1. What is your current assessment of the 'state' of transatlantic relations?

E.U. and U.S.A. have for a long time been partners, seeking and acting, in areas of common interest. Recently several agreements have been establish and renewed, such as the “programme of cooperation in higher education and vocational education and training”, the “Safe Harbour agreement” on data privacy, the “Science and Technology Agreement”, or in other areas such as pharmaceuticals and veterinary standards, etc, etc. Also, work is being done for the promotion of human rights in several places, to handle conflicts, fight terrorism, or for establishing common strategies to fight diseases such as Aids, Tuberculosis or Malaria.

The Transatlantic relation is well, although it could be better if sometimes there wasn’t disregarding of some of the international agreements.

2. Do you think that the next decade will bring positive news in the two ‘historical’ pillars of the US-EU relations: security and trade?

One is never sure about the future! Especially now, that our societies change faster than we have ever known. While my answer is a YES for the trade relation, I think that an answer cannot yet be found concerning the security relation. Why? I’ll explain …

The U.S.-EU trade and investment relationship is the largest in the world being valued above $1.4 trillion. If we add to this the fact we’re living more and more in a Globalization era, the fact that millions of jobs are supported by this investments, the Euro, and also the fact that Internet has appeared and is becoming an indispensable utensil used by each day an increasing number of people for, between others, trading and investment issues, I think we’ll have good news here in the next decade.

But let’s see the security relationship. With global terrorism replacing the Soviet Union as a major threat (after September 11th), NATO is considering changes that could mean the biggest transformation of the alliance since its creation more than half a century ago.
Alliance members are working on three fronts to:
   - Deal with terrorist threats and close the gap between capabilities of the U.S. and European militaries;
   - Expand NATO membership to include new democracies of eastern and central Europe;
   - Improve cooperation with the old enemy, Russia.

The goal is to make the NATO alliance relevant to the modern era now that the Cold War is over and global terrorism has become a significant security threat.

However terrorism is not a country or a group of countries. How can we defend ourselves from who we cannot identify? Do we need such a huge army? Didn’t terrorism exist before the tragic September 11th? There are lots of questions whose answers have still not been found…

A continuous reflexion of this security relationship is being done. And the future is too uncertain to know if it will bring good or bad news to this pillar of relationship between E.U. and U.S.A.

3. You support the organization of the congress 'Reshaping Transatlantic Relations for the XXIst century: the citizens' perspective' to be held in Miami on November 14th-16th. Do you think that such an event can bring new fresh ideas on the present debate over the transatlantic relations?

Yes. Many of the common areas where partnership exists involve health, safety, environmental or education, between others. It’s important to know the opinion of those who are going to feel the decisions made by a few leaders (the citizens). Since this event will have so many people with different ideas for transatlantic relations, I’m sure we’ll get a hand full of brilliant ones. Finally I would like to quote Dr. Linus Pauling “The best way to have a good idea is having lots of ideas”.

4. Is the ‘people-to-people’ cooperation able to open new fields of constructive US-EU cooperation in the coming years? In which way?
I believe so; since ancient times whenever communication between people was possible, cooperation or competition between citizens opened new fields (and bettered the existent ones) of international countries cooperations or healthy international competitions. (Of course sometimes, unfortunately, there’re unhealthy competitions too).

As I said before, this only can be possible with communication. The progressive, and exponential, technology and telecommunication advances are facilitating contacts between citizens, making it progressively easier for people on distant continents to keep in touch more quickly, and less expensively than ever before. Internet is one of those examples.

5. Being the two richest and most democratic areas on the planet, do you think that both the EU and the US societies face a special responsibility regarding globalization on the one hand; and on the other hand, do you think that they will face a growing number of similar challenges in their way towards the next decades?

World society should be encouraged by E.U. and U.S.A. strong commitment on transatlantic cooperation. Being the two richest and most democratic areas on the planet, their cooperation is being examined by all nations in the world. A failure here would be a failure to globalization itself. Plus, their commitment shouldn’t only be the transatlantic cooperation issue, but also as the most important actors on the world scene, wherever it is in Africa, South America or in Middle East. So E.U. and U.S.A. have definitely a very special responsibility!

In the next decades and forever, what will be faced by E.U. and U.S.A. societies while trying to grow as better societies, can be compared with the advances in sciences research. Why? Well, because in sciences the more you advance the more challenges you’ll get from a previous discovery.

6. Beyond treaties, organizations, common interests, ... the cooperation between Europeans and Americans is, in the end, a matter of people cooperating with people (politicians, civil servants, businessmen, executives, professors, activists,). How do you assess this 'human factor' today? Should it be improved?

The “human factor” cannot be evaluated on a discrete scale; however we know that we can always try to improve it, and I think we always should try to improve it as well. Improving communication between people, sharing knowledge or solving key problems together, is definitely a way how this “human factor” can be improved. And what tool have we been using to improve it? The answer is of course Internet. The progressive, and exponential, technology and telecommunication advances are then, I my opinion, the way to improve it.