Professor Ben Tonra:

I am sorry our paths did not cross in Trinity College back in the day. My first publication was a book chapter written with Patrick Keatinge on Ireland and the Falklands crisis. That is how far back I am going as well. The question regarding the strategic compass is a really good one. It emphasises something really important. The reason they are trying to develop this strategic compass is precisely to address the issue I identified at the start, which is this loss of understanding and appreciation of everybody else's security situation. We call this a lack of a strategic consensus in Europe - the fact that we see Russia differently in Dublin than they do in Riga. The strategic compass is a mechanism to try to get member states to think more profoundly about each other's security concerns and take them on board in the way they deal with their own issues. I am slightly jaded in the mid-later point in my career in terms of what this can actually deliver, but it is part of that incremental iterative process of building up consensus within the EU as to what kind of international actor the EU should be.

The Deputy's point about the Normandy framework is spot on. The reason the Russians like the Normandy framework is because they are dealing with national capitals. They are not dealing with the EU bilaterally one to one. They do not want to deal with the EU bilaterally one to one because they know they are outgunned hugely in terms of economic and moral authority. If they keep the conversation on the military and security side, they do not have to talk to the EU because the EU does not have any capacity in the security and military sphere.

Regarding the new German Chancellor, fair is fair, the man is only getting his feet under the desk. He has a coalition to manage. There are very different and wide-ranging views within his party and between his party and the Green party, particularly in terms of how to deal with Russia. Again, we come back to two things about Germany. One is the centrality of its economic interests, which we see most visibly in terms of its reaction on Nord Stream 2, and the second involves Germany's sensitivity regarding military issues, defence and doing anything that evokes echoes of its own tragic history. In dealing with all that, Germany will inevitably be a laggard or on the back foot. If it chooses to work with its European partners, Germany can do a lot in terms of building that collective European perspective but I do not underestimate the challenge involved in the EU doing that because we all have such different perspectives and coming up with a single European ideal and purpose is really challenging.