Fundamentally good from the point of view of convergence of citizens views of the world, abysmal from the point of view of our political leadership.

I would expect less - and indeed hope - less news on the trade front than on the security side. Any move to link the transatlantic economies more tightly with disregard to the rest of the world would be a big mistake, increasing global tensions, and the main effort should be simply dampening down the inevitable trade frictions that occur.

On the security front, an important dimension is political will: contrary to US belief, the main issue for Europe here is not whether to spend more money on defence. Large increases in spending will just not happen. The only way Europeans will radically improve their military capability is if they decide to specialise their forces to such an extent that they accept to abandon entire fields of activity, and thence to become totally mutually dependent for their operations. In such a scenario one could imagine e.g Germany giving up its navy, Belgium its Air Force, France its marine corps…. Thereby saving billions, and allowing those funds to be redirected to beefing up those areas of specialisation.

The other vital issue is just what kind of a Europe one wants to see: will the EU model itself on Gandhi or Rambo? Does it want to be a global power (USA mark II) or the power that moves mountains by example? If it decides to become Gandhi, the EU needs to develop weapons which are only of marginal interest to the US - all those which "disable" rather than destroy the enemy - from glue to stick tanks to the ground, to stun guns and sick sicks. Moreover, it would mean that the EU should build up a non-military force (with similar status to the military) which handles the issues of rebuilding collapsed nations. This would increase the gap between American capability to destroy and European ability to rebuild, but it would also increase the complementarity of our capabilities.

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?

I would hope so. Much of the thinking in official spheres is so stale, it is starting to smell distinctly rotten.

We have still not learnt that diplomacy between democracies in the 21st Century should not be conducted in the same way as between aristocracies in the 19th Century.

Europeans often rebuke "America" for its foreign policy, but this is ridiculous. The foreign policy is that of the administration in office at the time, and every time I speak to average Americans, I find many who would agree with European points of view. Likewise, there are many EU citizens who have more faith in the foreign policy of the current US administration than in that of their own country. The point must therefore be that we have to go beyond the generalisations of "Americans believe" or "Europeans believe" (and here references to the views of nations within Europe is also irrellevant) and go directly to find what issues gather which groupings in alliance across the Atlantic. It is on this ground that we will find very fertile territory, as the opinion polls released by the German Marshall Foundation show that the European and American populations share almost entirely the same views of the world on many many issues - far more than do our leaders.

We are at the beginning of a paradigm shift at least as fundamental as the Renaissance and Reformation. A large part of that challenge will come from the 5 billion citizens of this planet who live in less than rich countries. We have to address this, and cannot ignore it. Indeed, the challenge is not just economic. The biggest surprise that will hit us is the rebirth of religion - and not that of Islam. Our dislike of Islamic fundamentalists is not because they are Islamic, but because they are fundamentalist. Hence we may come to fear the coming wave of messianic Christian fundamentalism that is brewing in many points South, and that will yet come back to challenge the way we define the very meaning of our lives. We will soon realise the clash is not so much between civilisations as within them.