, and in the 21st century, Afro-Asian solidarity will play a very important role.
Lynda Chalker
Founder and Chairman of Africa Matters Ltd; former UK Minister for Overseas Development and Africa
We are beginning to see a real combination of experience being shared from Asia into Africa, and with third countries too.
Nathalie Delapalme
Executive Director, Research and Policy, Mo Ibrahim Foundation
There is no doubt about the narrative of the African rising, but I still think that the economy is not the only measurement; we should be careful not to be overly optimistic, but should take into account the early warning signs of insecurity, domestic unrest, inequality and jobless growth.
Youssef Amrani
Chargé de mission, Royal Cabinet, Morocco
Africa must take its future in its own hands, overcome the barriers to its socio-economic development and create jobs for its youth, who are the continent’s real driving force.
Elisabeth Guigou
President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the French National Assembly
Europe must become more aware that its security depends on what happens in the Sahel.
Debate
20:00 | Dinner debate
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Yun Byung-Se
Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs
A reunified Korea will be nuclear weapons-free; a beacon for human rights and democracy; at peace with neighbors; an engine of global economic growth; and a promoter of regional and global peace and prosperity.
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
08:30 – 11:30 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – The state of the world economy and finance
Introduction by Jean-Claude Trichet
Former President of the ECB
We’re still living in the shadow of the deepest economic crisis since the Second World War. It might have been even worse had central banks and governments not taken extraordinarily bold, swift steps.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of government at Harvard University
There are major political and economic blocks to a resolution of the crisis in Europe, which causes concern both in Europe and around the world.
Yutaka Aso
President, Aso Group
The strong intention of Governor Kuroda of the Bank of Japan is working. He says the bank will do whatever it can to overcome the deflation that has long undermined Japanese economy.
Daniel Daianu
Member of the Romanian Academy; former Minister of Finance of Romania
Extreme events keep us under constant pressure. All this is very bad because there are economic, institutional, social, and political entailed costs; these costs show up in individual mindsets and in the collective psyche of people.
Debate 1
Jun Gwang-Woo
Former Chairman of Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC)
In general, older people tend to have a low risk tolerance and not aggressively engage in venture type investment. So, the result is: saving more, spend less and prefer safer assets.
Bozidar Djelic
Partner, Lazard; former Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia
There is no commonly agreed model, where all the banks would in the same way use the same model.
Marek Belka
President of the National Bank of Poland
I do not think that we have really experienced a full-blown currency war which some of the colleagues, say, from Brazil, were quite concerned about.
Debate 2
Workshop #2 – Energy, climate change and environment
Richard Cooper
Professor of International Economics at Harvard University
I will give my own pessimistic view about the COP process we are involved in. I do not see how 193 countries with a huge diversity of interests can reach a meaningful agreement – the word ‘meaningful’ is important – by a process of consensus.
Laurent Fabius
Action is possible. Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut; that’s where energy comes in. We must reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, save more energy and use more renewable sources.
Vuk Jeremic
Former President of the UN General Assembly; former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia
Global problems require global awareness for global solutions […] It is an illusion to believe that negotiations on post-2015 agenda and climate change can take place in isolation from general international trends.
William Ramsay
Senior Advisor of the Center for Energy, Ifri; former Deputy Executive Director, International Energy Agency (IEA)
We cannot emit any additional CO2 from 2040 if we want to achieve the two-degree target, which is not particularily realistic.
Debate 1
Bertrand de la Noue
General Representative of Total in China
Energy companies have for a long time been quite mute on the climate debate. […] Total has been over the past years at the forefront of a profound change in industry response.
Tatsuo Masuda
Professor at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Graduate School, Japan
Energy and environmental challenge is symbolically seen in Asia, where some 60% of the global increment of energy demand growth up to 2040 will take place.
Luigi Colantuoni
Group Representative of Total in Japan and South Korea
Climate change and energy transition are considered major issues for the world economy and for the sustainable future of humankind.
Debate 2
Christian Bréchot
President of the Institut Pasteur
Eco-epidemiological impacts are extremely important. There will be increasing health risks from natural disasters and increasing health challenges linked with human displacement.
Sverre Vedal
Professor, University of Washington (UW) School of Public Health; Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES)
While most air pollutants are climate warming, some important ones are climate cooling, and that complicates mitigation strategies.
Debate 3
Lee Seung-Hoon
Professor emeritus of the Seoul University; former Co-Chairman of Green Growth Committee of the Korean government
With tools energised by fire, greedy mankind has built up astounding prosperity on the one hand, and degraded the environment to the level of destruction on the other.
Anil Razdan
Former Power Secretary of India
The OECD said in 2010 that seven out of ten world cities most exposed to climate change are in developing Asia.
Debate 4
Workshop #3 – Agroindustry in Africa and Asia
Introduction by Jean Yves Carfantan
Senior Consultant, AgroBrasConsult
Suresh Kumar
Chief Editor of Africaindia.org; former Head and Director of the Department of African Studies, University of Delhi
Agriculture extension is an important component of agriculture universities throughout the world, which will help Africa Agriculture Education System to strengthen in rural areas.
Khalid Meksem
President of the University Mohammed VI
The pre-colonial part of agriculture in Africa was sustainable, local and harmonious. […] people who are interested in sustainability today will fly to remote locations in Africa and learn from the locals.
Debate 1
Krishan Jindal
CEO, NABARD Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd.
NABARD has been able to facilitate credit flow to agriculture and also helped in adoption of technology by small farmers to operate in a profitable and sustainable way.
Debate 2
Rod A. Wing
Professor, University of Arizona
The greatest challenges that we face in plant breeding is to be able to link genome sequences to functional traits that could be used to create superior and sustainable varieties.
Philippe Chalmin
Professor, Paris-Dauphine University
Debate 3
11:30 – 11.45 | Coffee-break
11:45 – 13:15 | Plenary session 6
“The geopolitics and geo-economics of Eurasia”
Introduction by Fen Osler Hampson
Director of CIGI’s Global Security & Politics program; Co-director of the Global Commission on Internet Governance; Chancellor’s professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada
I think that it is important to note that the Eurasian region has witnessed a number of cooperative governance initiatives in both the economic and security spheres.
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
The reference for the Eurasian economic union is the European Union. It’s cut-and-paste in formal and institutional terms.
Dong Manyuan
Vice President, China Institute of International Studies (CIIS)
President Xi Jinping proposed a cooperation initiative through the Silk Road economic belt cooperation initiative. It brings about new opportunities for economic cooperation on the Eurasian continent and has been welcomed by the majority of countries that lie alongside the continent.
Alexander Panov
Member of the Advisory Board of the Security Council of the Russian Federation
There are a number of projects in which Moscow, Seoul and Pyongyang are already involved in, particularly those in the transport and energy sectors.
Justin Vaïsse
Director of the policy planning staff, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
If the European Union and the Eurasian Union discussed common economic projects and trade, we’d see that as something very positive, because it would add to South Korea or China’s efforts to develop the region.
Yu Myung-Hwan
Chairman of Sejong University; former Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs
South Korea’s Eurasia Initiative is still at a very nascent stage […] and is trying to implement the Eurasia Initiative with forward-looking and creative thoughts.
Debate
13:30 – 15:30 | Lunch debate
“What about American leadership?”
Part 1
Americans never had full hegemony. There is a bit of a myth about the past, that there was a period when the Americans could do anything and now we can do nothing, and the truth is somewhere in between.
Part 2
Giving more resources to Ukraine is a good idea in principle, but the problem is that in practise, there is zero evidence that more resources will be used well.
Part 3
I do not think we are on the verge of a great détente with Iran, because there are too many interests where there is divergence.
Part 4
China quite simply does not use the influence it has to rein in either North Korea’s nuclear programme, or more broadly, North Korean behaviour. There is a sense that China could and should do more, not to control North Korea, but to influence it.
15:30 – 17:00 | Plenary session 7
“Trade and politics”
Introduction by Patrick Messerlin
Professor of Economics and Director of the Groupe d’économie mondiale (GEM) at Sciences Po Paris
Many people tend to believe, and yesterday we had this impression, that trade and politics are a source of increasing conflicts and interactions.
John Manley
President and CEO, Canadian Council of Chief Executives
The world is increasingly complex, and our political economies are all engaged in dealing with a myriad of very deep and difficult issues.
Alejandro Jara
Senior Counsel, King & Spalding; former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Chile, WTO
The trade agenda is increasingly intrusive and touches upon very sensitive domestic political issues in many countries.
Bark Taeho
Professor at Seoul National University; former Minister for Trade, Korea
The current consensus-based decision making mechanism of the WTO faces serious limitations. We have to discuss honestly how to save the Doha Round with all options open.
Pascal Lamy
Honorary President of Notre Europe; former Director-General of the WTO
The relationship between trade and politics, whether domestic or international, is fundamentally changing as we are transitioning from an old world of trade into a new one, and we are somewhere in between these two worlds.
Debate
17:00 – 18:30 | Plenary session 8
“Middle East in a global context”
Introduction by Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor at Ifri
I would say there are three words that characterise the ‘new’ new Middle East: fragmentation, […] radicalisation, […] and expansion.
Hubert Védrine
Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs
Turmoil and problems have been rocking the Middle East for 50, 70, even over 100 years!
Ribal Al-Assad
Chairman of the Iman Foundation
We saw the rise of the Islamic State as ISIS in 2006, but it came to Syria because there was a certain atmosphere that allowed it to prosper, that allowed it to grow.
Meir Sheetrit
Member of the Knesset; former Minister of Internal Affairs of Israel
Many countries at last understood that Israel was standing alone in fighting terror, and now we are fighting together against radical Islam.
Sergei Karaganov
Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the non-governmental Council on Foreign and Defense Policy of Russia
Stop exporting democracy or socialism or whatever, and, by the way, stop ostracising Israel. It is the only beacon of stability there, and we see more and more ostracising of Israel.
Miguel Angel Moratinos
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain
I think the Middle East deserves all this time, because it is the quintessence of the new challenging world, where all traditional security concerns, traditional military intervention, energy and trade converge in the new challenges of today’s world, which are global terrorism, food security, water scarcity, and culture division.
Debate
19:15 | Cocktail
09:00 – 10:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of government at Harvard University
There have been some notable steps forward in cooperative measures among the major financial and economic centres, especially with respect to the harmonisation of financial regulation. At the same time, the global macroeconomic situation remains quite troubled and quite troubling, with Europe being the most worrisome cause for concern.
Marie-Claire Aoun
Director of the Energy Centre at Ifri
To be successful, the fight towards climate change should reflect local, regional and global alliances, including private sector, and civil society and should be driven by a strong and sustainable political will.
Jean-Yves Carfantan
Senior Consultant, AgroBrasConsult
In the small group that was present at the workshop, we did believe that increasing production in the farm sector in Africa is one of the main challenges the world is faced with in the coming years.
Debate
10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 9
“The economic and political consequences of the revolution of Big Data”
Nicolas Barré
Managing Director, Les Echos
In 2000, that is less than 15 years ago, only a quarter of the existing data in the world was digital and today it is almost 100%.
Chang Dae-Whan
Chairman of Maekyung Media Group, Republic of Korea
Now that we are entering the world of IoT, Internet of Things, our everyday lives will change. The Internet of Things is a new, emerging power.
Luc-François Salvador
Executive Chairman for Asia-Pacific, Capgemini Group
We should see the impact of the big data revolution from different aspects and in different areas, touching all domains of our private, professional lives as well as citizens.
Ben Scott
Senior Advisor, Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation; Program Director, European Digital Agenda, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung
We have to convince people that the Internet offers more benefits than risks. Not just today, but tomorrow and in 15 years and, to do that, we need to establish legitimacy at least for democratic governments and their conduct online.
Joseph Nye
University Distinguished Service Professor, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
When you have the capacity of computing power doubling every 18 months, the ability to analyse data has outgrown our social mores and norms and laws, which set limits on this in the past.
Debate
11:30 – 12:00 | Coffee-break
12:00 – 13:00 | Plenary session 10
“The US and Asia in the 21st century”
Robert M. Gates
Former Secretary of Defense of the United States
People talk a lot about the emergence of China, when I think it is more accurate and provides greater historical context to talk about the re-emergence of China.
13:15 – 14:45 | Lunch debate
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Mehmet Ceylan
Deputy Minister of Development of Turkey
The rise of Turkey’s economy is much admired because of the fact that it goes hand in hand with democratic and modern values.
Debate
15:00 – 17:00 | Plenary session 11
« General debate »
Introduction by Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor at Ifri
Mohamed Laichoubi
Former Minister of Labor and Social protection of Algeria
The reorganisation of the world and the emergence of new players have made it clear that new instruments are necessary. Defining a new multilateralism has become an absolute necessity.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of government at Harvard University
Global governance is only really justified if there are global public goods that cannot be supplied by national governments.
Liu Chen
Professor, China’s Foreign Studies University in Beijing
Thanks to the overall positive economic and political effects of the Reform and Opening up, the smoke has cleared in the state-market battle in China and there is an increased tendency toward connecting China with World.
Kunihiko Miyake
Research Director, The Canon Institute for Global Studies, Japan
The most important element is the rise of nationalism on the planet. Nationalism is back and I think that we should focus on how to control it.
Tobby Simon
Founder and Chairman, Synergia Foundation, India
Global warming and rising waters, caused by climate change is a major threat. Another consequence of global warming is the spread of diseases and emergence of multi-resistant strains.
Carlos Pérez-Verdia
Head of the Private Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico
In Latin America we have no significant religious, ethnical or cultural rivalries and no significant border disputes. We are therefore more or less absent from the debate on spheres of influence.
Michael Yeoh
Founder and CEO of Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute of Malaysia
Southeast Asia will continue to play a key role in the regional architecture of Asia and the hope is that we will become a middle power in the years to come.
Conclusion by Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor at Ifri
Debate
2013 Conference proceedings
14:30 – 15:30 | Opening session
H.S.H. Prince Albert II
Sovereign Prince of Monaco
Democracy cannot be imposed but must be built progressively according to each State’s history.
Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Regardless of whether today’s international system be described as zero-polar, bipolar or multipolar, the simple reality is that the most powerful states no longer wish or are no longer capable of exercising their power. It is, in my view, more constructive to focus on the ‘middle powers’.
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
Ali Babacan
Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey
For many of our domestic reform efforts, the European Union has been a key external anchor. The standards, benchmarks and criteria that the European Union has for incoming countries are very important for us because it is a measure of quality of our reform efforts.
Debate
15:30 – 17:00 | Plenary session 1
“The state of the world economy and global governance”
Introduction by Nicolas Barré
Kemal Dervis
We need to pay more attention to income distribution, to how growth is taking place and to how it is spreading through societies.
Henri de Castries
We are probably seeing the end to the Westphalian states. Classical borders are becoming irrelevant in more and more areas.
Jacob Frenkel
The world’s centre of gravity has moved and that businessmen and entrepreneurs were able to recognise and seize these opportunities.
David de Rothschild
In 2014, there will be another round of stress tests and there will be another asset‑quality review. Therefore, I think that by the end of 2014, we will have a fairly stable environment in all this.
Il SaKong
The G20 should have more frequent and structured meetings for finance deputies, finance ministers and Sherpas before the Summit. Leaders’ time is the scarcest resource in the world, so they cannot meet often.
Pascal Lamy
We need to de‑monopolise international governance from the Westphalian system, from sovereign nation states. We need to look at greater diversity of public institutions.
Debate
17:00 – 17:45 | Plenary session 2
Mohammad Javad Zarif
We should never forget that trust is a two-way street. Today’s regional and international crises require every one of us to have a sense of responsibility and to cooperate with one other to rebuild peace and stability.
Debate with Ali Ahani
Ambassador of Islamic Republic of Iran to France and to Monaco
17:45 – 19:15 | Plenary session 3
“Middle East”
Introduction by Steven Erlanger
Masood Ahmed
There has to be a focus on trying to give young people in particular some hope by giving them opportunities for employment in the short term. That means reallocating some spending towards job creation.
Renaud Girard
I believe that our leaders have not grasped the fact that in Syria, a very deep and profound fracture has existed for a very long time between a party that I would describe as secular and a Muslim Brotherhood party.
Bassma Kodmani
The djihadists’ best ally is the violence that was introduced by al-Assad. The djihadists’ best ally today is the chaos created by the regime.
Mona Makram-Ebeid
For Egypt to advance, it has to go back to the slogan of the 1920s, which was ‘Religion is for God and the homeland is for all’. Otherwise, there is no future.
Sergey Karaganov
Russia’s experience with Iranians has shown that they have been acting very constructively in calming crises in the former Soviet Central Asia and quite responsibly in calming crises in the Caucuses, including in Chechnya and elsewhere.
Elisabeth Guigou
I believe that Europe must return, that Europe must abandon its navel-gazing and start to assert itself in the world again.
Debate
19:15 | Welcome cocktail
20:00 | Dinner debate
With Herman Van Rompuy
President of the European Council
The simple idea that people should have a say in their own governance has achieved a near universal status, and more of the world’s population lives in democratic countries than ever before in the history of the mankind.
Debate
08:00 – 09:45 | Plenary session 4
“Asia’s strengths and weaknesses”
Introduction by Michael Yeoh
Bruno Lafont
Asia is rising and what is very interesting to see is the development of the cities in Asia. I think the most important trend in Asia today is harmonisation.
Jin Roy Ryu
I think one of Asia’s weaknesses is that Asia does not have a strong leader or control tower like the United States in the Americas.
Shotaro Oshima
Mr. Abe has put forward the case to the people that we should not have to be bogged down in deflationary mind-set and that we can change the economic environment and the outlook for the future by inflation target setting.
Mayankote Kelath Narayanan
There exist two Asias today – both competing for space and attention. Economically, we have a dynamic, and to an extent, integrated Asia. In security terms, there is another Asia that appears dysfunctional, buffeted by powerful nationalisms and prone to irredentism.
Anatoly Torkunov
Any diplomatic process is therefore only a tool to hedge risks by stopping North Korea from improving its nuclear arsenal and preventing nuclear proliferation. The basic underlying theory of the Russian policy of maintenance is the need for peaceful coexistence in the Korean Peninsula.
Yang Jiemian
Strength lies in the open regionalism. Looking around the world it is only in Asia where regionalism is open.
Debate
09:45 – 11:15 | Plenary session 5
“The challenges of the cyberspace”
Paul Hermelin
The main challenge of the infosphere is the discontinuity between the majesty of international governance and the way technical innovation blossoms.
Chang Dae-Whan
Interactions will be machine to machine. Society might prevail. We must be prepared for an end-to-end and machine-to-machine society.
Meir Sheetrit
Having technology is not enough. There are many, many things that can cause damage in a surprising way if somebody decides to attack you. It is not enough therefore to have technology. You need to have the right warriors.
Carl Bildt
A big battle ahead is going to be over whether we keep a global Internet and an open governance system or whether the Internet becomes balkanised. We will either have an open, transparent and dynamic Internet in the future or a closed, controlled and static one.
Debate
11:15 – 11:45 | Coffee-break
11:45 – 13:00 | Plenary session 6
“Whither the ‘European social model’?”
Introduction by Jim Hoagland
Joaquín Almunia
We need to improve our tax systems to be consistent with both growth and the need to fund the welfare state, our social policies and the social model.
Yves Leterme
Europe also has to be especially aware that, as the recent PISA report made clear, skills are the currency of the 21st Century and investments in social resiliency are therefore more important for Europe than investments in security.
Jean Pisani-Ferry
Instead of having to bet on the future growth rate and to tell people a definite figure which they will expect to get, it should be recognised that the ability to provide pensions is linked to the performance of the economy.
Didier Reynders
I think one-third of the next European Parliament could be comprised of Eurosceptics and populists who are against the European Union. If we do not take care of these issues at the European level we will have more and more difficulties. We need to politicise the European debate.
Debate
13:15 – 14:45 | Lunch debate
“The future of diplomacy”
Introduction by Jim Hoagland
Hubert Védrine – Part 1
To me, the real question of diplomacy tomorrow and the day after tomorrow is, how can diplomacy be conducted in age that believes in transparency?
Carl Bildt – Part 1
We feel the pulse of the world much more clearly and we can impact the pulse of the world more effectively with the new technologies.
Hubert Védrine – Part 2
I think there needs to be an almost philosophical shift in civilisation by saying, “There are some cases when secrets, or the length of time a secret is kept, or conditions of secrecy, are justified.”
Carl Bildt – Part 2
There now needs to be a kind of congruence between public diplomacy and the public image and the secret details and secret mechanics.
Debate
15:00 – 16:15 | Plenary session 7
“Destruction or metamorphosis of the legal order?”
Mireille Delmas-Marty
‘Coordinated sovereignism’ means that the separation of national orders would be gradually broken down by the circulation of norms and dialogue between judges, which would replace separation with coordination.
Stephen Breyer
There must be a common rule that every country can follow. There’s a concept in law called comity that requires harmony. Easier said than done.
Lord Mance
I have no sense at all that the United Kingdom’s legal system or we, its common lawyers, judges and courts, are about to be over-whelmed or lose our identity in the face of any outside threat.
Jean-Marc Sauvé
I do not give much credence to the destruction theory in the sense of a collapse in juridical orders. Globalisation lays claim to just as many juridical rules as it seeks to topple, if not the reverse, and these rules must be able to find expression in juridical systems.
16:30 – 19:30 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Energy and environment
Introduction by Christophe de Margerie
Cécile Maisonneuve
Maria van der Hoeven
At the global level we can see that the industrial sector is responsible for 37% of all energy savings in one of our new policy scenarios relative to the current policy scenarios, followed by transport at 31% and buildings at 26%.
André Caillé
Any energy industry has to satisfy what we called then our “four As” criteria. First, energy has to be available; second, accessible; third, never forget that, affordable; and, fourth, it also has to be acceptable.
William Ramsay
The US is on its way to energy, oil and gas self-sufficiency. I advisedly do not use the term ‘energy independence’.
Debate
Jun Arima
We need a smarter approach to do so, as well as a broader scope that features not only domestic but also global mitigation and a longer-term horizon with innovation.
Kevin Sara
We are talking to our first clients in Europe and I can tell you that our biggest challenge is not technical. It is political and regulatory. The regulations are just not set up to transport electricity over long distances.
Debate
Conclusion by Christophe de Margerie
Workshop #2 – The health and emerging risks
Introduction by James D. Wolfensohn
Christian Bréchot
We must understand that we will never have an end of infectious disease. We have a reservoir of disease that is endless. The point is not to dream of suppressing infectious disease; the point is to adjust the follow-up and global governance of this problem.
Richard Cooper
With modern technology and information and trade in weapons, we see increasingly that conflicts which historically would have been localised take on international significance.
Daniel Dāianu
It is good for citizens to be stimulated, even assisted to become more self-reliant. However, the optimal solution cannot be by resorting to social Darwinism.
Thomas Kirkwood
There is an enormous resource of mental capital in older people that simply goes to waste. It goes to waste because policies do not recognise how important it is to keep this mental capital engaged in society.
James D. Wolfensohn
The issues of healthcare, which comes up with this, and of paying pensions to the aged just distorts the systems that we have had up to now. Nowhere is this more critical than in the USA at this time, but it will be a global issue.
Debate
Workshop #3 – Food security
Introduction by Jean-Yves Carfantan
José Graziano Da Silva
Today, an estimated 840 million people suffer from chronic hunger and another 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. 26% of the world’s children are stunted. Malnutrition costs around 5% of the value of global growth domestic product.
Christopher Delgado
There should be increased attention to risk management and greater resilience, and the policy incentives we have should be shifted to promoting triple wins, that is, more productivity, better resilience and mitigation all at the same time.
Marcos Jank
Good policies for me are related to land property rights – which are extremely important in many countries – technology, productivity, gains in scale, and integration into food chains.
Debate
Mahama Zoungrana
The State alone, with all the good will in the world, cannot guarantee food security. In addition, civil society, which has a key role to play, but also and above all the private sector, must become increasingly involved.
Debate
Jane Karuku
African governments are not investing enough in African agriculture.
Brent Habig
There are a lot of ways to do agriculture and have agricultural growth but not necessarily benefit smallholders or drive improvements in food security. That is our agenda, to try to find the opportunity to work with businesses when there is overlap with social goals and objectives.
Debate
Workshop #4 – Finance
Introduction by Jean-Claude Trichet
John Lipsky
After all, one of the key problems highlighted by the crisis was not so much the details of regulation, but that many systemically-important institutions lay outside the regulatory framework.
Jeffry Frieden
We need something that could be called governance; that is for something above the level of the nation state, for some attempt to either cooperate among national authorities or to create a supra-national entity that could try to deal with some of these cross-border externalities.
Debate
Benoît Cœuré
We need to make the single supervisory mechanism work in a way which is genuinely European, so we want the supervisory board not to be a committee of national supervisors but to become a European institution as part of the ECB.
Marek Belka
We know from our own experience that if there is to be a real banking union the banks should be European, not national, but this is not easy.
Debate
Jacob Frenkel
Since the Central Bank must have the capabilities to respond very promptly to new developments, and since it must have timely and reliable information about the banking sector, it stands to reason that the responsibility for bank supervision should rest within the Central Bank.
Il SaKong
The imminent US Fed’s tapering QE should be brought to the G20 process, more specifically, the G20’s MAP.
Debate
19:30 | Cocktail
20:30 | Gala dinner
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
Laurent Fabius
Minister of Foreign Affairs of France
I personally do not think that China is becoming a warmonger. But it is a major power and a string of tensions could arise in the region in 2014. France will always work toward peace and security.
Debate
08:00 – 09:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
Cécile Maisonneuve
The world energy mix was made of 82% of fossil fuels thirty years ago; this figure remains the same today, and will decrease only to 75% in 2035. The real revolution will be to reach a truly different energy mix.
Richard Cooper
Democratic political systems these days have great difficulty making forward-looking decisions that would head off serious risks in the future, so we are likely to be confronted with shocks which we are not well-situated to handle, especially in the financial area.
Jean-Yves Carfantan
We need a climate smart agriculture that improves crop yields and livestock management to increase production, increases climate resilience of farming systems, reduces carbon emissions and increases soil carbon storage.
Jeffrey Frieden
There is now a clearly greater role for the emerging markets in dealing with these global macroeconomic and financial problems, and there is more global recognition of the need for further cooperation.
09:00 – 10:00 | Plenary session 8
“Towards a European Banking Union”
Introduction by Alessandro Merli
Benoît Coeuré – Part 1
We need supervisors to have a European mandate instead of a national mandate, and that is why we have a single supervisory mechanism; we also need European banks to be in the hands of a European resolution authority when they are wound up, and that is also why we need a single resolution mechanism.
Philipp Hildebrand – Part 1
It seems that something separate is going on, namely a fundamental reassessment of the risks in the European banking system,
Constantin von Oesterreich – Part 1
Many important milestones have been reached on the way to the banking union, but implementation and execution are now the name of the game, and we are very much looking forward to getting a lot of engagement.
Benoît Coeuré – Part 2
The asset quality review and the comprehensive assessment are the occasion for bringing them together, so it not only serves a stabilisation function, but also a macroeconomic function, in a sense, which is to recreate trust in the European banking system.
Philipp Hildebrand – Part 2
Transparency will be a key part of this and will entail clear explanations of what monetary, stabilisation, regulatory and liquidity policies are, and we must try to separate these policies to the extent we can.
Benoît Coeuré – Part 3
Banking supervisors should be accountable to parliaments and the general public. That is why we will have this supervisory board and the chair of the board.
Constantin von Oesterreich – Part 2
Banks which are large enough to be in it cannot get out, and smaller banks are in it for specific reasons, so there is a level playing field
Philipp Hildebrand – Part 3
Make sure the banks have sufficient capital so the uncertainties can be removed from the marketplace and they can start lending again. That will clearly be the key element from the macroeconomic perspective.
Benoît Coeuré – Part 4
The single supervisory mechanism will aim to avoid the kind of negative feedback through banks we have seen in banks in some countries and that ultimately led to a need for financial assistance. Therefore, good single supervision is a protection for taxpayers.
Debate
Remarks from the panelists
10:00 – 10:45 | Plenary session 9
H.R.H. Prince Turki Al Faisal
Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
The problem in Syria today is not only a tragedy, but is an act of negligence on the part of the world, which continues to watch the suffering of the Syrian people without taking steps to stop that suffering. It almost reaches the level of being criminal negligence on the part of the world community.
Debate
10:45 – 11:15 | Coffee-break
11:15 – 12:00 | Plenary session 10
Itamar Rabinovich
President of the Israel Institute, Distinguished Global Professor at New York University (NYU), Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University
Demographically speaking, we are risking the future of the state as a Jewish state, and in terms of Israel’s international standing, we see a creeping delegitimisation, and these are two very dangerous developments for us.
Debate
12h00 – 13h30 | Plenary session 11
“Africa”
Introduction by Jean-Michel Severino
Jean-David Levitte
The African Union is willing to take responsibility for its own security issues, a job that is incumbent upon Africans. Europe needs to help Africa fulfil this desire.
Mo Ibrahim
Some fragmentation is taking place in this new world, though I do not know why it has expressed itself in a more civilised and peaceful way through the ballot box in Europe, while sometimes it takes on a violent aspect in Africa.
Titus Naikuni
As far as Somalia is concerned, Ethiopia and Kenya not only need to go into Somalia militarily, but also to do as much as they can to help to develop the human capacity to govern that country, because if you do not have a stable Somalia you will not have a stable Kenya or Ethiopia.
Qu Xing
China’s noninterference policy does not mean indifference, that China needs the stability of Africa and that China is proceeding to improve the stability in promoting social and economic development instead of imposing its social model.
Mostafa Terrab
Too many policies and too many business strategies disconnect the north of Africa from sub-Saharan Africa. Let us keep in mind that ten out of 22 Arab countries are in Africa, and some geopoliticians do not take that very much into consideration.
Tidjane Thiam
I am arguing for the normalisation of Africa, so that people start treating it like any other place in the world, and if we get that we will be absolutely fine.
Lionel Zinsou
Rates of return on capital are higher in Africa than on all the other continents. This means the misperception is not thinking that Africa is below average, it’s not knowing that Africa is above average.
Conclusion by Jean-Michel Severino
13:30 – 15:15 | Lunch debate
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
Pauline Marois
Prime Minister of Quebec
In its political expression of Francophone expression in America, the State of Quebec is attempting to come to terms with the challenges as well as the advantages that arise from its status as a nation.
Debate
15:30 – 16:45 | Plenary session 12
“Politics and religions”
Introduction by Pierre Morel
Bartholomew 1st
Contrary to what some may think, the politics of the 21st century are not determined by religion. On the contrary, politics has the upper hand over religion, transforming it into an instrument for its own use.
Mircea Geoanā
And for the first time in centuries, we will have not only geoeconomic, geopolitical, technological and military competitors, we will have a formidable competitor whom we must treat with respect, because these are cultures and traditions which are so ancient that they deserve our respect
Mohammed Sammak
We learned, and are still learning to oppose a notion of diversity that becomes a substitute for neighborhood and community. Diversity without a spirit of community leads to tribalism. Community without a spirit of diversity leads to alienation for all minorities.
David Rosen
Religious leaders are in positions that represent the identities of the peoples, the belonging of the peoples, and if you do not address this issue of identity and belonging, it will come back to haunt you.
Faisal Bin Muaammar
Religious leaders need to be careful how they relate to politics, but political leaders also need to be careful how they relate to religion.
Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo
God created Man in the image of God, and so Man must live in a society. It is not only an individual image, it is also a social image.
Debate
16:45 – 18:45 | Plenary session 13
“General debate”
Introduction by Dominique Moïsi
Titus Corlātean
Comparing the Balkan region to only 25 years ago, it is almost predictable, which is a fundamental qualitative step forward, because for all we know, tomorrow the region will be part of the European family.
Igor Yurgens
So, we have two Russias at the moment: 20% of the population who want to move forward, to be contemporary and silent majority which is afraid to move forward and to open up.
Jim Hoagland
The American administration has certainly reached out far more toward its adversaries than to some key allies, and that has consequences. It fails to build up a reserve of personal relationships that can be called on in moments of crisis and difficulties.
Karl Kaiser
The Libyan crisis has shown, and it was a wake-up call, how insufficiently Europe was prepared to deal with a world in which America is no longer exactly as available as it was before.
Yusuf Ziya Irbec
We have a very multidimensional culture in Turkey, and politicians should be prepared to understand all the dimensions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and all other religious groups. This is the basis for being an efficient leader in Turkey.
Donald Johnston
Corruption has to be attacked on many fronts, but I just want to leave you with the fact that corruption is much more serious than we acknowledge.
Carlos Pérez Verdía
Just as in the case of North America, Latin America has a lot of other issues and challenges, and the positive thing there with regard to drugs, security and human rights is that we are discussing these at a regional level.
Steven Erlanger
I really worry that France, which already has a problem with its own self-image in the world in a Europe where Germany seems big and powerful, is slipping out of the second tier into the third, and that is the problem.
Conclusion by Dominique Moïsi
19:30 | Informal dinner
2012 Conference proceedings
19:30 | Welcome Cocktail
20:00 | Dinner debate
“Establishing and operating a business in a conflict zone”
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Christophe de Margerie
Chairman and CEO of Total
“It’s an important subject: how do you manage a company like Total, an industrial business, which has high stakes in terms of investments and big problems with acceptability, when it has to supply energy to as many people as possible?”
Debate
09:00 – 10:15 | Opening
Message from François Hollande
President of the French Republic
“The second subject you are discussing is the future of the eurozone. There has been considerable progress in terms of cohesion and trust in recent months.”
Thierry de Montbrial
Founder and chairman of the WPC
“First point – the nature of interdependence has changed as a result of globalisation. It has become non-linear, as can be seen from the examples of the financial and economic crisis since 2007-2008, and the Arab Spring.”
Alassane Ouattara
President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire
“The world today is facing turbulence. Forecasts recently published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development expect “a hesitant and uneven recovery”, with growth rates cut to 1.4% in 2013 instead of 2.2% as was initially forecast.”
H.A.H Bartholomew 1st
Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
“In this context, old alliances which seemed so solid just a few years ago are beginning to weaken.”
H.S.H. Prince Albert II
Sovereign Prince of Monaco
“All this means that we have to come up with new lifestyles, aimed at respecting carefully thought-out conservation.”
Herman Van Rompuy
President of the European Council
“Without going into details, let me just stress one point, and you may think that is all very well, I am sure they can come up with technical solutions, but in the end will European citizens follow, a key question indeed, and I am obviously aware of some of the doubts, but I am confident about the public support for our Union in the end.”
Najib Mikati
Prime Minister of Lebanon
“But, rather than changes, it would be more appropriate to speak of upheavals, since the very foundations of the systems which organise our societies are being re-evaluated.”
10:15 – 10:30 | Coffee break
10:30 – 12:00 | Plenary session 1
“Global economic governance”
Introduction by Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor to The Washington Post
Angel Gurría
Secretary-General of the OECD
“What is clear is that the crisis is not over yet. The outlook has even deteriorated in the last few months. “
Il Sakong
Chairman of the Institute for Global Economics, Former Finance Minister of Korea
“The G20 also deserves due credit for successfully initiating, but not yet completing, the difficult task of reforming the institutions that are at the centre of the formal global economic governance system.”
Kemal Dervis
Vice President, Brookings Institution and Member of the Executive Committee, Istanbul Policy Center, Sabanci University
“We have to remember that from 1820 to 1950, if you take the whole emerging and developing world and the rich countries, there was divergence. The rich countries were getting richer, and the poor countries were not catching up and diverging more and more.”
Benoît Cœuré
Member of the ECB’s Executive Board
“In my view, the rise of emerging market economies has made international cooperation both more desirable and also more difficult, and this is the challenge that we face now.”
John Lipsky
Distinguished Visiting Scholar, International Economics Program, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Former First Deputy Managing Director, IMF
“Notably, both household and corporate sectors in most developed economies at present are in financial surplus.”
12:00 – 12:45 | Plenary session 2
“G2 ?”
Introduction by Han Sung-Joo
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea
Robert Blackwill
Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
“Those are all very general shared objectives of Washington and Beijing and there are currently 60 Governmental dialogues taking place between the two Governments under the umbrella of these shared abstract foreign policy goals. Does that mean that there will be an evolving and strengthening G2? “
Wang Jisi
Dean of the School of International Studies, Peking University, and director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University
The G2 as an idea is controversial in China. The Chinese leadership’s attitude is one of denial and resistance, for three major reasons.”
Debate
12:45–14:00 | Lunch debate
“Democracy in Europe”
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Sylvie Goulard
Member of the European Parliament for the West of France
“If we look at the situation objectively – without being deliberately provocative, just objective – and consider how well States and the international organisations in which States work together have performed, the result is not impressive.”
Debate
14:15 – 15:00 | Plenary session 3
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Mario Monti
President and Founder of the WPC
“When I was put into power – if you want to call it that – 13 months ago, Europe, the United States and the world were concerned about the state of Italy’s affairs because we were the possible spark that could cause the euro zone to permanently explode.”
Debate
15:00 – 16:30 | Plenary session 4
“The future of the EU”
Introduction by António Vitorino
President of Notre Europe – Institut Jacques Delors, Former Defense Minister of Portugal and Former European Commissioner
Joaquín Almunia
Vice-President of the European Commission
“Are we emerging from the crisis? Clearly it’s a pertinent question, but the answer depends on who you ask.”
Karl Kaiser
Harvard University; Former Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations
“For five years, the imminent collapse of the euro has been predicted and here we are five years later and the euro is still there.”
Radosław Sikorski
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland
“However, I think that it is useful in a discussion to be frank and I will tell you that we are – how shall I put this diplomatically? – angry that the euro zone has been mismanaged so badly over the last few years.”
Hubert Védrine
Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs
“Generally, when someone says “Europe”, I’m not too sure what it means. In geopolitical, strategic terms, it’s more of a statistical aggregate.”
Pierre Vimont
Executive Secretary General, European External Action Service (EEAS)
“If you admit what I just said about these two observations, one can then ask the question: but why is it then that we still have this feeling when we talk about the European foreign policy, why can we have this feeling that something is still missing there, and not yet totally complete?”
16:30 – 18:00 | Plenary session 5
“Good governance and economic success”
Introduction by Susan Liautaud
Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Centeron Philanthropy and Civil Society, Founder of Susan Liautaud & Associates Limited (SLA) and Imaginer Consulting Limited
Bruno Lafont
CEO of Lafarge group
“Men can move, but not companies, and certainly not equipment.”
Mo Ibrahim
Chairman of Mo Ibrahim Foundation
“Now, is this governance or is this theft? That is the issue.”
Chang Dae-Whan
Chairman of Maekyung Media Group
“In 1974, I spent a semester at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, studying the European Common Market, so I picked up the idea that if Europe can unite itself and look for peace and prosperity, why not Asians?”
Donald J. Johnston
Founding Partner, Heenan Blaikie; Former Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
“For example, as I recall, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development has a principle that says when you are in another country, you will apply the higher of the environmental standards of your country of origin, or the standards of the foreign country where you are operating.”
Ana Palacio
Member of the Spanish Council of State, Former Senior Vice President of the World Bank, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain
“For many institutions today, such as the Monetary Fund or the World Bank, on a 25-member board, you see at least seven or eight European faces and sometimes one or two African faces, which does not represent the world of today.”
Debate
20:00 | Cocktail
20:30 | Gala Dinner
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Pascal Lamy
Director-General of the WTO
“This is true of leadership: how can a leader be appointed if sovereign nation states enjoy equal rights, which is the Westphalian theory?”
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
09:30 – 12:30 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Finance
Jean-Claude Trichet
Former President of the European Central Bank
“By the way, we avoided a Great Depression, but we had a great recession.”
Josef Ackermann
Chairman of the Board, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd; Former CEO, Deutsche Bank
“At the time everybody talked about the need for narrow banking. But despite the rhetoric reality is completely different today.”
Marek Belka
President of the National Bank of Poland
“One of the lessons that we drew from the recent crisis is that even if financial institutions, one by one, look healthy – and they do look healthy in times of prosperity – it does not mean that the whole system is not in danger.”
Jeffry Frieden
Professor of government at Harvard University
“It was observed that one country’s policy driven capital movements could impose externalities on other countries. For example, we can observe, without imposing or suggesting any moral judgment, that one country’s large scale surplus implies large scale deficits on the part of other countries.”
Jacques Mistral
Special advisor at Ifri
“What happened in Washington in the same period can reasonably be considered as a dangerous political deadlock by major international investors, at least by those outside London and Wall Street.”
Riad Toufic Salame
Governor of the Lebanese Central Bank
“You can remember when there was one mistake in one programme in New York; the stock market fell 10%, without any explanation. Later, we knew the cause.”
Debate
Workshop #2 – Energy and environment
William Ramsay
Senior Advisor of the Center for Energy, Ifri; former Deputy Executive Director, International Energy Agency (IEA), former US Ambassador in Brazzaville
Maria Van Der Hoeven
Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA)
“The amount of global natural gas will grow by about 50% up to 2035 and the price relationships between regional gas markets will strengthen as a more integrated global market starts to emerge. “
Christophe de Margerie
Chairman and CEO of Total
“Regarding renewables, the only thing we can say at this time is that we need them, and for the chairman of an oil and gas company, which we call an energy company, to say this is a proof of our real commitment. “
Jacques Lesourne
President of the Scientific Committee of the Energy program at Ifri
“It is not very useful to take the OECD countries one by one: for instance the European Union has 27 energy policies and, in addition, a policy at the level of the Union.”
Anil Razdan
Former Power Secretary of India
“[…] you need energy, you need equity, you need to protect the environment, you need efficiency, and you need enterprise. Unless these five Es are present, we will not be able to tackle the problem. “
Kevin Sara
Chairman and CEO of Nur Energie
“It depends of course on how you count; some environmentalists will say that, if you count the externalities and the cost of pollution, renewables are already competitive today.”
Alexander Likhotal
President of Green Cross International
“The Earth Overshoot Day – the day when we have consumed the sustainable portion of resources -was reached this year on 27 September. “
Richard Cooper
Professor of International Economics at Harvard University
“The problem is who is to pay for restraining emissions, and we all know that almost all governments of the world today are strapped for funds.”
Jean-David Levitte
Distinguished Fellow, The Brookings Institution; former Diplomatic Advisor and Sherpa of President Nicolas Sarkozy
“You will not believe it, but coal prices are going down because of the revolution, and so Germany, which is closing its nuclear plants, not emitting any CO2, is importing coal from America because it is competitive due to the shale gas revolution.”
Debate (first part)
Debate (second part)
Conclusion by Christophe de Margerie
Workshop #3 – Major risks
Introduction by Lionel Zinsou
Chairman of PAI Partners
Godefroy Beauvallet
Head of the AXA Research Fund
“There are three core responsibilities of decision makers: first, they shall make sure, at any point in time, that there exists a central scenario known to civil society and based on the best and latest scientific data available. “
Qu Xing
President, China Institute for International Studies
“Living a long time is not a risk, instead, it is a progress of mankind, but it will cause problems as the population getting aging. “
Tadakatsu Sano
Attorney at Law, Jones Day, Tokyo
“You can point out a lot of predicable risks, but the important thing is that we are moving toward the Internet based society, I do not know how to tackle, there is fragmentation and individualization of society.”
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, Moscow
“Current events, from the recent global financial crisis to the environmental risks, already depicted, of transgression of planetary boundaries make it clear that we cannot continue on our present path.”
Luc-François Salvador
CEO of Sogeti
“About 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet in 2020, most of them barely protected, which implies as much potential doors for hackers to intrude in our machineries, our companies, our home and personal lives.”
Philippe Chalmin
Professor of Economic History and Director of the Master of International Affairs at Paris-Dauphine University
“Our choice today is, what am I going to choose for lunch or dinner, but the choices of about one billion people around the world are different. “
Raphael Wittenberg
Senior Research Fellow at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the London School of Economics and Political Science
“To give an idea of the finances involved, the European Union countries spend roughly 1.8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on long-term care services, and that is only the formal services.”
Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor at Ifri
“[…] there is a major gap between the evolution of science and technology, which both make us dream, and also have nightmares, and the stability of human leaders, the stability of human nature.”
Debate
12:30 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
“Trust”
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Josef Ackermann
Chairman of the Board, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd; Former CEO, Deutsche Bank
“Ladies and gentlemen, when I was asked about an hour ago by Jean Claude Trichet if I would be willing to say a few words about trust I asked myself ‘Why ask a banker?’ – or even a former banker in my case.”
Jean-Claude Trichet
Former President of the European Central Bank
“In my view, one of our major problem today is that entrepreneurs find themselves in a universe where they are not sure of the real “state of nature” as regards the real economy and of what Governments are likely to do in the US, in Europe and in the rest of the advanced economies.”
Debate
14:30 – 16:00 | Plenary session 6
“The future of the Middle East”
Introduction by Mehmet Ali Birand
Editor in Chief of CNN Turk and Chief Anchor for Kanal D main news
Jean-David Levitte
Distinguished fellow, Brookings Institution ; Former Diplomatic Advisor and Sherpa of President Nicolas Sarkozy
“So, in this general feeling of an America slightly in retreat, I see an exception, which is Iran. Iran, because what is at stake is not only regional balance, it is also the world order.”
Meir Sheetrit
Member of Parliament, Former Minister of Internal Affairs, Israel
“I believe that the best way to make peace with Israel is to talk through the Arab Initiative, which can make peace, not only with Palestinians, but with all the Arab states. “
Edward Djerejian
Founding Director of James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Former US Ambassador to Syria
“[…] I am convinced that we are in a post Assad era. When he will go, I cannot predict, but we are in the post Assad era.”
Manuel Hassassian
Ambassador of Palestine to the United Kingdom
“Without major social transformation, I do not think we can talk about the Arab Spring as having a different political culture that could accommodate the politik real in the Middle East today. “
Mona Makram Ebeid
Former Member of Parliament, Egypt, Distinguished Lecturer,American University in Cairo, Member of the National Council for Human Rights
“Yes, today we are faced with two Egypts which are no longer able to communicate, which refuse to recognise each other and which do not listen to each other. “
Debate
16:00 – 16:30 | Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00 | Plenary session 7
“Africa”
Introduction by Lionel Zinsou
Chairman of PAI Partners
Mo Ibrahim
Chairman of Mo Ibrahim Foundation
“Definitely, governance, which should aim as using all available resources in the most efficient way in order to deliver the best possible to the citizens, is a critical ingredient. “
Hakim Ben Hammouda
Special Advisor to the African Development Bank Group (AfDB)
“And it’s true that we consider the question of the continent’s resilience to be crucial. For us, it’s about Africa’s ability to withstand the shock of the global crisis. “
Edem Kodjo
President of PAX AFRICANA, Former Prime Minister of Togo, Former Secretary General O.A.U (A.U), A.U Peace Ambassador
“Yes Africa is a land of paradoxes, yes Africa is a land with great ambitions.”
Jean-Michel Severino
CEO of Investisseurs et Partenaires
“It occurred to me that Africa is still a UGO, an unidentified geopolitical object. When you see how people view the African continent, what is striking is that no one really knows how to deal with the continent. “
Debate
20:30 | Dinner debate
Introduction
Adil Abd Al-Mahdi
Former Vice President of the Republic of Iraq
Debate
“Speaking about the Middle East is not an easy job. It is difficult, even for us living in the region, maybe more so than you because you can see it from outside.”
08:00 – 09:00 | Report from Parallel workshops
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Jacques Mistral
Special Advisor at Ifri
“The financial industry embarked upon strategies designed to create highly profitable, but high risk, portfolios, assuming, incorrectly as we have seen, that the liquidity which it required to operate safely could not evaporate so suddenly.”
William Ramsay
Senior Advisor of the Center for Energy, Ifri; former Deputy Executive Director, International Energy Agency (IEA), former US Ambassador in Brazzaville
“The necessary decisions are not being taken, populations are not empowering democratically chosen solutions and the current depressed economic environment is aggravating an already bad situation.”
Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor at Ifri
“And the third theme actually consisted of saying that the major risk, over and above what had just been mentioned, was perhaps the refusal by leaders to take risks themselves compared to the present: what is known as the short-sightedness of governments.”
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
09:00 – 11:00 | Plenary session 8
“General debate”
Introduction by Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor at Ifri
Han Sung-Joo
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea
“The territorial disputes are about more than energy, more than fishing rights, and more, even, than geopolitics. It portends, I think, great danger, if unchecked, of a kind that Europe had to deal with before the Second World War.”
Jim Hoagland
Contributing Editor to The Washington Post
“One of the most important parts of the IFRI world policy conference is the human factor. That is what struck me the most about this particular session.”
Donald J. Johnston
Founding Partner, Heenan Blaikie; Former Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
“One of the things that worries me most are the results that came out of Doha. The reality is that we have not made progress on climate change. “
Serguei Karaganov
Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy
“Obviously, the energy at the conference is increasing. It brings new people. It brings new ideas and here we are. Leadership is alive. “
Igor Yurgens
Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of Contemporary Development, Moscow
“I will be bringing three things back from this conference. Firstly, it is exceptionally important for us in Europe and probably in the world to have a French speaking forum.”
Wang Jisi
Dean of the School of International Studies, Peking University, and director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University
“For instance, I see six imbalances in global trends: demographic, social, ecological, economic and financial, the imbalance between the need and supply of natural resources, and the imbalance of wealth distribution.”
Panelists’ remarks
“‘Is Asia in 2012, Europe in 1912? Is the situation we are witnessing in Asia about to become what existed a century ago in Europe?’”
Debate
12:30 | Lunch and Departure
2011 Conference proceedings
15:00 – 16:00 | Opening session
Thierry de Montribal
President and Founder of the WPC
“[…] governance is essential. Without governance, our highly interdependent system is likely to explode.”
Heinz Fischer
President of the Republic of Austria
“Reinstating the primacy of politics is one of the major challenges – we cannot afford to waste this opportunity.”
Abdullah Gül
President of the Republic of Turkey, Guest of honor of the 4th edition of the WPC
” […] no single power can cope with these challenges alone. There is a need for truly effective multilateralism with the participation of the emerging powers.”
Debate
16:15 – 17:00 | Plenary session 1
“The ECB and the sustainability of the Euro”
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Peter Praet
Member of the ECB’s Executive Board
“The ECB will continue to remain an anchor of confidence and stability in a global economy characterized by marked uncertainties.”
Debates
17:00 – 19:00 | Plenary session 2
“Arab spring and global governance”
Introduction by Volker Perthes
Chairman and Director of Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)
Amr Moussa
Former Secretary General of the League of Arab States, candidate to the Egyptian presidential elections
“We want to move together and have interaction where our world lives in a better way and with more connections.”
Hrh Prince Turki Al-Faisal
Chairman of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
“Reform is no longer a choice for us. It is an imperative. For us to be able to meet these challenges of providing justice, livelihood and equal opportunity for all is an opportunity as well as a challenge.”
Edward Djerejian
Founding Director of James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, former US Ambassador to Syria
“In the long arch of history the United States identifies with the Arab Awakening’s quest for individual freedom, equality of opportunity and broader political participation.”
Christophe de Margerie
Chairman & CEO of Total
“We may be mistaken, but as stakeholder in all these countries we are entitled to have our say.”
Amr Moussa
Former Secretary General of the League of Arab States, candidate to the Egyptian presidential elections
Hrh Prince Turki Al-Faisal
Chairman of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
Debates
19:00 – 20:15 | Plenary session 3
“Major catastrophes and global governance”
Introduction by Jim Hoagland
Associate Editor, Chief Foreign Correspondent of the Washington Post
Yukiya Amano
Director General of the IAEA
“Showing the highest level of nuclear safety is a responsibility for each country. The role of the IAEA is to help them. Every country is varied and an international response is needed.”
Scott Charney
Corporate Vice President, Trustworthy Computing of Microsoft
“I think the biggest thing that people need to start to appreciate in more detail is that the internet is now connecting everyone’s life.”
Yukiya Amano
Director General of the IAEA
Scott Charney
Corporate Vice President, Trustworthy Computing of Microsoft
Yukiya Amano
Director General of the IAEA
Scott Charney
Corporate Vice President, Trustworthy Computing of Microsoft
Yukiya Amano
Corporate Vice President, Trustworthy Computing of Microsoft
Debates
20:15 – 21:15 | Welcome cocktail
21:15 – 23:00 | Dinner at the Hofburg Palace (Conference Center)
“Dinner”
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Herbert Stepic
CEO of Raiffeisen Bank International
“[…] besides the very necessary consolidation process we need to focus on strategic growth programs. This will only be possible through solidarity.”
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
9:00 – 10:15 | Plenary session 4
“Corporate social responsibility and global governance”
Introduction by Bruno Lafont
Chairman and CEO of Lafarge Group
“The novelty of the phenomenon of CSR is that it is […] increasingly seen not only as a condition of survival for the firm today, the licence to operate, but as a powerful lever to render sustainable value creation in the long run.”
Mary Robinson
Former President of Ireland, President of Mary Robinson Foundation
“I believe the central challenge ahead is to turn the progress of the past decade into new actions that will move governments and markets sufficiently to make respect for human rights part of mainstream business practice around the world.”
Narayana Murthy
President and founder of Infosys Technologies Limited
“As long as corporations seek respect from every stakeholder, I believe they will automatically use the power of corporate social responsibility to add value to society.”
Debates
10:45 – 12:15 | Plenary session 5
“The future of the G8 and G20: challenges and prospects for the economic and financial systems”
Introduction by Kemal Dervis
Vice-President for Global Economy at the Brookings Institution and Senior Advisor at the Sabanci University; former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey
Jacob A. Frenkel
Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, former Governor of the Bank of Israel
“Asia, led by the economies of China and India, will continue to grow at very rapid rates and latin America, which in the past was the source of economic turmoil, is now becoming a source of stability and growth.”
Il Sakong
Presidential Envoy of the Republic of Korea
“The appropriate governance system is particularly crucial at the global community level in this age of non-polar or G-Zeeo world. The world at the time of the Seoul G20 Summit faced a heightened risk of global currency war.”
Lourdes Aranda
Sherpa of Mexico to the G20, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico
The priorities for Mexico will be: economic stability, international trade, financial regulation, food security, and green growth.”
Panelists’ Remarks
Debates
12:30 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
Introduction by Thierry De Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Kishore Mahbubani
Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore
“I feel optimistic because i would say that the world has now reached agreement on three new global consensuses.[…]That is why I say that the next 20 years will be the best 20 years the world has ever seen.”
Debates
14:45 – 15:30 | Plenary session 6
“Debriefing of the European Council”
Jean-David Levitte
Diplomatic Advisor and Sherpa of President Nicolas Sarkozy
“We are not only determined to save the euro, but also determined to become one of the world’s most competitive area in the 21st century.”
Debates
15:30 – 17:00 | Plenary session 7
“Europe as a laboratory for global governance”
Introduction by Charles Kupchan
Professor in international relations at the Georgetown University
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
President of the Republic of Estonia
“My question is how long can we sustain or expect the Parliament to sustain its pro-European solidarity in a democratic country when it is going against the wishes of the electorate?”
Bartholomew 1st
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
“The European Union, and Europe more generally, is beyond all doubt a laboratory for global governance. However, as history shows, it is not the only one.”
Fu Ying
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China
“There are many discussions about if China is to “rescue” Europe and how. […]What Europe needs is not a savior but a cooperation partner.”
Kemal Dervis
Vice-President for Global Economy at the Brookings Institution and Senior Advisor at the Sabanci University; former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey
“I do not believe that there can be a successful end of the story without the surplus countries – the north, particular Germany but not only Germany – accepting that they also have to make an effort so that their surpluses do not continue at very high levels.”
Panelists’ Remarks
Debates
17:30 – 19:30 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Energy and environment
Introduction by William Ramsay
Senior Advisor of the Center for Energy at Ifri
“Energy policy makers are fully aware of what the policy options are and what the programmes could be. […] The economy around the world is too parlous and it is not a time when politicians make difficult decisions. “
Manoëlle Lepoutre
Executive Vice President, Sustainable Development and Environment of Total
“Our first priority is to manage the risk associated with our operations, to avoid any major accidents and that is really a constant progress.”
Paal Frisvold
Chairman of the Board of Bellona Europa asbl
“The fact is that we need to reduce emissions, we know that, but we also know that 80% of the world’s energy is based on fossil fuels and that the global energy demand is increasing rapidly and vastly […]”
Kristina Rüter
Research Director of OEKOM research AG
“Key challenges in the Oil & Gas industry include climate protection and gradual shift to low-carbon/non-fossil energy sources, minimisation of environmental risks […]”
Debates
Workshop #2 – Food security
Introduction by Mostafa Terrab
Chairman and CEO of OCP Group
Louise Fresco
Professor at the University of Amsterdam
“We have done a great deal with the so-called Green Revolution, but we have also seen the effects levelling off, and we need to find new ways to produce foods sustainably […]”
Yashwant Thorat
CEO of the Rajiv Gandhi Trust
“High prices worsen food security in the short term but in the long run, they lead to investments being made in agriculture and to better food security, because countries feel they have to invest and increase productivity.”
Jean-Yves Carfantan
“Food security claims to keep in mind two main points, first that most of the soil reservoir for feeding the population is located in wet tropical lands, especially in Africa, and these soils do not have the same behaviour as soil in Europe […]”
Qu Xing
President of China Institute of International Studies (CIIS)
“I summarise the measures taken by Chinese governments in this regard into 11 fields: first, intensifying supervision on the quality and safety of agricultural products, second, establishing and strictly implementing market access systems for food quality and safety […]”
Debates
Workshop #3 – Health
Introduction by Jérôme Contamine
Executive Vice-President, Chief Financial Officer, and Member of the Executive Committee of Sanofi-Aventis
“It is clear that there is still a huge gap between what could be a reasonable and acceptable level of health for the worldwide population and where we are today.”
Petra Laux
Head of Global Public Affairs at Novartis
“A global health citizenship index for all players to sign up to could be a good way of moving forward in health issues.”
Steve Howard
Founding Secretary General of The Global Foundation
“If we put health too much into its own box, it might turn off all those who are not actually in the health sector.”
Debates
Workshop #4 – Global Governance and its current state
Introduction by Stewart Patrick
Senior fellow and director of the program on international institutions and global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
“Governance at the global level is obviously more complex in a system of sovereign states lacking overarching political authority.”
Sean Cleary
Chairman of Strategic Concepts (Pty) Ltd
“The other possibility is that we develop a greater sense of humility, stop imagining that we know all the answers and we can go back to business as usual […]”
Bruno Lafont
Chairman and CEO of Lafarge Group
“[…] we operate in a lot of different countries, and we see that there are limits to the approach of how we should approach global governance with different cultures.”
Debates
20:30 | Gala dinner at the Rathaus
Gala dinner
9:00 – 10:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
William Ramsay
Energy And Environment
Louise Fresco
Food Security
Jérôme Contamine
Health
Stewart Patrick
Global Governance and its current state
Remarks of Panelists
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
10:00 – 11:15 | Plenary session 8
“Development and security”
Introduction by Jim Hoagland
Associate Editor, Chief Foreign Correspondent of the Washington Post
M.K. Narayanan
Former National Security Advisor of the Prime Minister; Governor of West Bengal of India
“Emerging threats and challenges in the 21st century are likely to test the flexibility, ingenuity and ability of governments worldwide.”
Yury Fedotov
Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
“In addition, while drugs and crime, often appear to be local in nature, our solutions must be global.”
Debates
11:30 – 12:30 | Plenary session 9
“Africa”
Jean-Michel Severino
Chairman of Investisseur et Partenaire, member of the French Academy of Technology
“2011 is the first year where the GDP of non-OECD countries will be higher than the GDP of OECD countries. It also leads us to try to see whether we can find ways out of the major economic crisis that the OECD world faces by introducing new partners into the game.”
Lionel Zinsou
Chairman of PAI Partners
“[…] the perception of Africa by China is totally different. It is not neo-colonialism. It is just a country looking at a continent with a sort of pragmatic view and nothing like a colonial heritage.”
Jean-Michel Severino
Chairman of Investisseur et Partenaire, member of the French Academy of Technology
Lionel Zinsou
Chairman of PAI Partners
Jean-Michel Severino
Chairman of Investisseur et Partenaire, member of the French Academy of Technology
12:30 – 14:30 | Lunch debate
“Lesson learned: an experience of the Polish-Russian rapprochement”
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and founder of the WPC
Anatoly Torkunov
Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International relations, Co-Chairman of the Polish-Russian Group on Difficult Matters
“Russia and Poland are countries with overlapping history and historic mythology about each other. […] Our countries always stress the morality of their foreign policy.”
Adam Daniel Rotfeld
Former Foreign Minister of Poland, Co-Chairman of the Polish-Russian Group on Difficult Matters
Debates
14:45 – 15:45 | Plenary session 10
“Middle East”
Introduction by Steven Erlanger
Paris Bureau Chief of the New York Times
Ehud Barak
Former Prime Minister; Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel
“I believe that those leaders in the Arab world who opened their societies more for many voices and for women’s advancement ended up more stable when they faced this Arab Spring.”
Debates
16:00 – 18:00 | Plenary session 11
“General debate”
Introduction by Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor at Ifri
Hubert Védrine
Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs
“The next developments in the great matter of governance will depend on whether or not alliances will be formed. If so, will they divide the world into hostile systems or will they make it possible to go beyond such hostility?”
Joschka Fischer
Former German Minister of Foreign Affairs
“In the 21st century the defining force will be the rise of the new powers or, even more, the desire of the people to get out of poverty and achieve the same living standard that we have been used to in the West.”
Igor Ivanov
Former Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs
“In our country, people want evolution, not revolution. We have had revolutions and suffered from them. We want evolution and our country to be a modern country with strong democratic institutions.”
Robert Badinter
Former French Minister of Justice, former President of the Constitutional Council
“In order to establish its credibility, the international criminal justice system has to be universal. […]There are still too many states that benefit from absolute immunity thanks to the Security Council.”
Debates
18:00 – 18:15 | Conclusions
20:30 | Closing dinner
2010 Conference proceedings
20:30 | Dinner-debate
Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Christophe de Margerie’s speech
CEO and Member of the Executive Committee, Total
“This crisis […] will force statesmen over the world whatever their colour to be responsible and to act in sustainable manner, to make promises that they can keep.”
Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
8:30 – 10:00 | Opening session
Royal Message
His Majesty King Mohammed VI
“This crucial project should be perceived as the result of an essential cultural and political process, backed by genuine political will, that can contribute to lasting peace, the right to fair trade and respect for diversity when it comes to matters relating to culture and faith.”
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
“The goal of this conference is to constructively participate in reshaping the global governance system, with the aim of strengthening the security of the entire world in the years and decades to come – because the governance issue is fundamentally a security issue.”
Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
“Global governance is too important to be left to just one organization or group. But it is at the United Nations – with its universality, experience and operational presence in nearly every country – where global governance can best come together.”
Debates
10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 1
“Population, Climate, Health: What Global Governance?”
Introduction from Narendra Taneja & Jean-Pierre Elkkabach
Energy CEO and Convener, World Oil & Gas Assembly (WOGA) / President, Lagardère News
Fernando Alvarez Del Rio
Head of the Economic Analysis Unit, Secretariat of Health, Mexico
William Reilly
Chairman of the Climate Works foundation
“The one basis for optimism on this subject in America right now is that there is a growing consensus that we cannot even govern ourselves and therefore, maybe international governance would be friendlier and more welcome than it might have been.”
Chris Viehbacher
Chairman and CEO, Sanofi-Aventis
“All of these factors are interdependent. The more urbanisation there is, the more environmental problems there are. As urbanisation and access to health care increases, the more likely we are to discover what causes diseases.”
Jean de Kervasdoue
CNAM Professor
Chris Viehbacher
Chairman and CEO, Sanofi-Aventis
Fernando Alvarez Del Rio
Head of the Economic Analysis Unit, Secretariat of Health, Mexico
“The issue is that many of these actions go beyond the health sector. There are many aspects that are intersecting; there are many aspects that relate to agreements with industry. That is where global governance also comes into play. You have to have a perspective that is going to be global, but that is going to end up in specific solutions at the conflict base.”
William Reilly
Chairman of the Climate Works foundation
Fernando Alvarez Del Rio & Jean de Kervasdoue
Head of the Economic Analysis Unit, Secretariat of Health, Mexico / CNAM Professor
William Reilly
Chairman of the Climate Works foundation
Debates
11:30 – 12:00 | Coffee break
12:00 – 13:30 | Plenary session 2
“Global Monetary and Financial Governance”
Introduction from Jacques Mistral & Xavier Vidal-Folch
Head of Economic Studies, Ifri/Deputy Director, El País, President of the World Editors Forum
Kemal Dervis
Vice President, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution
“Why governance? Because there is interdependency. This interdependency is growing mainly through trade. Trade creates an obvious interdependency at the level of fiscal and budgetary policies.”
Haruhiko Kuroda
President, Asian Development Bank
“The use of a single national currency, the US dollar, as an international reserve currency heightened the tension between national and global monetary policy making. It also continued to be a source of instability, by allowing lower financing costs for the countries with the reserve currency.”
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of the European Central Bank
“it is necessary to make our public opinions sufficiently aware of the externalities of national decisions, and consequently on the necessity to internalize complex concepts like global economic prosperity and global financial stability.”
Panelists’ comments
Debates
13:30 – 15:30 | Lunch-debate
Introduction from Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Speech from Jean-Claude Trichet
President of the European Central Bank
“all the advanced and emerging countries are learning from the crisis, which is a sort of life-sized stress test on the new world which has been created. .”
Exchange between Thierry de Montbrial and Jean-Claude Trichet
President and Founder of the WPC / President of the European Central Bank
Debates
Conclusion from Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
15:30 – 17:30 | Parallel workshops
Workshop #1 – Energy and Environment
Introduction from Anil Razdan
Former Power Secretary, Government of India
“There is also an inseparable link between energy use and deployment and levels of income and development. Therefore, energy is virtually a sine qua non of any poverty alleviation programme.”
Bruno Lafont
Chairman and CEO, Lafarge
“Lafarge is present in 80 different countries, of which 60 are developing countries. The first point about governance is that companies should be involved in the process of finding solutions.”
Qu Xing
President, China Institute of International Studies
“Under the precondition of common but differentiated responsibilities, the key for effectively fighting climate change is to realize the cooperation between developed and developing countries.”
William Ramsay
Director of Energy Programme, Ifri
“The last really bad crisis we had was in 1975, and it was another of these commodity ramps; we went through commodity ramps in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and here we are again with the impacts of these runaway commodity prices. ”
Mohammed Tawfik Mouline
Director General of the Royal Institute of Strategic Studies, Kingdom of Morocco
“The Mediterranean typifies the main energy and environmental issues of the world, and therefore offers a regional analytical framework that overlaps at national and world levels. This framework is relevant for the analysis of interdependencies and interrelationships between national policies and their coherence with the world effort.”
Debates
Workshop #2 – Food Security
Introduction from Philippe Chalmin
Professor, Paris Dauphine University; Founder, Cercle Cyclope
“who would have believed, when people at the start of the 21st century have mastered practically everything in terms of technology and controlling space and time that we would still find ourselves facing food problems, just as our ancestors did during the great famines of previous centuries?”
Yashwant Thorat
Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India and Former Chairman, NABARD
“India is now revisiting the Green Revolution all over again in the context of the Millennium Development Goals, as well as the need for a second round of resurgence in agriculture.”
Kairat Umarov
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Kazakhstan
“40 countries around the world are experiencing food shortages; more than a billion people are experiencing water shortages, and this figure will triple by 2025. World energy prices are growing rampantly, pushing up the prices of all kinds of goods, including food.”
Remark • Jean de Kervasdoue
Professor, CNAM
“soya from the United States is now 90% GM. The figures are between 80 and 90% for almost all major crops in North America. Soon they will hit 100%.”
Remark • Amit Roy
President and CEO of IFDC
“There has been a lot of talk recently in terms of running out of phosphate. We will reach peak phosphate in 30 years and run out of it in 130 years”
Debates
Workshop #3 – Global Monetary and Financial Governance
Introduction from Jacques Mistral
Director of Economic Studies, Ifri
Lionel Zinsou
Chairman and CEO, PAI Partners
“there’s the rest of the world, where the levers are going up and where we have to manage the opposite situation, damping down a sector that is overheating. Dealing with both forms of governance is no easy task. It was these two forms of governance that I wanted to draw your attention to.”
Pier Carlo Padoan
Deputy Secretary-General and Chief Economist of the OECD
“Global current account imbalances underlying savings and investment imbalances should not be totally eliminated; they are good in some cases. There are some good imbalances…”
Gordon Smith
Distinguished Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Canada
“we have to do what we all have probably been trained not to do, and get into this very sensitive area of the future of sovereignty. That really is what we are talking about if we are to manage in an effective way the kind of interdependent world in which we now live.”
Debates
17:30 – 18:00 | Coffee break
18:00 – 19:30 | Plenary session 3
“Discussion Panel on Current Events”
Introduction from Dominique Moïsi
Special Adviser to Ifri
Joaquin Almunia
Vice President and the Commissioner for Competition
“Europe has taken very important, very courageous and very worthwhile initiatives, not only to solve its internal problems but also problems beyond its borders, global problems. But Europe has a position that others find unreasonable. It is over-represented in multilateral institutions.”
Miguel Angel Moratinos
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain
“But other players who also have power don’t have responsibilities. Yet they still participate in decision-making. When a speculator decides to buy Spanish bonds at a certain price, isn’t he making economic and financial policy?.”
Konstantin Kosachev
Chairman, Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, Russia
“we are making progress on discussions as to whether European or global security will focus just on military aspects, which is more or less the case now, or will include other things like economic security, humanitarian issues and other important things.”
Nambaryn Enkhbayar
Former President of Mongolia
Good governance is about engaging others, not excluding; about regulating and coordinating, not dictating; about giving everyone a chance, even North Korea, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.”
Hubert Védrine
Former French Foreign Minister
“The aim is that within three, four or five years, a young man in Gaza, in despair because his cousins or his friends have been killed by the Israeli army, ends up thinking that it makes more sense to open up a pizzeria… At that point we will see a new Middle East, which will bring Jordan and other countries in its wake.”
Amir Peretz
Member of Parliament, State of Israel
“For the majority of Israelis the question of the settlements is less important than the important goal of peace, which will change our reality for generations to come. I believe that if we put into motion this real will and real opportunity to reach the agreement with the power from the international community – led by president Obama, we might see this dream comes true”
Manuel Hassassian
Ambassador from Palestine to London
“Israel should recognise a simple fact, that it cannot continue its occupation while seeking peace, and cannot disregard the Arab Peace Initiative, the only safety valve for its existence and acceptance in the Middle East region. We the Palestinians are the only guarantors for a legitimate existence of the State of Israel. ”
Conclusion from Dominique Moïsi
Special Adviser to Ifri
20:30 | Gala Dinner
Amina Benkhadra
Minister of Energy, Mining, Water and the Environment
“Sustainable development is not limited to rational resource management and environmental preservation, which are certainly essential pillars. It is, instead, a comprehensive and integrated concept (…) that views the individual as the actor and purpose for all development.”
Fu Ying
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China
“In a developing country like China, nothing is more important and more relevant than to improve the living and working conditions of its 1.3 billion people. We are still lagging behind the people’s needs. To understand China, one should not lose sight of such reality.”
9:15 – 9:30 | Introduction of the day
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Message from Henry Kissinger
Secretary of State in the administrations of President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford, Nobel Peace Prize 1973
“Right now, the world is dominated by at least two overwhelming realities. The first is that the international system of the 19th and 20th centuries has disintegrated. The system based entirely on the sovereignty of states is no longer enough to meet the needs of humanity and of the world as it is…”
9:30 – 10:00 | Reports from parallel workshops
Workshop 1 • Bruno Lafont
Chairman and CEO, Lafarge
“In energy, governance is clearly the quest for clean energy. Then again, in terms of the challenges, the link between energy and global warming is a global subject. So also is the link between energy and growth…”
Workshop 2 • Philippe Chalmin
Professor, Paris-Dauphine University, founder of the Cercle Cyclope
“Apart from the controversies about the part which may have been played by speculation or other forces, these price surges must be seen as a warning message from the markets, a warning message on what we have considered as the major challenge of the 21st century, namely the food challenge. ”
Workshop 3 • Lionel Zinsou
Chairman and CEO, PAI Partners
“We agreed that the world had basically succeeded in getting the financial system working again. (…) We understood that, as far as the regulation of banks and insurance companies was concerned, much work had been done, but there were still the non-banking institutions…”
10:00 -11:15 | Plenary session 4
“Governance of the Cyberspace”
Introduction from Ulysee Gosset
Journalist, France Télévisions
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet
Minister of State for Forward Planning and Development of the Digital Economy
“The Internet is something very scaleable that no one designed. In fact, it operates through addition, and through addition by capillarity. It also operates in a very decentralised manner, which accounts for some of the Internet’s resilience. If it’s a space, then it’s a space that is constantly in motion.”
Craig Mundie
Chief Research and Strategy Officer of Microsoft Corp.
“The technology does not start at a border or end at a border. Many of the issues associated with how it is going to evolve are going to be very difficult to manage. Another thing that is very different about the cyber environment, even as it extends, are physical world experiences, is that the rate at which things are happening is different. “
François Barrault
Chairman and founder of FDB Partner SPRL
“When you look at how the Internet has developed since its beginnings, it was viral and a little chaotic…Internet technology has become an integral part of everyday life. In my opinion, the problem of governance means organising this chaos.”
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet
Minister of State for Forward Planning and Development of the Digital Economy
Craig Mundie
Chief Research and Strategy Officer of Microsoft Corp.
François Barrault
Chairman and founder of FDB Partner SPRL
Michel Chertoff
Former Secretary for Homelands Security, United States of America
“We are facing a circumstance in which the Internet allows people to potentially have a catastrophic, destructive effect. This is not only on the Internet itself, but on the real world systems that depend on the Internet. Here is the challenge. “
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet
Minister of State for Forward Planning and Development of the Digital Economy
Craig Mundie
Chief Research and Strategy Officer of Microsoft Corp.
Debate
Conclusion from Steven Erlanger
Chef du Bureau de Paris, New York Times
11:15 – 12:45 | Plenary session 5
“French and Korean Views on the G20”
Introduction from Jim Hoagland & Samir Aita
Associate Editor and Chief Foreign Correspondent, Washington Post / Editor-in-chief of Le Monde diplomatique éditions arabes, and Président of the Cercle des économistes arabes
Ahn Ho-Young
Ambassador-at-large for the G20, Korea
“We have to fill the gap between those 172 countries who wish to sit at the G20 table and the G20 countries, who think 20 countries are already too many. We thought that maybe we should appoint an Outreach Ambassador and make him travel to all those non G20 member countries.”
Jean-David Levitte
Diplomatic Advisor and Sherpa to President Nicolas Sarkozy
“Another idea important to President Sarkozy is continuing to work year long. A summit lasts 24 to 36 hours. Considering the subjects on the agenda, we think it is very important for the heads of State and government, as well as the ministers, to feel fully involved.”
Debates
12:45 – 15:30 | Lunch-debate
“Global Governance and Business”
Introduction from Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Speech from Mo Ibrahim
Founder and Chair, The Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Debates
15:30 – 18:00 | Free afternoon
18:00 – 19:30 | Plenary session 6
“Emerging Powers and Global Governance”
Introduction from Mehmet Ali Birand
Journalist and writer, CNN Türk
Fu Ying
Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs
“For the developed countries, there is concern that the newly emerging countries may not observe the original rules or may not be ready to accept existing structures. At the same time, the emerging countries are concerned that those developed countries may not accept them, or may impose on them.”
Kemal Dervis
Vice President, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution
“the future of Turkey depends on its ability to thrive with this diversity. It must not try to merge it or overcome it, but to actually make a strength of it. If you believe that globalisation is going to continue and that global economic and cultural forces are going to be very strong worldwide, taking advantage of these different dimensions is going to be a very good thing.”
Kanwal Sibal
Former Foreign Secretary of India
“La phase unipolaire est terminée, et en ce qui concerne la multipolarité, il existe une dichotomie dans l’attitude de certains pays s’opposant à la domination des Etats-Unis. Ils souhaitent une multipolarité à l’échelle mondiale, mais souhaiteraient l’unipolarité dans leurs propres régions.”
Stuart Eizenstat
Partner, Covington & Burling LLP
“We are really at a historic watershed. The question is; will the greater influence that developing countries rightly demand, come along with the capacity to create consensus between developed and developing countries.”
Panelists’ Comments
Conclusion from Fyodor Lukyanov
Editor-in-chief, Russia in Global Affairs
Debates
19:30 – 19:45 | Envoi
Thierry de Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
“I have to tell you that it is my profound conviction that, in a century, in other words at the beginning of the 22nd century, either the whole world will be a vast European Union in terms of organisation, or there will have been tragedies, conflicts and world wars.”
2009 Conference proceedings
19:30 | Cocktail
20:30 | Dinner debate
Thierry De Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Nambaryn Enkhbayar
Former President of Mongolia
Il est primordial que la réunion sur la politique mondiale soit un lieu où les petits pays comme la Mongolie ont voix au chapitre, car nous savons désormais que les grandes entreprises et les grands pays ne peuvent pas résoudre tous les problèmes.
Debates
8:30 – 9:30 | Opening session
His Majesty King Mohammed VI
King of Morocco
Ensuring peace and stability requires genuine governance based on justice and discipline.
Thierry De Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Until all world powers are included in the way we deal with issues like the economic downturn, trade and climate change, our institutions will lack the richness and legitimacy necessary for dealing with today’s challenges.
Kofi Annan
7th Secretary-General of the United Nations
If we fail to adapt our coordination structures to a world that is changing rapidly, and even too rapidly, we will experience systemic crises the likes of which the recent economic and financial crisis would only be a preview of things to come.
9:30 – 11:00 | Plenary session 1
Architecture of Political Governance”
Nambaryn Enkhbayar
Former President of Mongolia
There should be performance criteria based on the quality of life we are trying to reach together.
Han Seung-Soo
Former Prime Minister of Republic of Korea
What is certain is that the Bretton Woods Institutions that have come into being since the end of the Second World War need a drastic revitalization, if not a complete form.
Hubert Védrine
Former French Foreign Minister
If Europeans were able to get beyond their own navel-gazing, they would organise themselves within the G20 to manage the change, which will be painful for them but which is inevitable.
Robert Blackwill
Senior Fellow & Senior Advisor to the President, RAND Corporation
The great powers need to work much harder to find strategic convergence on the preeminent problems that face the international system.
Debates
11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee break
11:30 – 12:45 | Plenary session 2
“Macro-economic Governance”
Fathallah Oualalou
President, Commune Urbaine de Rabat
The new macro-economic governance, the result of a new balance of power between the State and the market, is gradually becoming more varied in form.
Arkady Dvorkovich
Sherpa to President Dmitry Medvedev
The important thing is not to avoid imbalances altogether but to have manageable imbalances that can be sustained and financed, where dangerous developments can be monitored and risks can be tackled before they lead to another crisis.
Yoichi Otabe
Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs. G8 Sherpa, Japan
To be realistic, the wisdom of the G7 and the OECD lies in their introduction and strengthening of this “peer review” mechanism.
Wolfgang Munchau
Director of Eurointelligence Adviser Limited
Ultimately, when we have a process that is ad hoc and intergovernmental, we do not get agreement on what needs to be done, but only on what can be agreed.
Jacques Mistral
Head of Economic Research at Ifri
Debates
12:45 – 15:00 | Lunch debate
Thierry De Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Han Seung-Soo
Former Prime Minister of Republic of Korea
Like the travelers and explorers of the old world, let us cultivate a taste of learning. Let us take a sincere interest in and show a real curiosity about others.
Debates
15:00 – 16:15 | Plenary session 3
“The future of capitalism”
Lionel Zinsou
Chairman and CEO of PAI partners
If there is one idea about this crisis that has been particularly wrong but remains tenacious, it is the idea that excessive financialisation of the economy was the root cause of the crisis.
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa
Former Italian Minister of Economy and Finance
What has failed in the crisis is not the system in which individuals or firms pursue their self-interest, but a version of it in which they pursued self-interest without the framework of rules and public action which are indispensible to achieving that miracle.
Jeffry Frieden
Professor at Harvard University’s Department of Government
An open international economic order requires systematic, purposive, concerted cooperation among national governments.
Debates
16:15 – 16:45 | Coffee break
16:45 – 18:15 | Plenary session 4
“Energy and Climate”
Richard Bradley
Senior Manager for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency at the IEA
No single government will have the capacity to produce the range of technologies which will be required to “green” the range of economic sectors that emit GHGs.
Anil Razdan
Former Power Secretary, Government of India
Energy, which is a prime mover of development and poverty alleviation, has to be available, affordable, reliable, and sustainable.
Manoelle Lepoutre
Director of Sustainable Development and Environment, TOTAL
It is also important to work with the public authorities to make the solution acceptable to the citizen and to ensure there is both a real incentive and a framework to ensure that industrialists who create emissions and those who have the skills to store them in the ground work together.
William Ramsay
Director of the Ifri Energy Program
We have heard a great deal of talk of how low energy intensity is working nicely, economies are being de-intensified and using a lot less energy per 2 000 hours of GDP etc. However, carbon emissions are just not dropping.
Debates
18:15 – 18:45 | Mini-session 1
“Migrations”
Pierre Morel
Special Representative for Central Asia and for the Crisis in Georgia, EU
The traditional phenomenon of integration, which should be the outcome of migration except in cases of circular migration, has become increasingly urgent –but it has also become increasingly difficult.
Jean-Paul Guevara Avila
Director-General of Bilateral Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Plurinational State of Bolivia
Globalization is not only a technological or communicational revolution but it is also the human mobility and the capacity of transport and the movement of persons.
20:00 – 22:00 | Dinner debate
Thierry De Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Jean-David Levitte
Diplomatic Advisor and Sherpa to President Nicolas Sarkozy
For the first time in human history, we are confronted with global crises that threaten not only our economic future but also the future of our planet.
Debates
9:00 – 10:45 | Plenary session 5
“Security”
Yutaka Iimura
Special Envoy of the Government of Japan for the Middle East and Europe
This is the importance of people involved in policy decision-making understanding various regional situations and grasping these in comprehensive terms.
Sergei Karaganov
Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow
Regarding the positive component, the divide in Europe must be healed either by signing a new security treaty or by taking Russia into NATO.
Dominique Moïsi
Special Advisor to Ifri
Within this system, as a European, I am struck by the slow pace at which we accept and assimilate the changes taking place in the world.
Meir Sheetrit
Member of Knesset. Former Interior Minister of Israel.
Terrorism is no longer about small groups of people fighting against big powers. It involves international networks, very sophisticated and well funded, manipulating democracies and using them against themselves.
Debates
10:45 – 11:45 | Plenary session 6
“Economic and Financial Regulations”
Jacques Mistral
Head of Economic Research at Ifri
Kemal Dervis
Vice President and Director of Global Economy and Development Program at Brookings Institution
More of the flow of capital generated by the oil-producing countries and China needs to move towards the developing and emerging countries rather than solely to America.
Nicolas Véron
Research Fellow at Brugel, Brussels
It is not enough to have common standards: they need to be applied consistently and in a similar way; supervision needs to be consistent, as does the management of risk by the public authorities.
Debates
11:45 – 12:15 | Coffee break
12:15 – 13:30 | Plenary session 7
“International law”
Celso Lafer
Professor of Philosophy of law at University of Sao Paulo. Former Foreign Minister of Brazil
One of the items of the present international agenda is related to the politics of identity and recognition, and this brings into question the ability of a principle such as self-determination to deal with this new challenge that affects the stability of the present-day international-state system.
Serge Sur
Professor at University of Paris II – Panthéon Assas
As far as the mechanisms of international law are concerned, one must stress their creativity and their flexibility.
Assia Bensalah Alaoui
Ambassador-at-Large, Kingdom of Morocco
We can only hope that “beating” people’s consciences, in the way he is pinning his hopes on, will result in producing this salutary burst of enthusiasm for better governance of a much fairer and more equitable system, one which has still to be developed.
Debates
13:30 – 15:30 | Lunch debate
Thierry De Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
Amr Moussa
Secretary-General of the League of Arab States
The Arab world has to link up with the 21st century.
Debates
15:30 – 17:00 | Plenary session 8
“Health and Environment”
José Angel Cordova Villalobos
Health Minister of the United States of Mexico
Cherif Rahmani
Algerian Minister for Planning, Environment, and Tourism
The path forward will be extremely long and we must choose between two strategies: a passive strategy based on a denial of responsibility and reality or an active strategy.
Bruno Lafont
Chairman and CEO of Lafarge
Environmental protection is compatible with growth and development as long as they are planned and conducted by responsible companies.
Thomas Wellauer
Head Corporate Affairs and Executive Member of Novartis
Most ministries of health or finance, and equally the bodies of global health governance, are measuring inputs and very little in terms of outcomes from the system.
Debates
17:00 – 17:30 | Coffee break
17:30 – 18:45 | Plenary session 9
“Water, Agriculture and Food”
Michel Camdessus
Former Managing Director of the IMF. Honorary Governor of Banque de France
Water is local, almost by nature, because it is expensive to transport and has a high leakage rate. The strategic level is therefore the nation.
Christian Bréchot
Vice President for Medical Scientific Affairs, Mérieux Alliance
There is a strong need to standardize surveillance data collection and analysis as well as micro-biological methods.
Louise Fresco
Professor, University of Amsterdam
We can feed the world, even based on our current knowledge, even without using GMOs, if demand can be clearly defined and if we are able to organise markets, organise the workforce and organise inputs.
Debates
18:45 – 19:15 | Mini-session 2
“The role of Regions in Globalization”
Jordi Pujol
Former President of the Generalitat de Catalunya
Globalisation is sparking a search for identity and a need for a reference or anchorage point.
Moulay Driss Mdaghri
Président, Association marocaine d’intelligence économique, AMIE
The legitimate aspiration for the recognition of local cultures and the demand by various populations and their elites for greater participation and autonomy must be leveraged to drive development and progress.
19:15 – 19:45 | Conclusions
Thierry De Montbrial
President and Founder of the WPC
The problems addressed are multi-faceted and we have to master them if we want to be constructive and effective.
21:00 | Gala dinner
Taïeb Fassi Fihri
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, Kingdom of Morocco
Our concern for democracy prompts us to seek a new compromise, a new global structure and better tools.
Michael Posner
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, USA
We need a new relationship between government and civil society. When we talk about democracy, we have to have a larger vision than just elections. We need to ask what a democratic society looks like.
Samuel Kaplan
American Ambassador to Morocco
I would say that you need to have conferences very often, because only by coming together in this kind of venue and talking about these kinds of issues can we make progress in the world today.
2008 Conference proceedings
09:30 – 10:15 | Opening session
Presentation of the World Policy Conference
Thierry De Montbrial
President and founder of Ifri. President and founder of the WPC
The elaboration of a global capitalist system that is both efficient and fair is at stake.
François Fillon
Prime Minister of the French Republic
But beyond institutional reforms, states must regain a central role in orientation and initiative.
10:15 – 12:30 | Plenary session 1
HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal
Chairman of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
Energy is an important issue between us as the developing countries and other countries that have, as the President of Estonia said, this petro-addiction.
Jaap De Hoop Scheffer
Secretary-General of NATO
If the challenges are multi-dimensional, so must be our institutional response. Civilian and military institutions must work together and complement each other.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
President of the Republic of Estonia
When we want to achieve peace and harmony, the EU has to stand up as a union.
Mario Monti
President of the Bocconi University of Milan
I think that if there has to be more state intervention in the European Union, it’s quite crucial that it happens at the community level rather than at the national level.
Raila Amolo Odinga
Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya
It is a paradox that the continent richest in resources is also the poorest. It is a paradox that must be reversed, for the good of all.
Hans Gert Pöttering
President of the European Parliament
Intercultural Dialogue must become an integral part of our policy-making.
Debates
13:00 – 15:00 | Parallel lunch-debates
15:30 – 17:00 | Parallel Workshops
Workshop #1 – United States: what does the world expect from the “indispensable nation”?
Han Sung-Joo
Chairman of the Asian Institute for Policy Studies. Former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea
At the same time, as different means of communication become more readily available and extensive, public consciousness spreads in conjunction with the expanding horizon of information.
Marshall Goldmann
Professor of Russian Economics (Emeritus) at Wellesley College, Former Associate Director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University
One of the most attractive aspects of the US is that even after 225 years, the US still encourages economic and social mobility.
Jim Hoagland
Columnist and Senior Foreign Correspondent for The Washington Post
What the world seems to await is better American leadership, not its elimination.
Etienne de Durand
Director of IFRI’s Security Studies Center
As such, America is key to the international security architecture, and continued American engagement is needed in most parts of the world.
Workshop #2 – Japan : what power, what strategies ?
Yukio Satoh
Former Ambassador to the United Nations. Head of the Japan Institute for International Affairs
The center of gravity of the world economy is shifting to Asia, but security conditions in Asia remain unsettled.
Valérie Niquet
Director of the Asia Centre at IFRI
The relationship with China is today undoubtedly the most structuring one for the Japanese foreign strategy in its entirety.
Workshop #3 – Is Europe with 27 and more member sustainable?
Kemal Dervis
Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Europe must be a bridge between the necessary answers to democratic aspirations and the concerns of its citizens.
Yusuf Wanandi
Co-Founder, Member of the Board of Trustees, and Senior Fellow, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at Jakarta
Due to the financial crisis and the economic downturn in the EU, the process of integration has become more constrained.
Michel Foucher
Former Ambassador to Latvia. Ex-Director of CAP
On a world scale, the EU functions as an economic and monetary center and as a successful laboratory of regional integration.
Hans Stark and Kerry Longhurst
KL: Fellow at IFRI, specialist in European Security issues; HS: General Secretary of the Study Committee for Franco-German Relations (Cerfa) at IFRI
Enlargement fatigue means that there is not a desperate sense of urgency to bring in the states of the western Balkans, to confront the Turkish question more squarely nor to begin discussing the prospect of Ukrainian membership.
Workshop #4 – An arc of crisis from Iraq to Pakistan
Volker Perthes
Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and Chairman and Director of the Board of SWP
Different approaches are needed for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Persian Gulf region, and the Arab-Israeli theatre.
Shireen Hunter
Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Problems in this region and most especially in the three countries of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have roots both in recent developments, actions of the governments of the countries and key international players and events, and policies going back to decades earlier.
Marc Hecker
Research fellow at IFRI, Department of Security Studies
The arc of crisis from Iraq to Pakistan cannot be stabilized without the involvement of regional powers.
Workshop #5 – Which governance for which stability?
K. Shankar Bajpai
Former India’s Ambassador to Pakistan, China, and the United States, Chairman of the Delhi Policy Group
In such a global situation perhaps the greatest contribution each state can make to the common, continuous search for stability in the international system is to ensure effective governance within itself.
Jean-Marie Guéhenno
Member of the United Nation’s Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on disarmament matters
What is new, and could change the threat is combination of WMD and terrorism.
Marie-Christine Dupuis-Danon
International Consultant, Expert in Criminal Finance, Former Expert, Laundering of criminal money, UN Office for Crime Prevention
Because of the complexity and the diversity of matters, transparency is one of the most important issues.
Laurence Nardon
Research fellow and the manager of the Space Policy Programme at IFRI
The base is for all countries to accept different religions and languages as well as to respect human dignity.
Workshop #6 – The economy of knowledge, or education, still deserves an effort
Bertrand Collomb
Honorary Chairman of Lafarge. Chairman of Board of Directors of Ifri
Successful innovation models also require collaborative work between the public and the private sector, as evidenced by the financing of American universities.
Anatoly Torkunov
Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Science
Social role of education is strongly linked with sustainable development of nations, especially those who are under transition.
Susanne Nies
Head of IFRI office in Brussels, senior research fellow with the IFRI governance and geopolitics of energy programme
The workshop has been dedicated to the issue how to generate, but exploit as well the new technologies in order to improve the knowledge economy.
Workshop #7 – Credit crisis, financial crisis, economic crisis: what to do?
André Lévy-Lang
Associate Professor Emeritus, Paris-Dauphine University. Member of the Advisory Council of l’Institut de l’entreprise
The first policy change that is needed after this crisis is a revision of the scope of banking regulations in every major country, beginning with the United States.
Gikas A. Hardouvelis
Professor at the Department of Banking and Financial Management, University of Piraeus, Greece
The current international financial crisis cannot be blamed on a single underlying cause but on the interaction of many different factors.
Jacques Mistral
Head of Economic Research at IFRI
The recent financial turmoil has also brought into sharp relief the need to rethink many aspects of financial regulation and supervision.
Françoise Nicolas; Eliane Mosse
Economist, Senior researcher at the Centre Asie of IFRI; Economist, advisor at IFRI for the Franco-Austrian Center for european convergence
One can also fear that in a climate of increasing poverty and unemployment, political radicalisation might occur, and jeopardize the way democracies operate.
Workshop #8 – Regulation of migrations, a world issue
Mohammed Bedjaoui
Former Foreign Minister of Algeria
It must be noted however, that despite all its impact, positive or negative, migration largely has so far escaped the influence of international institutions capable of regulating it.
Christophe Bertossi
Head of the “Migrations, Identities, Citizenship” Programme at IFRI
The objective should not be the militarization of borders but a common international effort to control and structure global migration according to the needs of all parties.
Workshop #9 – Is the Gold becoming an arc of hope?
Henry Siegman
President of the “U.S./Middle East Project” (USMEP). Research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Programme of the University of London
Peace initiatives that seek an agreement on the cheap, and refuse to pay the price demanded by these fundamentals cannot succeed.
Khadija Moshen-Finan
Head of the North African Programme at IFRI
The expression “Arc of Hope” is opposed to that of “”Arc of Crisis”” formed by countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
20:00 – 22:30 | Dinner-debate
Pascal Lamy
Director-General of the World Trade Organization
The only way to make sure that emerging economies feel a shared responsibility is to acknowledge the new geo-political balance.
10:00 – 12:30 | Plenary session 2
Abdoulaye Wade
President of the Republic of Senegal
As a liberal-minded individual, I feel that human beings always have what it takes to overcome the difficulties, the outcome will of course depend on how we deal with the crisis, but we, in my view, have what it takes to overcome it.
Juan Manuel Gomez-Robledo
Representative of the President of the United Mexican States
Latin America remains the cultural reservoir of the West. It is not acceptable that the region once again be the object of economic and political envy of the major powers, especially if a form of new Cold War might return.
Nambaryn Enkhbayar
President of the Republic of Mongolia
Geographically we live in different time zones, culturally or according to our religions – in different time ages. However in terms of development and good governance we have to live in one time zone, at the same age, that is in the 21st century.
Stepan Mesic
President of the Republic of Croatia
After a war everybody is a loser! That is why I have continuously been making the same point: it is better to negotiate for ten years than to wage war for ten days.
SaKong Il
Personal Representative of the President of the Republic of Korea
All countries in the world should make every effort to take full advantage of merits of globalization, while minimizing its downsides. A strengthened international financial architecture suitable to the changed global environment will be critically important as a basis for such efforts.
Debates
13:00 – 15:00 | Parallel lunch-debates
15:30 – 17:00 | Parallels Workshops and a non plenary roundtable
Workshop #1 – Russia: domestic developments and external policies
Marshall Goldman
Professor of Russian Economics, Emeritus at Wellesley College
Unlike what happened during the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration’s policies are likely to be less threatening to Russia, yet the personal chemistry between Obama and Putin, and Medvedev and Obama, will be much cooler. It will be fascinating to see which combination produces the most cooperation between both countries.
Sergey Karaganov
Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy
The habitual politically correct clichés will not help to improve the situation and build a new world. Meanwhile, the time is coming for creation.
Anatoly V. Torkunov
Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University)
Russia is a fully participating member of the international community. The UN and not NATO is defining the international “rules of the game”. The conflicts along the Russian borders are more or less settled. However, the influence in this region is split between several actors.
Adrian Dellecker
Researcher at IFRI
For Sergei Karaganov, the main issue is clearly the US’s loss of status as sole superpower as fait accompli and the ramification this has for Europe-Russia relations.
Workshop #2 – China: domestic developments and assertion of power
Yusuf Wanandi
Co-founder, vice chairman of the Board of Trustees and senior fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Foundation, Jakarta
The EU, like ASEAN, continues to be an elitist concept and has not become the concern of the general populace. The people feel that they are left out of the process.
Valérie Niquet
Director of the Asia Centre at IFRI
For Tokyo, beyond the vital importance granted to the American defender, and it is a position of foreign policy of which Japan wants to make its mark, multilateral structures, including a reformed UNO in which Japan, with others, would find its full place, must remain a priority.
Workshop #3 – India: regional power and/or world actor?
Jean-Luc Racine
CNRS Senior Fellow at the Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS), at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS Paris)
India is inventing her own way to be a democracy adjusting caste to competitive politics.
Brahma Chellaney
Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research
While we know the world is in transition, we still do not know what the new order will look like.
K. Shankar Bajpai
Chairman of India’s National Security Board and Chairman of the Delhi Policy Group
We are becoming more aware of the world around us, of the challenges and the opportunities our increasing economic and military capabilities as well as our national needs, give rise to.
Olivier Louis
Researcher at IFRI in charge of the India and South Asia Programme, and of the French Presidency of the European Union Programme
As such, India should find its rightful place amongst the others world powers.
Workshop #4 – Sub-Saharan Africa: implosion or takeoff?
William Zartman
Professor at The Johns Hopkins University in Washington
Africa militated for independence—that is, self-government or government of one’s self by one’s self for one’s self— when it shook loose colonial rule beginning half a century ago.
Robert Glasser
Secretary General of CARE International
For every dollar invested in disaster risk reduction and preparedness, roughly seven dollars are saved in disaster response.
Alain Antil
Head of IFRI’s Sub-Saharan Africa program
In the next four decades, African societies will change drastically, massive geographical mobility is expected, and Africans will become predominantly urban.
Workshop #5 – Israel/Palestine, a crucial international issue: what commitments for external actors?
Amine Gemayel
Former President of the libanese republic
Cooperation between the Lebanese State and the Palestinian Authority is not directed against any particular faction, but it is in the interest of all Palestinians and all Lebanese people.
Henry Siegman
President of the “U.S./Middle East Project” (USMEP). Research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Programme of the University of London
Yet, for all that has changed, the Gulf countries cannot do without a U.S. security umbrella, for they have not developed the capacity to provide for their own security.
Shlomo Avineri
Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Recognizing the limits of US power to broker a peace agreement in the Middle East doesn’t mean it is irrelevant.
Bassma Kodmani
Executive Director of the Arab Reform Initiative
With other challenges building in the Middle East and elsewhere, it is all the more important to reassert the centrality of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Workshop #6 – Energy and climate: what diplomatic challenges?
Thomas Becker
Deputy Permanent Secretary in the department of International Policy and Climate change in the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy
The world is facing two very interlinked challenges: Climate Change and Energy security.
Bruno Weymuller
Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer of Total
Climate and energy issues represent major challenges. Awareness is growing of the need for international action but we must act intelligently.
William C. Ramsay
Director of the IFRI Energy program. Former Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency
Despite the advantages of a global approach, the divergent interests of too many actors can well lead to a multiplication of compromises and a dilution of objectives.
Workshop #7 – World food crisis
Hervé Gaymard
Member of the French parliament
It is in the South, particularly in Africa, that the question of what to do to make agriculture once again be a priority is being asked, and everyone should unite for this agricultural priority in the South countries.
François Danel
Executive Director of “ACF: Action contre la Faim”
Although many countries are seriously affected by the food crisis, most of the affected children are still not treated.
Aline Leboeuf
Head of the programme “Health and Environment” at IFRI
Hunger is a health issue, and has to be recognized as such. Solutions also are medical, especially regarding the fight against children malnutrition.
Workshop #8 – Non plenary roundtable
Mohammed Bedjaoui
Former Minister of Algeria
Competence and transparency are the two fruitful teats of good governance.
Han Sung-Joo
Chairman of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea
Even as security issues of both conventional and non-traditional nature continues to be relevant, new issues, such as environment, competition for resources, human rights, humanitarian crises, economy, and social well-being become increasingly important and relevant.
Igor S. Ivanov
Professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO). Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation
Old pattern of relations are coming to a logical end, we need the new one. We have, all in all, a chance to reinvent the world, comfortable for us all.
Hubert Védrine
Former French Foreign Minister
Westerners are discovering that they are losing, not their power and wealth which remain immense, but their monopoly. And the Western powers are not ready for that.
17:15 – 18:45 | Plenary session 3
Kemal Dervis
Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Six months ago it was thought that despite the financial crisis economic growth would still hold. But now it is clear that we are in the midst of a crisis in which the adverse repercussions on the real economy are even more significant than anticipated.
Jean-Claude Trichet
President of the European Central Bank
What makes the current crisis stand out is its extraordinarily large scale, the fact that it is hitting right at the centre of the international financial system and that it is deeply affecting industrialised countries.
Debates
20:00 – 23:00 | Official dinner
09:00 – 12:00 | Plenary session 4
Christophe De Margerie
Chief executive officer of Total
Yet climate change is being announced everywhere as being the priority, simply because what is at stake is the survival of the planet. Remember that there won’t be any more financial crisis if the planet disappears.
Pascal Couchepin
President of the Swiss Confederation
I think confidence has to be built over time. And I believe that if there is a positive lesson to be learnt from this crisis, there will be just one lesson, that is, that it will force statesmen over the world whatever their colour to be responsible and to act in a sustainable manner, to make promises that they can keep.
Boris Tadic
President of the Republic of Serbia
By working together to solve the UDI crisis, we can restore the trust and reaffirm the legitimacy of the UN Charter and the international legal regime that flows from it. This is a time for strategic thinking and bold ideas.
Thierry De Montbrial
President and founder of IFRI. President and founder of the WPC.
The future rules of the game will only be legitimate if they have been designed with the participation of everybody. One of the drawbacks of the current form of governance is that all its rules have been defined by a very small part of the planet.
12:00 – 13:15 | Closing session
Dmitry Medvedev
President of Russia
Historically, Russia is part of European civilization and for us, as Europeans, it matters a lot what values will shape the future world.
Nicolas Sarkozy
President of the French Republic
Between us, then, we must rebuild trust, the prerequisite for reviving an ambitious European-Russian partnership.
Thierry De Montbrial
President and founder of IFRI. President and founder of the WPC.
One of the drawbacks of the current form of governance is that all its rules have been defined by a very small part of the planet.