Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this morning's fireside chat with Duncan Peterson. He is a deputy director general at the Economic Policy Unit at the National Treasury in South Africa. Duncan, thank you for joining us today. Thanks, Marlis, and thanks for having me. Yes, so the discussion for today's fireside chat is around the policy applications of the SA Tide programme. Let's maybe kick off the conversation and say, what is SA Tide? What are its objectives? And yeah, let's kick start our conversation there. Okay, so SA Tide stands for Southern Africa Towards Inclusive Economic Development. And what it is is it's essentially a platform for evidence-based policymaking. And it has these three sort of complementary components. The one component is the production of policy relevant research. And while we're doing the research, our aim is to make sure that the research is rigorous, is academically robust, and is published as part of our working paper series. The second part of it is around capacity building, particularly of policy makers in the region and in South Africa. And the reason that's complementary is, of course, you're producing the evidence through your working paper research series, but you at the same time want to be in a position where you are enhancing the ability of the policy makers who have to implement and interrogate that research to be able to do so. And then finally, we had a goal of effectively communicating that research and taking part in various policy bridging activities, whether these are seminars, whether these are policy briefs that will help us to distill the work that comes out of the SA Tide program. The program had six different work streams and each work stream had an academic lead, an international or South African professor, and a local policymaker as a co-lead. And these work streams really covered the various thematic areas of SA Tide, and they include work stream one, which was enterprise development for job creation and growth, work stream two, public revenue mobilization, work stream three, macroeconomic modeling, four was turning the tide on inequality, five was climate change and an energy transition, and five was regional growth. So those were the six work streams and the main two main partners, and I'll get into the partnerships maybe a bit later, but the two main partners of the program were the national treasury and of course UNU wider. And that essentially were both the goals and the structure of the program. Fantastic. And Duncan, I'm sure there are quite a few programs like SA Tide, but what makes SA Tide really unique and what does it bring to the table? So I think the first part that makes it quite unique is the nature of the partnerships and the networks that underpin the program. So you have two renowned international institutes in the form of UNU wider and IFPRI based in Washington DC, who are collaborating with several government departments and agencies in South Africa and in the region, led by the national treasury, but also including other government departments and the South African revenue service. In a program that brings together many other partners, universities, policy institutes and so on to work together on policy relevant research. And then of course you added to that the funding support that we received from the European Union delegation to South Africa, which really gave the program scale and supported the program over a three year period. So I think the combination of the partners did make it quite unique. And I think it really underpinned the success of the program. I think the second element that makes it unique is this focus on policy relevant research, right? So we started the program with a very ambitious target of producing 150 working papers over the three years. And again, these have to be policy relevant, they have to be academically rigorous and robust. And by the end of the program, we had produced about 175 working papers. And I guess later we'll talk a little bit about some of the contents that was covered. But we also set ourselves in executing the research other targets. So for example, about 60% of the working papers were authored or co-authored by women. And about two thirds of those working papers were co-authored or authored by South African nationals. And finally, just as part of this research, what made us in particular quite proud was the fact that about 18% of the studies had a public South African servant, a public servant as a author or co-author, which means that the policy makers in the country are actually producing some of the research in partnership with some of the best researchers in the world. And then finally, I think what made the program unique was the use of tax administrative data and the secured data facility at the National Treasury. When we started the program, we wanted to make sure that the bulk of our research is actually informed by some of the latest techniques and some of the latest available data. And we started a program where we brought in tax administrative data from the South African Revenue Service that was then codified, anonymized, standardized for use by researchers in a secure data facility. And this data facility also then became a meeting point for local and international researchers. So you would walk into the data lab and you'd find the head of an economics department in there or you'd find other researchers, local or international in there. And it also created this ecosystem, which I think really sort of contributed to the uniqueness of the program and strengthened a lot of the policy work. Oh, fantastic. Thanks, Duncan. How common is it that developing countries make their tax data available for research? Is that quite unique? It is. When we started, we were one of a handful of developing countries that had embarked on this path. And there are still many developed countries who still haven't made administrative tax data available in the manner and in the scale that we have. So it is something that is unique, but more importantly, it is something that provides policymakers' insights that is just not available from many other data sources. And I think the impact that it's had on our ability to investigate new and different policy questions I think has been quite remarkable. Yes, definitely. Wonderful. Duncan, let's move on to the policy lessons that we have discovered in the last phase of the ACTI program to all of the listeners while we are having our chat. Feel free to type some questions either in our chat box or in our Q&A. And towards the end, we will also open the floor for more Q&As. Yeah, Duncan. So let's maybe briefly touch on the policy lessons from the ACTI phase 1 program. So I think, as I indicated before, we had about six work streams, right? Each of which had a very specific thematic focus. So I'll try to touch on different sort of research papers that came out of some of that work. And let me start perhaps with the tax data because what the administrative tax data gives us is, it gives us essentially the income statement and the balance sheet for all the large firms in South Africa. And in South Africa, those large firms not only contribute most of the tax revenue, but they also account for most of the economic activity in the country. So if you have this very detailed financial and other information for these companies, you are able to analyze questions that you weren't able to before and you're able to look into firm behavior in a way that you weren't able to before. So one of the things we were able to do, for example, is we were able to, for the first time, properly track productivity growth in South Africa over time. And with each iteration of tax data that becomes available, we are able to update that productivity tracking. And we're able therefore to get a sense of, well, what is really happening with productivity growth at the firm level in South Africa? And I think that's been quite important for us. And of course, for the national treasury and for the other departments in the economics cluster, we then are able to understand, well, what are, for example, some of the relationships between firm entry and exit dynamics and productivity growth? How much of the productivity growth in South Africa is accounted for by productivity growth within firms versus changes between firms? And again, that then helps us calibrate our interventions much more acutely. One of the areas we were also able to look into quite specifically was, for example, the return on research and development spending undertaken by firms. And what we discovered was that actually South Africa's return on R&D spending is in line with most of the developed countries in the world, so it is quite high. And one of the incentives that the treasury looks at is the R&D tax incentive. So again, you have an incentive that's meant to encourage firms to invest in R&D because typically they're under-invest. You then have policy research that gives you a sense of the return to that investment and you can then make a much more informed decision about that particular tax incentive and other spending priorities, which is obviously part of the kind of work that the National Treasury does. I think the other area we were able to look to get new insights into was because the tax data not only obviously covers firms, it also covers households and individuals. We were able to measure wealth and inequality in South Africa in a way that we haven't been able to before. And South Africa obviously is a highly unequal society. And so those insights are very important from a policy perspective to give the Treasury and other government departments a sense of how to respond to that. And we were able to, for example, triangulate the tax data with survey data and with national accounts data to come up with really good estimates of the distribution of wealth to inform the kind of policy decisions that we're making. Link to that, when COVID first arrived, we had to very quickly get an impact of COVID on households and on the economy more broadly. And because of the work that SA Tide had already done, the program was very well positioned to very quickly come up with some independent estimates of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the South African economy in a way that also helped inform the national Treasury's response from a policy perspective when we responded first with our first measures, whether those were fiscal measures or other measures in response to the pandemic. There's another two areas I wanted to just touch on in terms of their policy lessons that came out of the work of SA Tide. The one was the extensive work that SA Tide did on fiscal multipliers, which of course is something that a Treasury needs to have and a government needs to have a very good handle on because especially when you're in a pandemic such as COVID, but even more generally, when a government considers its spending choices and when it considers whether, for example, deficit-based or tax-based spending is appropriate, it needs to understand what the relationship is between that spending and economic growth. And there was a range of work that was done by SA Tide on estimating different kinds of fiscal multipliers and a lot of that work directly informed the macro fiscal stance that we undertook at the national Treasury. We now have a very good sense of the differences between consumption and investment spending in terms of the multiplier effect. We have a very good sense of taxes and its impact on growth and a lot of this work was made possible by SA Tide in addition of course to the work that we do internally. And then finally on the policy side, a lot of countries of course are now focusing on an energy transition and investigating what that transition would entail, how to ensure that that transition is just and for an economy like South Africa that is still very carbon intensive and that still gets most of its energy from coal and other fossil fuels. It was very important for us to understand the potential impact of a transition to renewable energy on GDP, on employment and so on and a lot of that work was done by SA Tide. And SA Tide was for example able to show that shifting to renewable energy for South Africa actually does have a positive impact on real GDP. It does come with employment gains that are widely shared across the economy and it does have implications for example for the manufacturing sector. And I think that work was also able to be used by policy makers to better articulate and understand what this transition, this energy transition entails and how it should be done in a manner that minimizes the overall social cost to society. Wow, thanks Duncan. It's really amazing how broad SA Tide is going from firms and productivity to climate change and energy and it's really fascinating work. Maybe one question that I have is you have touched on the fact that policy makers are part of conducting the research but how do we go from an academic paper being written and how does that actually feed into the policy making process in South Africa because ultimately that's the goal that we would like to achieve. Yes, I think there are two elements to that. The first element is it helps to have policy makers engaged from the beginning of the research process because they can then shape the research question and they can help articulate and execute it in a way that maximizes its policy relevance. So in SA Tide we had various government departments directly involved, we had policy institutes involved, of course the treasury was involved and so the involvement of policy makers in the conception and execution of research I think is very critical because once you bring policy makers on board from the beginning you maximize that policy relevance. I think the second part of it is you then need to make sure that you have advocates for that policy or for that research within the government system. People who can both filter that work into the various government debates, into the various committees and clusters and so on to make sure that it actually informs policy development and I think the reason why SA Tide was able to be successful in this regard is because you had this very close collaboration between the policy makers and the academics who were conducting the research. Fantastic. And then maybe the last question from my side before we can maybe open the floor for some Q&A what are the key areas that you would like to see analyzed in the next phase of the SA Tide program? How will the SA Tide program perhaps change some of its focus? What are we wanting to get out of SA Tide phase two? Well I think we obviously for SA Tide phase two which we plan to launch at the beginning of next year now that the first phase of SA Tide is coming to an end. We want to on the one hand I think retain a lot of the things in SA Tide one that worked well and a good example of what worked well is this collaboration between the program and the researchers and policy makers. We want to also strengthen synergies across the various work streams. I think that is something that we are focusing on but the program is going to remain largely the same. And I think one area that we certainly want to enhance is the secure data facility and building on that with of course on the one hand continuing to bring in the tax administrative data that we had brought in before but also bring in other data sets. We are now working on public procurement data. There are other data on the tax side that one could potentially bring in and there's a range of other government administrative data one can bring in as well. And in the end I think if this secure data facility can be positioned as a sort of world class hub for South African and regional administrative data I think that would have been a great success. I think alongside the data it's clear that what SA Tide also revealed to us is a clear demand for training and capacity development on the use of the tax data. So once you make the data available then you suddenly have a demand for people who want to learn new software packages. They want to learn new econometric techniques. There's a whole range of data science that goes along with working with big data sets that we've also been able to develop and I think that needs to be a very important part of the program going forward and perhaps developing specific courses around administrative tax data with local academic institutions I think will be something worth focusing on. And of course that means therefore a collaboration with not only the South African Revenue Service but also with other statistical agencies. And I think the other area just to briefly touch on is towards the end of SA Tide with the work that we did on evaluating the COVID pandemic and other work we started doing a lot of policy research that was directly relevant to South Africa's reform agenda and we started creating synergies between the technical work that policy makers immediately required to make decisions and the research undertaken by SA Tide and I think that's another area worth strengthening because if SA Tide is positioned to in real time respond to some very important policy dilemmas then that obviously enhances the credibility of the program and one area that I think everyone will have to focus on now is obviously the impact of COVID-19 the scarring impacts on labor market, the impacts on inequality, the implications for social protection and so on and so forth and I think to the extent that SA Tide can be positioned to respond to those quickly I think it enhances the efficacy of the program. Fantastic. Thank you Duncan. I see Tatenda has a question. Let's add them to the panel. Tatenda, are you there? It doesn't seem like it. Perfect. I see there's a question from Amina in the chat. We've briefly touched on this but maybe some pricing policy research questions that we would like to focus on going forward. One that really jumps to mind for me and maybe I'm biased because I do research on minimum wages is the impact of the national, the introduction of the national minimum wage in South Africa and obviously with the tax data being quite delayed or having a two-year or three-year data lag with a new extraction that will be getting, those are one of the research questions that we would be able to analyze using the tax data. Are there any other policy innovations that you can think of on top of your head that we should be analyzing going forward? I think so it ties to the earlier question and the minimum wage is part of this. I think there's a range of work that governments around the world will need to do to understand some of the permanent impacts that COVID has had on various aspects of society and the labor market is an obvious place to stop. There's a lot of value in the tax administrative data for exploring those questions but of course one could use survey data more broadly. What have happened, for example, to informal dichotomies in the labor market? What has happened to wage inequality and to the distribution of income as a result of the COVID pandemic? Because I do think that governments will need to obviously respond to this both in terms of the fiscal choices that they make but also in terms of the programs that they develop in order to help manage this transition to the post-COVID world. And I think that that whole area of sort of labor market scarring, inequality dynamics and so on is an area that needs a lot of work and of course it's something that will evolve because the pandemic will still likely be with us for some time to come and understanding its effects will therefore take time but that I think is an obvious thing. And one could say the same on the firm side, right? I mean firms have changed some very fundamentally the way they work in response to the pandemic understanding some of the, for example, productivity implications of the pandemic for firms in particular at a sectoral level, at a regional level and so on I think is another area that just brings to mind as an area where one can do significant additional work. Fantastic. Great. Duncan, that brings us to an end for the fireside chat. Thank you so much for your time and for the really great insights. Yes. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Marlis, all the best. All the best. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.


The Turnbull government has gone where no other conservative government has gone before. They're trumpeting non-stop about the inalienable right of freedom of speech, but beware, because if you use that right to make fun of the government, you might end up in prison under this bill. This bill, if passed, would mean that if a person engages in conduct and that conduct results in or is reasonably capable of resulting in a representation that the person is a Commonwealth body or is acting on behalf of or with the authority of a Commonwealth body and you aren't one, that's jail for two years. The only protection given in this bill is that the conduct does not include conduct engaged in solely for genuine satirical academic or artistic purposes. So in other words, you're engaging in satire or academic research, but you might have some other purpose, maybe a political purpose. You face jail time under this bill. And I have to ask, is this bill itself genuinely satirical? Is this a joke? And I ask the government, if you're going to say the only people who can avoid jail time are the ones who engage in genuine satire, what is genuine satire? What's non-genuine satire? What test would one apply to determine the difference? Who will determine the difference if this bill becomes law? Will the government be creating a new body or a person to review satirical works that mention the Australian government or its representatives in order to determine whether the act has been contravened? In their submission, the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights asked whether, quite under the proposed legislative regime, would each episode of Clark and Doar, the Chaser, the Juice Media's Honest Government Ads or Sean McCullough's Madder's Help need to be prefaced by explanation that the characters are not representing the federal government to avoid any risk of all concern being jailed for up to five years? And you might think this is fanciful, except the government has already taken steps before this bill has been passed to haul people up for allegedly impersonating the Commonwealth government. Some members of this place might be aware of Juice Media's hilarious work in their Honest Government Ads YouTube series. And this series has gone viral many times, and the reason it's got such a wide reception is that it holds up a light to the chaos and dysfunction of our current federal government using those dreaded weapons of satire and humour. And these people have been on the receiving end of contact from the government department saying that some of the images they use potentially might confuse people and make them think they're actually speaking on behalf of the government. I can sympathise with the government to some extent because sometimes it is legitimately impossible to differentiate the fact from fiction when this government implements policies. And I can understand how the Australian public might be confused between a farce and this government. And the Juice Media have made this point creatively many times in their popular videos. Take for example the recent video produced by the Juice Media on the government's bungled Centrelink RoboDeep fiasco. And I'll remind you as I read this out that this is an organisation that has already been approached by the government to say you potentially are impersonating government. Juice Media's video takes the form of a clearly mocked up fake government ad. And the narrator posing as a Centrelink spokesperson reads the following script to camera. And I wish now in the interest of accuracy to quote from this satirical video for Hansard so that all members can cast a discerning eye over whether this material is genuinely satire or whether the producers face jail time. Because that's what this bill is seeking to do. Make the government the arbiter of what is satire and what isn't. So let's have some of it. And I quote now from the Juice Media's video about the government's bungled Centrelink RoboDeep programs. Hello, I'm from Centrelink. Did you recently commit the crime of accessing social security? If so, you will have received a polite letter from us over the Christmas holidays indicating that you might need to pay us a huge amount of money. You may also receive a visit from our friendly debt collectors. Did you know that due to our recently introduced algorithm, at least one in five people who received our letter didn't actually owe us any money at all? We knew this. We just thought it might be more fun to force you to prove yourself innocent. It's not like you bloodgers have anything better to do. But we're here to reassure you. Centrelink's algorithm is not now functioning. It's doing just what we asked it to do, sending out a clear message to poor people that this government hates you. After all, it's distracting you from the actual bludgers who really know how to reward taxpayers. That's why we're coming after the most vulnerable people, like single-income mothers and people with disabilities, rather than billionaires who stash their money in corporate tax havens or the top third of companies in Australia that pay no tax or ministers who blow public funds on private flights to their own weddings, parties and house-buying sprees. If our efforts to ruin your life are causing you distress, call us on 132468 and if you don't die of natural causes while waiting to speak to a real person, we'll gladly refer you to counselling. Just don't go to your local MP or the media. Centrelink. Authorised by the Department of Inhumane Services and Taxpayer Routes. End quote. Now, I can see how the public might be confused between this joke video, which was released, and this actual government, which itself has indeed been a joke with its mismanagement of so-called Centrelink debts. But such is the level of angst of this government that this organisation, Juice Media, has already been told to stop using certain logos and coats of arms because they're official Commonwealth property. So it makes us very, very worried that this is exactly what the government has in mind with this bill. And to provide you with another example of such satirical material so that the House can properly be briefed on exactly what the material this bill is dealing with, offer another script from the same video on its government ads. This video script was written and released in relation to the government's recent marriage equality plebiscite. Although the video inserts an H in the word plebiscite, but not in a way that it would be unparliamentary, I'm sure, Mr Speaker, but let me quote from that. G'day. I'm from the Australian government. Are you ready for the marriage equality plebiscite? A plebiscite is when we force the nation to come together and do something really plevy and shite, such as voting on whether certain members of our society deserve the same human rights as everyone else. Because in Australia, we get to decide who has human rights and who doesn't. Plebiscite. We're not doing this to find out your opinion. We already know from actual surveys that 72% of you support marriage equality and that this figure is even higher amongst young Australians, 84%. We're just doing this to please a bunch of dinosaurs from the late homophobic era who really don't want Australia to advance into the 21st century, which is why instead of having a vote in parliament, we're blowing tons of money on a non-binding, non-compulsory postal survey. But hey, at least we'll be teaching millennials how to use stamps and envelopes, as well as providing a national platform to vilify and domain LGBTI Australians and their children in the process. Plebiscite. By making it a postal vote, we've made it as hard as possible for those in favour of marriage equality to participate. So why not just stay at home in front of the telly and tune into the bachelor watching heterosexuals flaunt their exclusive right to marriage under Australian law? We'd especially like all you young Australians to not register by the deadline of August 24.  Marriage equality, still not a thing in Australia, authorised by the Department of No Leadership and unnecessary harm. End quote. I think, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am beginning to understand the government's concern with satire. No wonder this government is worried. And all jokes aside, the reality is that if this bill is passed, it will make producing such videos and writing such material potentially punishable by a jail term. And for a government that purports to care about freedom of speech, that is not very funny at all. Surely, Mr Speaker, this is one of the worst pieces of legislation in history to enter this place. Will we be able to look to the courts for inspiration and guidance about what these terms mean? Well, no, because as Mr Giordano Nani of Juice Media submitted to the inquiry, there's a doth of case law in Australia on what satire means or is defined as. So there's not much precedent to guide us. There's nothing in the bill. And a fundamental flaw, as Mr Jeremy Gantz in making submissions pointed out, is that it criminalises, and I quote, criminalises reasonable misunderstandings rather than deception. In a context where reasonable misunderstandings about the role and reach of Australia's federal government are absolutely commonplace and are widely recognised as such by all informed people. Now, Mr Speaker, there are valid reasons to prohibit false representations of the Commonwealth and Commonwealth bodies. Of course, of course, there should be recourse for someone who, for example, calls someone up pretending to be from the tax office demanding payment. But should someone be thrown in jail because they dress up like the Prime Minister and pretend to be Prime Minister on Prime Minister Turnbull on YouTube because they make a satirical video that is imitating government advertising? Or if someone dresses up like me and stands outside my well-signed posted office in Melbourne and someone passing by or online thinks they're me, are we seriously saying that they could be thrown in jail? Because that's how this bill reads. This bill would not be out of place in North Korea. If you make fun of the faultless, wise overlord of the universe, prepare to feel the crushing weight of the state as you are dragged away and imprisoned for your cheek and insolence. The comparison, Mr Speaker, reveals the true intent of the bill. This bill is really about power. Saul Alinsky in his Seminal Book Rules for Radicals notes that humor is essential for a successful technician. For the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule. This bill is about cracking down on dissent. We are seeing the government do this elsewhere with people who dare to speak out. They're going to potentially lose their funding or their charitable status, and now they're doing it here as well for anyone who dares impersonate the government for the purpose of satire or art. This is about avoiding criticism, avoiding scrutiny and avoiding ridicule. This bill reminds me of a petulant teenager who's had their feelings hurt and has just decided to lash out. And I also have a sneaking suspicion, Mr Speaker, that this bill would not be before us if some of the ridicule, the satire and the conduct directed at this government didn't hit so close to home as it has.  And not only is this legislation ridiculous, but the government trying to push it through is as well.


This week, world leaders gathered at the United Nations to discuss a wide range of issues facing the global community. Among them was financial inclusion, giving universal access to the services that provide growth and prosperity. My colleague Cathy Kay and I caught up with two key players in that effort at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum. First, here's her interview with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, who's worked as a UN special advocate. Cathy started by asking how she became involved with this issue. I think that when I was 14 years old, I was living in Argentina, living in quite a hyperinflation environment, and realized that for people to really become economically included and being able to participate in the economic environment, they just needed tools. One of the biggest tools is basically having credit to invest in opportunities, having savings that really will be maintained in time to actually be able to help you for your pension life or, you know, against unforeseen risks, the same goes for insurance, the same goes to even making payments. And we're seeing the difference. We are seeing that when a woman actually gets credit in order to sort of, you know, invest in a livelihood and increase her income, it really makes a change, not in herself, in our family. When we see that people have savings, they have this mattress that they can actually fall back on to in case of unforeseen risks. So it's so important that people have this, you know, resilience and this potential to really invest in their future to actually improve their lives and that of their children. Who are the people who are not financially included? And you've mentioned women a few times. Does it always tend to be women? Is it the same people in different countries? I mean, can you spot a profile of a country and say, OK, these people will not have financial inclusion? Well, we're seeing from all the advancements that still a couple of groups are actually not doing that well. We still have a persistent gender gap of 9% of the emerging economies. So that means that women have grown, have more, have had more access to financial services, but in less rates than the men in that rate of growth, the poor and certainly the rural. So these three things, you know, we need to, these three groups will need to look into. And of course, there's big disparities among countries. As we move away from cash to credit in other forms on people's phones, for example, in a financial system that increasingly in developing countries does work on telephones. Does that help people who had been excluded before? Absolutely. Technology has really been a game changer in financial inclusion. I mean, we see in the last three years, growth has been mainly based on technology in your help. Still today, one billion people have a mobile phone, but they don't have financial services. So we have great potential in that front. So, yes, technology has helped us actually go into groups that we couldn't do it before in the old fashioned way. It also cuts off the gender bias.  Basically, the companies that are, well, you know, they make payments, they juggle a lot of money. So therefore, they are sort of creating current history.  So all these issues are really helping people, you know, be closer to markets, be closer to financial options and be even closer to making payments, which were before they had to sort of really travel long distances where they're stuck of cash to make a payment. And today they can do it from the safety of their home, increasing safety for, you know, women and increasing the potential of actually being economic active. Queen Maximus, thanks very much. Thank you. And I talked to Ajay Bunga, the CEO of Mastercard and asked him what role corporations can play when it comes to financial inclusion. We discovered that our war wasn't cash. And cash, essentially, that's our business. And cash is not the friend of these folks who are excluded. And so one way to reach at cash was to also tackle the problem of exclusion. So this came to being like a good commercial logic for what made a lot of sense to do. That's how it started. So what we've gone after is to use technology, which is a great level of playing fields, combine that with some interesting partnerships, and both public sector partnerships, but also recently, with the Queen's help, CEO level partnerships in the private sector. And you cobble those that technology and those partnerships together, and you can start making a real difference to, to a number of people who are left out otherwise. So you talk about vision for a cashless society. What does that look like? Well, I don't think you'd ever go cashless, because I think cash has a role to play in its own fundamental form. What really it means is to reduce the level of cash in the economy from where it is today to a much lower level. So if you can reduce 85 to 50, the opposite side of that is greater transparency, greater revenue recognition, less corruption, less wastage, less leakage, all the things that cash can otherwise enable things to happen in a society. Let me give you one specific example of a challenge that you have in a country like India, where we've both lived and worked. Something like 2% of Indians have a credit card. Indians still like to keep cash. That's correct. How do you overcome that? It's a cultural issue. Well, that's correct. But it's not just my credit cards, because I'm not in the credit card business. I'm in the technology and infrastructure business. So you could use a debit card, a prepaid card, a phone, a fingerprint, your irises. I don't really bother about the form factor. I bother about the fact that it's electronic from some account to some account. That's what I really care. But there's still a challenge, even. It's still a big challenge. Although, as you can see, with mobile technology, with players coming into India, it's catching on. But yes, here are the issues with it. The first is that people have to have an identity. If they don't have an identity, you cannot open an account. India, actually, with its Aadhaar system, has attempted to democratize identities. There are ways of doing it better and quicker, and people can debate that, but they've done it. So that enables the opening of accounts. Once you've opened the account, we, in Mastercard of the Apartment, we've reached 360 million people in the last few years to open accounts with them. The problem is, it's not just enough to open the account. You're going to get money into it, and you're going to start beginning to use it as well. Once you do the usage, you start creating credit histories. You could become eligible for insurance. The kind of things that a number of countries are trying to do. And lastly, you talk about technology being one of the game-changers here. How can that eradicate corruption in some of the countries that you mentioned, where there is an issue? Technology creates transparency. So that's the biggest asset in fighting corruption. Corruption thrives when there's dark shadows. It doesn't thrive in open light. But it all finally comes out of jobs and quality of life. And if you can create the right jobs, then companies like ours benefit from people who have jobs ready. They will shop. When they shop, I'll benefit. Thank you very much. Pleasure to meet you.


Essential oils have been extensively studied for their antimicrobial properties, but much is still unknown about the mechanism of action and components of these compounds. Recent studies have shown that nano-encapsulated essential oils can enhance their bioavailability and efficacy against multi-drug resistant pathogens. Synergistic combinations of essential oils with antibiotics have also been recommended as a potential solution to the problem of antibiotic resistance. However, more research is needed to understand the interactions that lead to additive, synergistic, or antagonistic effects and to design new and more potent antimicrobial blends. This article was authored by Sonam Chahan, Kani Kasharma, and Sanjay Gulliria. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Hello and welcome to the rugged rock hand today. I'm here with a bunch of friends Everybody remembers Doug right from the blue opal. Here's Tim. Yeah, so we are looking in an area We're not gonna reveal it just yet just in case, but we'll see but we're looking here for what's called flowering two bonnets So let's see what we can find it sounds like it's few and far between So we're gonna start here in the wash, and then we're gonna work our way up and see if we can find where it's coming from Wish us luck Here we are down in the wash looking for stuff. It looks like the stuff usually occurs on this kind of Sandstone conglomerate Metrics, so we're kind of focusing on those rocks But there's a lot of interesting things in here a lot of volcanic rocks like these ones So definitely something interesting stuff. There's some of that conglomerate There's a nice piece of calcite. That's some good calcite crystals in it. There are a little bit of Kind of metallic formations in it Might be getting related So this is just to give you a feel for what the rocks look like So I've got a lot of these pinkish white volcanic rocks You've got some nice conglomerates You got some sandstone It is quite a mix Making it difficult to spot this stuff And this is the first time here, and I've never found this stuff before so I think it's Brand new to all this Taking a look at any suspect rock It's right here in the side I found some nice Levan black agate We're actually not far from Levan locations so Yep, keep eyes open for some Levan black agate. So right right down here. I just found this This is some of it see the botched riddle habit on it and then look at the side of it Hopefully that shows up. Well the lighting is really bad right now, but You should be able to see Some of the structure. I'll definitely clean it up better when I get home But I this is the first piece my first piece of the flowering two bonnets down here in the Stream bed. Oh, that's probably the best side to see it right there Nice so here's this one cut open Interesting not too bad. It's got some lines in it Okay, Tim just found that one. So Tim found this just up from where I found mine actually So nice nice banding here. It's like a travertine so if this has any of the tube structure in it when we cut into it, but Definitely promising Fun piece tiny bit And he just found this one rinded so That looks like I would say yes those that little bit right there just a tiny bit of black right through there It's very small, but I'd say it is it just enough. It looks like it Tim found his first piece of black agate. Look at that It's got some nice botched riddle right there in that little pocket Yeah, it's just a small piece, but it's definitely a van black agate found this piece that I thought maybe and I broke it open and yeah, it's a low grade but something Just found this piece. It's really hard to tell from the outside, but I can see the banding there Yeah, this is something we're gonna have to cut into to get better But you can see it you can kind of see on the surface. So that makes them harder to spot So you want more of this reddish color that's probably gonna get to your higher grades Here's this one cut open Yeah Yeah, see these lighter ones are harder to see the patterns in it They're still pretty It's a wind blown right now Just found this piece very dark on the outside, but you got the layers in it. Yeah That one's not as good as the one that not as good as the previous one, but it's something I'll hold on to it So Tim just found this look at that Levan banded black and white agate on the surface that rock. That is beautiful. That is a nice piece Good fine Tim So we've come up quite a ways There's an old road right here that runs up to the old mine up here we're trying to decide whether or not that's like a black agate or the banded tubonics and The banded tubonics seems to have disappeared I think that's come out of one of the hills below us and that indicator that Tim just found Supports the idea that maybe this mine up here this old mine is black agate So we made it to the old mine where we we're thinking. Oh, it might be the black agate or The onyx and what do we find? gypsum Satin spar gypsum all over the place. I'm thinking this might have been a gypsum mine Now we're up in the mine And look at those blades of gypsum books of gypsum pieces crystals solanite all of that Old gypsum mine No black agate or two bonnix here here at the top of the mine. We got nice vantage point. We can just look out over the valley beautiful layers of Rocks So we just met up with the gang and Ryan found Several pieces right here in the road that may have come out of this little zone here the mines back that way Around the next two hills So maybe it's coming out right here, but look you just found that one Look at that. We should probably spray it. Look at that piece. He found just right here in the road So I think it's coming out of here somewhere They definitely need to search here There's this one cut open. Yep looks about like what we thought We're in the zone now Ryan found another piece and I just found one right here. You can see the bubbles on the top That's definitely a piece of it Now oh, I see another one right there nice Yeah, we are close to the source Very good. I'm glad you saw the ones right here Look at that. We're definitely close to the source. Yeah, I think it's coming out of right here Oh, yeah, a little bit of agate Yeah, I'm seeing tons of little pieces too now here's this one cut open This side fractured look at that Really pretty stuff Here's this one cut open the other side broke because it was just a thin slice, but there you go Pretty stuff Just found another little piece Just found a big one and right next to it another one spray that thing off Isn't that beautiful? Look at that. Although. I don't mind if you grabbed it. That's fine. Just I want to hold the camera out to see it Looking good and then this look at this. Oh This one's massive I need a hand pick to get this one. Oh, I got it up. Oh my gosh Thank you, Ryan Ryan just found that look at this though Giant Huge piece Beautiful this one and this one. This is the only big one. I've managed to cut For this video, so I'll have to cut the other big ones later. This is that big one I found and Look at that Look at that So much going on all across that. Yeah, let's take a look at the other side Very nice Really cool stuff Found another one right there. I'll have to cut into that and see how much there is nice There's this one cut open Cool. I like the pattern. I do wish there was more contrast though It's still very nice Ryan said he found some pieces down here. Let's take a look It's got a little bit going through it. Oh, that one looks like it'll be good Yeah, that's a good one. Look at that one. That's a good point. Yeah very nice.  How did they miss that? Didn't they just walk up here? How did they miss that? That is Beautiful It looks like you didn't miss anything It looks like a flower. Oh beautiful Just found this one And look it's right up against the calcite. Yeah But that's the pretty side right there use this beautiful looking one cut open Yeah, it's great on the outside It looks great on the inside So you can see these little flowering Effects down at the bottom. I think I just found a big piece. Oh my gosh Spray that off No, it's all the way I think that's a whole piece. Jeez That's gonna be amazing Hey Doug, you want to cut this one for me? If you carry it down and I get one fourth of it All right, okay, this could not have moved very far Something that's big So we broke into it and we found some good stuff We weren't sure because a lot of it isn't but some of it is So we got some and going through there. Look at that. Oh look at that right there And there's all crumbly. Yeah Yeah, the stuff that's crumbly You're not gonna salvage but this this looks fairly solid. So maybe take this piece back And I'll take this piece and I'll take this piece back This one looked good from the outside cut it one half of it shattered. So here's the other half The good half Nice, huh Really pretty stuff Just found this piece That looks pretty nice Just found a giant slab of it Look at all the bubbles on this side Look at the pocket marks on this side And you got a little bit of I sprayed it off over here Oh, let's pull it up then so you can see it and you can see some of the layers in it That's a chunk It didn't move far It's a thin little piece Right next to it was a thin little piece Another thin little piece There's this larger one Looks really nice from that side Oh nice that sorry about the wind Because it's a windy october day Very nice So right where Tim's foot is you hold this thing out look at that chunk Nice, it's got the flowering on the bottom part of it. I'll probably take that one back And look at this just a big boulder of it And then little pieces here and there probably came off of that right there. Oh, that's nice. Look at that. That's a good one Yeah, that's a good little piece So here's this one cut open Very nice That looks nice The colors in there here's this chunk cut open Interesting Interesting It's got a bunch of like britcheted stuff in the middle of it So Ryan's got a nice boulder here. He's working on Trying to get some of the nicer pieces off of it So there you can kind of see it This whole boulder is all yeah It's all all of it Okay, there's apparently a really nice one down here Ryan's going to get it Yeah, it's big. Oh my gosh Now that is a stunning looking piece Put that on up here. Let's spray that thing off. I hope oh boy Tim out of the shadow. Oh, sorry Look at that. It's pretty. Now that is a keeper The whole thing. Yeah, absolutely Here's this one cut open It's very nice from the outside Oh, and it looks very nice inside. Look at that Very nice. Yeah, this stuff has really nice patterns to it Here's this one cut open. This looked good from the outside. So Oh, yes That's a good one The inside of that one Very nice the other side Sweet Here's this one cut open the other side fractured and fell apart But that looks very nice Very nice Oh, Tim, what did you find? Tim apparently found something stunning. Oh, gosh And it's already slab worthy too. So yeah, that's exactly how you would slab that thing Ah, that's a nice find And there's a boulder right there boulders everywhere Hard thing though is finding the really nice ones like that Here's this one cut open Very nice You can see where it forms those little tubes They're technically stalactites that got completely covered in stuff Okay, here is this one cut open Very nice. Look at the contrast. The colors are great on that. It's a beautiful flower That's a really good piece And we made it back to the vehicle. So neat place I'm really glad Ryan found this spot and due to his wishes, we're not gonna, you know, share the gps here And the layer we found, you know, we worked our way up the hill finding little pieces It was a layer that was I don't know about a foot or two thick that had that nice Tubular onyx going through it pretty cool spot Um, actually found quite a few things I didn't actually film because after a while you start finding a lot when you've got a layer there That just kind of runs all across that that one hill there It was pretty steep though, you know all that loose tailing But pretty cool So you guys have probably seen everything cut open and you'll see the ones that I probably didn't quite film Because I kept switching between getting better and better ones But hopefully you saw most of the good ones and now you've seen it all cut So it should be amazing. That stuff is beautiful. I can only imagine how good it is when it's cut I know Yeah Tim's excited Until next time remember there's treasure everywhere


This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the Sugar Beet growing season. The peak of Sugar Beet Root Maggot is behind us, but the Maggot has been busy. This year ranks the third highest flies in 20 years. Mark Botele, NDSU Extension Entomologist, has the breakdown and the hit list of insects still causing potential problems. Mark, the Root Maggot seemed to be in full force again this year. How did it turn out for the growers? Well, I think we made a little bit of progress. Populations were slightly lower. I haven't fully done the tally and compared it, but it looks like it's probably going to be in the top three in the last 15 to 20 years. We still have a pretty major problem. They peaked early this year as well. That warm May temperatures that we had when May felt like July, that got them going pretty early. That was a challenge too because there were some late planted Cherby fields that growers may have been challenged to have been able to apply insecticide at the right time. Hopefully, those late planted ones had something on at planting for adequate protection. Where were the worst problem areas this year? The Northern Valley continues to be a problem area as much as it's ever been. It's spread into Minnesota a little bit. On the North Dakota side, we had Auburn, Cavalier, Crystal, Drayton, Oakwood, St. Thomas, Voss. One on the Minnesota side up there, we had Donaldson and Oslo that were actually fairly high numbers too. Then moving farther south into the Central and then Southern Valley, Ada, the Crookston, Grand Forks, East Grand Forks area, Reynolds, and then Saban, I want to underscore that one as well, was problematic. In fact, Saban this year nearly doubled every other reporting location. It is more than just a hotspot. It is like the hotspot right now. Mark, as we've talked before, this year's MAGIT activity can help growers with management decisions for next year. Can you explain? Sure. So we know that there was decent fly activity in those locations and then we'll be sampling those as well for root injury. And so we'll be able to really pinpoint where the problems are, where we know we had survival. And so that'll help us make management decisions and provide a pretty good forecast for the growers for the 24th and growing season. And I'll be presenting that as always at the growers' seminars and it'll be available online at various locations and then also available in print in the Sugarbeet Production Guide. Mark, what pests should growers be watching for in the fields? Things to watch for right now are grasshoppers in any areas where it's been drier. A few reports of ligus bugs, grasshoppers, blister beetles as well, at least showing up in fields but rarely at treatable levels. A little bit of green clover worm as well in the southern growing areas but again no major outbreaks of really any of those pests. There are a couple of things to think about as the stage that the beets are in right now. They're pretty well established. There's a lot of foliage so they're not going to really, they can take a fair amount of foliar feeding and you're probably not going to lose much yield. The other consideration is that we're getting closer to pre-pile. We're going to think about putting on an insecticide. What's the pre-harvest interval on that? When can I harvest after I've made that insecticide application? So that's really something to watch out for. Thanks Mark. Our guest has been Mark Botel, NDSU Extension Entomologist. This is the Sugarbeet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the Sugarbeet growing season.


Thank you very much indeed Dali, Mary and to everybody. Let me start by wishing you all a very happy new year and in particular by wishing every success to the Irish presidency, which is already in day three of the Irish leadership at the helm of the Council of Ministers. I'm going to start my remarks by referring back to the 10th of December last year when I was in Oslo when the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and for all of us who work on European affairs, it was a very, very moving moment, particularly because the EU is going through such a difficult time. It was wonderfully motivating to have the international recognition of what the EU project stands for, not for the day-to-day difficulties and battles that we face, but for what the whole project stands for. And I was very struck by what the chair of the Nobel Committee said. He said that the EU cannot be taken as a given. It's something that has to be struggled for every day. And believe me, it is a struggle every day. But on a moment like that when the international community is saying we want the European project to succeed, we believe that the contribution it has made to peace in the world is hugely important. That is, I think, a moment that will certainly stay in my memories to the end of my life. But saying that the EU is not a given, that you can take it for granted, is very true because the EU is an unfinished project. It's not a journey to a known or agreed destination and once you get there then you can say it's complete. It's much more something that's evolving over time and that has to respond to what Europe needs now and in the future as much as having been built on what Europe needed in the past and when the whole project was started after the Second World War. I think it's especially true at the current time because in fact a new EU is being fashioned out of the crisis that we're going through. The way I see it is that the complacency that we had for the last 15 or 20 years has been swept away. I think we thought we could stay at a point where we had something between national decision making and a little bit of EU as an add-on. I think that has been swept away. It's now clear that that's not possible and it's only now that the real consequences for many member states of being in a currency union are actually being understood. Today I think we're also at a moment when what we all took for granted as the irreversibility of the EU is also being seriously questioned and that's for the first time in a long time. Some will not wish to integrate further and some even think that they have a choice still about not integrating further. But I think that we will live for the next several years in a period of transition having outgrown the way that we were before the crisis but not yet having grown into the shape of how the union will be in the future. If we look back on what's happened in the last four years, huge decisions have been taken during the crisis to give the EU a fund to intervene when member states get into difficulty that we never had before, to completely overhaul the financial sector, the regulation of the financial sector, to give the EU a bigger say ex ante in national budget and policy making and these were big decisions that were taken in the heat of the crisis because they had to be taken. But they were big decisions that I think are still not well understood. I would say not even fully understood by everyone who participated in taking them and certainly not fully understood by the general public and I'll come back to the problem that that creates in a moment. But I think that it's clear that even though huge decisions have been taken it isn't enough and it's not enough for one very simple reason. National decision making cannot and does not take into account the real interdependence particularly of countries that are in a common currency union but I would say even of the interdependence between all member states of the European Union and we have seen graphically the impact that bad policy making in one part of the union can have on all of the rest of the union. But it's clear that we cannot go on with the belief that national decision making and economic policy is enough. It can't be left to the national level alone but we're not yet at a point where we have a level of EU decision taking that is in keeping with a common currency. So that's an inherently unstable point. And my conclusion from that analysis would be that we have to go forward inevitably to a deeper level of integration. I think it's very clear that the new EU that I spoke about emerging from the crisis is going to be built around the euro and I think that for two reasons. One is because it's the currency of the union, that's what the treaty says. We have two member states that have an opt-out. At the moment we have 17 in the euro, 10 not in the euro but most of those who are not in the euro want to and will join and that's not going to be a stable state for too long. But the second reason why I believe that the new union will be built around the euro is because it's existential. The euro, the political decision is clearly taken that the euro will survive because we will do everything that it needs that has to be done to make it survive and we cannot afford not to do it. So for those two reasons the euro will be the core of the future EU and I think it's important that we see it in that way because it's a key to understanding a lot of the decisions that are going to be taken in the next few years. I think we are beginning to convince not only ourselves but the wider world that the euro is irreversible. Greece will not leave and will not be thrown out of the euro. I think London has gone from worrying about how to cope with the breakdown of the euro to how to cope with the survival of the euro to a whole different ball game because now the question is what will be the impact of a strong euro in the future and where will it have its financial centre. I think convincing everyone that the euro is irreversible is a very important part of breaking the link between bank debt and sovereign debt and that has been the issue that has bedeviled Ireland and other parts of the union in this current crisis. We need to do a lot more to put the right policies and instruments in place to regain confidence and to get back to growth but I think that from everything that has been decided in the last few years you can see that the political decision has been and we have followed through on that that the leaders of the European Union will do whatever it takes to support the euro in the future. This means that the next steps in integration will be to put a banking union in place for the euro. A very important decision was made by the Council of Ministers just before Christmas to set up a single supervisor for the euro area. That should then be followed by agreement on a single resolution mechanism which in simple terms means that the banks and the shareholders will have to pay in future to bail out the banks, not the taxpayers. The third leg of a long-term banking union will be and this I say with much more caution a common deposit guarantee mechanism. I think that even those who are calling for that kind of mechanism at the moment haven't really factored in the degree of intrusion in domestic decision making that would be required before some governments will agree to that level of debt mutualisation but that's the kind of scenario of what a banking union would be made up of. We need to do this because if you look back you can see that we were not well prepared for the crisis when it hit. We didn't have the instruments in place, the ones I talked about a moment ago. This is now being remedied of course but we also need a vision for the future. We need to have some sense of where we're going and that's why in November the commission published what we called a blueprint on economic and monetary union. I think it's important that I say that we're not asking anyone to adopt this blueprint, it's the commission's view of where we should go, what needs to be done in order to build economic and monetary union. But although we're not asking people to adopt it I think it will be a reference point for years to come because it's a very thorough piece of work setting out what the next steps should be, what can be done under the current treaty, what cannot be done under the current treaty and will require treaty change in the future. Not for another few years I hope, but certainly in the future. I think it's also interesting to see that the report that the President of the European Council, President van Rumpij, brought out in December is very compatible with the commission's blueprint. They're very largely going in the same direction and his report was done of course working very closely with the commission but also with the ECB. So you can see that the main European institutions are all thinking in the same direction, thinking along the same lines. Having said that it's also very clear that most governments are still thinking short term and are not ready to sign up to big long term visions at least not right now. I think the December European Council showed very clearly that Member States need time to digest what they have already decided, they feel they've done a lot and they have and they're hoping now that the pace will slow down a little bit. I'm not sure that that's going to be a hope that will be fulfilled. I think there is a danger of complacency as soon as the pressure from the markets has lessened people feel oh we don't have to make these difficult decisions let's just sort of slow everything down. And I think if we don't show that we are determined to continue and to put in place the instruments, the mechanisms, the policies and the way of deciding together that we need and then the markets will lose faith again and will punish us again. But having said that the Member States are not prepared to sign up now to a big future vision, they are willing to take the next steps because I think their collective experience of the crisis has been that we have got to continue to put in place the policies and the instruments that we need. And so I think what the Commission tried to do in the blueprint, what President Van Remphe has done in his report, is to set out the next steps and their sequencing so that we do things in the right order, that people know what's coming next and that they can see individual proposals in a wider context of leading towards eventual full economic and monetary union. And I have to say I have a lot of understanding for the heads of state and government who feel that it's been very intense for years and that they would like a bit more breathing space. I think one of the unfortunate side effects of the drama and the focus almost exclusively on saving the euro has been that it has absorbed almost all the political time and energy. And there hasn't been the attention needed to the growth agenda. And I'm hoping that as the situation is stabilising now that that same energy and determination can be put into the growth agenda. It will be a long haul. Unemployment levels go up very quickly but they come down very slowly. And there's no money around for stimulus packages. You can see in each Member State but also you can see at European level the difficulty we are having in fixing the next financial perspective which is still only going to be about 1% of EU GDP but the difficulties around agreeing on that show that there is not going to be money around for stimulus packages. So we will have to find the political will to continue to invest in structural reform to create the opportunities that we need to get Europe growing again. And there is an ongoing need for deep structural reform whether it be in education and training in skills and matching what people learn to what the marketplace needs to investing in research to investing in clean energy all of the things that everybody can think of. We will have to find the political will to open up the opportunities that are there in order to get Europe growing again. I think another area where it's obvious that Europe has to find the political will is to conclude new international trade agreements. They are always difficult. It's very difficult for 27 soon 28 countries to have exactly an identity of interest and to be able to conclude the agreements but it's clear that a lot of future European growth should come from outside of the European Union. So these are just some of the areas where I think we need to continue to find the political will to invest in the growth for the future. And this is going to come to my last point. I think that we can find the political and the economic skills and policies that we need but the biggest questions that the Union faces are of course the political ones. And we need to answer difficult questions in the next two to three years. The biggest difficulty I think is going to be finding the right answer to how can we keep the EU together. How can we handle faster integration by some member states, those that are in the Euro but not all because not all have an obligation or want to be in the Euro. How can we handle this? I think the current debate in the UK and with the UK is something that everybody is following very closely. I think that there are some promising signs that business in the UK is beginning also to say well hang on a minute you know don't we need to think this through in a deeper way and more rationally. And I think we need to manage that situation very carefully and not to have any self-fulfilling prophecies. I touched on a moment ago the question of the political will that we need to make the deep structural change that Europe needs to be able to not only survive in the age of globalization but to come out strong in the era in which we live. Will we be able to find the collective determination to keep making those changes once the fierce heat of the crisis has abated somewhat? These are political questions, they're not technical. And perhaps the biggest question of all is how are we going to persuade our fellow EU citizens that a further transfer of sovereignty to the EU level in their interest? I think part of the debate that's coming will have to be about power sharing between the EU level and the national level. I think that we will have to look again at whether we've got the right balance of what's decided at EU level and what's decided nationally. And I think that we have to have a debate about what kind of EU do we want? At the moment the European Union is getting a lot more and tougher powers on the economic side. Do we want the EU and the EU institutions only to be the police? So to sit in judgement on what member states are doing and to meet out the punishment when they don't do what they've committed to. But if we want the EU to be involved in a wider range of policies than that then we will have to have a debate about how do we want the EU and to what extent do we want the EU involved in policies like social policy, health policy, educational policy. All of these are intensely political and public issues. And I'm struck by the public comment here and in other programme countries on the involvement of the Troika. There's a lot of criticism, a lot of resentment. That shows that this will not be an easy debate to have in the coming years, but we will have to have it. And then the question of how can we ensure greater democratic accountability and legitimacy? We'll have to find the right way to connect with the population. And the population we're talking about is 500 million people so it's not easy to connect with them as individuals. We will have to make sure that we have accountability at the right level. It's easy to say that when things are decided at EU level the accountability should be at EU level and when they're national they should be national. But defining that clearly in a way that the public understands and supports is not going to be simple. Of course out of all of this I think there inevitably will be an even greater role for the European Parliament but there's also a big question about what then is the role of national parliaments and how can they be involved in that mix of EU level policymaking national policymaking and where the two come together. So I think there is a need for an informed debate and a debate which will be as profound in its own way as the decision Ireland took 40 years ago to join the European Union and the decision Ireland took when it joined the precursor of what became the euro. And that debate will also have to include serious discussions about the alternative because it's very easy to say we don't want any more of that we don't want any more integration and we have enough, thanks very much. So what's the alternative? My basic thesis is that we can't stay where we are now we have to go deeper. So how do we bring people along with us to understand that and support it and not feel that something is being taken away that something additional is being gained? And I think that that is a debate that has to be had it wasn't had during the heat of the crisis because all the attention was absorbed on making the decisions now those decisions have to be explained to the public people have to feel comfortable with them and ready to move on to the next level. And that's where I just wanted to say a few words to close about the Irish presidency. I think that it is highly symbolic that Ireland takes up the presidency 40 years to the day after we joined as a very different country with very high hopes of what EU membership would bring and hopes which I think have been very largely delivered if not surpassed. Now is a difficult time but if you look back over 40 years all of us who are old enough to have been adult at the time remember what a different country Ireland was and how much more confidence and possibilities we have now that we didn't have then. And I think that the presidency will put a spotlight on Ireland I know that that's the determination of the government and the civil service is to really showcase what Ireland can do Ireland coming back out of a programme and making a very big success of its presidency and there are very high hopes for the Irish presidency in Brussels as well we've always had successful presidencies the seventh one I'm sure will be the most successful of all and people look for a particular Irish style of efficiency and drive and at the same time respect for all member states big and small and I think that Ireland, the Irish presidency can actually make a difference to the growth agenda I was talking about there are quite a lot of proposals on the table of the council and the parliament that need a push these opportunities that I was talking about which don't cost money but which can open opportunities that decisions are taken I think that's where the Irish presidency of different councils and the Irish interaction as presidency with the European parliament can actually try to build a momentum and a feeling that yes we're coming out of the crisis growth can return this can be the year when the momentum comes back so I look forward of course particularly to seeing the home team playing every day in Brussels but I think that there's a particular contribution that Ireland can make now they can't solve all the problems of course but they can set a different rhythm of different expectations and put growth and coming back to a better time at the heart of the agenda so to conclude let me just briefly say the following of course it will take years for Europe to come fully out of this crisis it took years to build up it can't be undone overnight we will not go back to where we were before the crisis no matter how often I say that I'm still surprised by the number of people who think that we will we will not we will be in a different world I think you will see gradually a newly shaped up and a stronger European union emerge it will be more integrated that deeper integration will be built around the euro we will have to have a more clear division between what's decided at EU level what's decided nationally and it will not be straight forward progress it's not going to be one step after the other it's going to be more of a zigzag and a larch every now and again but I think the direction of travel is clear I think that it's clear also that more responsibility will have to go hand in hand with more solidarity and that requires a public political debate about what kind of EU do we want to have in the future at some point we will come to the conclusion that we have to change the treaty but that should be preceded by a debate about what kind of EU do we want to have it should not be a technical legal constitutional debate the treaty should be the transference into legal and constitutional terms of the outcome of that debate and we should get it the right way around this time round first of all have the debate and then put it into a treaty not start by saying we need to change the treaty and so what are we going to put in it I don't think that there will be a treaty change process before 2015 but that's not that far away I think that we can take a lot of the decisions we have to take in the coming months and years under the existing treaty but at some stage in the future in order to go further with the kind of integration that I think will be required we will have to change the treaty in the future and for that to happen there really has to be a well informed public debate not only here in Ireland but in lots of other countries where there will also be referendum so I'll conclude by saying I think it's an absolutely fascinating time for Ireland to be at the helm I think I look forward very much to seeing Irish ministers and Irish civil servants chairing, compromising, wheeler dealing in the way that only we can do and I look forward if you do invite me back at some stage in the future maybe to doing a retrospective of the Irish presidency thank you very much