A MAKE OR BREAK YEAR FOR THE UNION

APRIL 23, 2015 AUTOWORLD APRIL 23, AUTOWORLD

#EUROPEANDIVIDES @POLITICOEurope

GOLD SPONSORS 2 AGENDA 3

16.30 Registration

17.15 Welcome remarks Ralph Büchi, President International, AXEL SPRINGER John F. Harris, Editor-in-Chief, Matthew Kaminski, Executive Editor, Europe, POLITICO

17.25 Interview: Enforcing EU Competition Policies Moderator: Carrie Budo Brown, Managing Editor, Europe, POLITICO , for Competition

17.40 Panel: European Growing Pains Moderator: Pierre Briançon, Senior Correspondent, POLITICO , Member of the , Leader of the ALDE Group Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister and Former Minister for Foreign A‚ airs of Sweden

18.00 Panel: Putting Europe on the Digital Map Moderator: Ryan Heath, Senior EU Correspondent, POLITICO Andrus Ansip, Vice President for the Digital Single Market Marietje Schaake, Member of the European Parliament Frédéric Mazzella, Founder and Chief Executive O‡ cer, BlaBlaCar

18.25 Interview: How to Deal with a Resurgent Russia Moderator: Matthew Kaminski, Executive Editor, Europe, POLITICO Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General, NATO

18.40 Discussion: Insights into US Politics Mike Allen, Chief White House Correspondent, POLITICO John F. Harris, Editor-in-Chief, POLITICO

18.55 Interview: The Role of the European Parliament Moderator: Florian Eder, Managing Editor, Policy, Europe, POLITICO Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament

19.10 Closing remarks and cocktail reception

Program modifi cations due to the extraordinary meeting. 4SPEAKERS MARTIN SCHULZ @MartinSchulz President EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Martin Schulz was born on December 20, 1955 and grew up in Hehlrath, Germany, close to the German-Dutch-Belgian borders. After high school, he decided to try to make a living out of his passion for books and he did an apprenticeship as a bookseller. In 1982, he opened his own bookstore in Würselen, which he successfully ran for 12 years.

He joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany at the age of 19, where he started his political career. At the of age 31, he was elected mayor of Würselen, the youngest mayor of North Rhine-Westphalia. He held this post for 11 years.

Since 1994, Schulz has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and has served in a number of committees, fi rst serving on the sub-committee on Human Rights and then on the Committee on Civil Liberties and Home A‚ airs. He led the SPD MEPs from 2000 and was subsequently elected Vice-Chair of the Socialist MEPs.

In 2004 he was elected group leader of the second largest group in the European Parliament. As leader of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Schulz campaigned for social justice, promoting jobs and growth, reforming fi nancial markets, fi ghting climate change, championing equality and creating a stronger and more democratic Europe.

Schulz was elected President of the European Parliament on January 17, 2012 for a mandate of two and half years with 387 votes. On July 1, 2014 he was re-elected President with 409 votes, becoming the fi rst President in the history of the European Parliament to be re-elected for a second term.

He is married with two children, and his hobbies include reading, history and football. Among his favorite books are The Leopard by Tomasi di Lampedusa and all the books of Eric Hobsbawm.

JENS STOLTENBERG @jensstoltenberg Secretary-General NATO

Jens Stoltenberg has been Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since October 2014.

Between 1990 and 1991, Stoltenberg was State Secretary at the Ministry of the Environment of Norway. He then held the following posts: Minister of Industry and Energy of Norway (1993-96), Minister of Finance (1996-97) and Prime Minister of Norway (2000-01). Since 2002 he has been Leader of the Norwegian Labor Party. From 2005 to 2013, he was Prime Minister of Norway. While Stoltenberg was Prime Minister, Norway’s defence spending increased steadily, 5with the result that Norway is today one of the Allies with the highest per capita defence expenditure. Stoltenberg has also been instrumental in transforming the Norwegian armed forces, through a strong focus on deployable high-end capabilities. Under his leadership, the Norwegian government has contributed Norwegian forces to various NATO operations.

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Stoltenberg frequently called for NATO to focus on security challenges close to Allied territory. Stoltenberg is a strong supporter of enhanced transatlantic cooperation, including better burden-sharing across the Atlantic. He sees NATO and the EU as complementary organizations in terms of securing peace and development in Europe and beyond.

Stoltenberg has had a number of international assignments. These include chairing the UN High-level Panel on System-wide Coherence and the High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing. He was until recently UN Special Envoy on Climate Change.

ANDRUS ANSIP @Ansip_EU Vice President for the Digital Single Market EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Andrus Ansip was appointed Vice President of the European Commission with responsibility for the Digital Single Market in November 2014.

Before moving to , he was a member of both the Estonian and European Parliaments. This followed almost nine years spent in as ’s longest-serving Prime Minister, when Ansip worked with both center-right and center-left parties to lead three di‚ erent coalition governments. During his time as Prime Minister, he also acted as chairman of Estonia’s liberal Reform Party.

Ansip fi rst entered national politics in September 2004 when he became Minister of the Economy. Up to this point, his career was spent in Estonia’s second largest city of where he was born in 1956.

Ansip was Mayor of Tartu for six years after working in banking and business. A chemistry graduate from the city’s university, Ansip is married with three children. 6 MARGRETHE VESTAGER @vestager Commissioner for Competition EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Margrethe Vestager was Danish Minister for Economic A‚ airs and the Interior from October 2011 to September 2014, Minister for Education from December 2000 to November 2001, Minister for Education and Minister for Ecclesiastical A‚ airs from March 1998 to December © Trine Sondergaard 2000, Political leader of the Social Liberal Party from June 2007 to August 2014 and President of the ECOFIN Council from January 2012 to June 2012.

She has been a member of the central board and the executive committee of the Social Liberal Party and of the European A‚ airs Committee since 1989. She was National chairwoman of Social Liberal Party from 1993 to 1997. She was a member of the board of directors of ‘ID-Sparinvest A/S’ from 1996 to 1998 and Chairwoman of the Advisory Board, Institute for Management, Politics, and Philosophy from 2003 to 2008. She was member of the Board of Advisors, Royal Greenland from 2004 to 2007, member of the executive committee of UNICEF Denmark from 2007 to 2011 and member of the Trilateral Commission from 2010 to 2011.

She was the editor of the members’ periodical Radikal Politik (Social-Liberal Policy), from 1990 to 1991. She has written articles and given lectures on politics and political-organisational subjects, including the EU. She also contributed to: Brud (Break), 1994, Værdier i Virkeligheden (Values in Reality), 2000, Opbrud på midten (Departure from the Centre), 2002, and Epostler (Epostles), 2003.

Vestager has a master of science in economics from the University of Copenhagen 1993 and is Matriculated from Varde Upper Secondary School 1986. She is married to Assistant Professor Thomas Jensen MA and they have three children: Maria, Rebecca and Ella.

GUY VERHOFSTADT @GuyVerhofstadt MEP, Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Guy Verhofstadt was born in 1953, and attended school and university in Ghent, where he studied law.

In 1972, he became President of the Liberal Flemish Students’ Union in Ghent and, four years later, was elected as a City Councillor there. Keen to follow his interest in national politics, Verhofstadt went on to take a number of high profi le posts including Political Secretary to Willy De Clercq, National President of the and Progress (PVV), an MP in the House of Representatives, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Budget, a Senator, and National President of the PVV and National President of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD).

In July 1999, he became Prime Minister of Belgium, heading three separate governments over the course of nearly ten years. 7

In June 2009, Verhofstadt was elected to the European Parliament where he pursued his interests in European politics after winning the unanimous support of the ALDE Group in their leadership contest.

In addition to his duties as a politician, Verhofstadt has written a number of books including The United States of Europe (2006), The New Age of Empires (2008) and Emerging from the Crisis: How Europe can Save the World (2009).

Verhofstadt is married to Dominique Verkinderen. They live in Ghent and have two children, Charlotte and Louis.

MARIETJE SCHAAKE @MarietjeD66 MEP EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Marietje Schaake (www.marietjeschaake.eu) has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dutch Democratic Party (D66) with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) political group since 2009. © Bram Belloni Schaake is the ALDE Coordinator of the International Trade committee (INTA). She is the spokesperson for the ALDE Group on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Schaake additionally serves on the committee on Foreign A‚ airs (AFET), where she focuses on strengthening Europe as a global player. She works on the EU’s neighborhood policy, notably Turkey, and North Africa and the broader Middle East. In the subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) she speaks on human rights and coordinates the monthly human rights resolutions for ALDE. Her work has sought to include digital freedoms in EU foreign policy.

Furthermore, she is a Vice President of the delegation for relations with the United States and a substitute member on the delegation with Iran.

Schaake has pushed for completing Europe’s digital single market and copyright reform. She is strongly committed to an open internet in discussions about internet governance and digital (human) rights.

In addition to her parliamentary work, Schaake is, among other things, member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance and a WEF Young Global Leader in the class of 2014. She serves as Vice President of the supervisory board of Free Press Unlimited. 8 CARL BILDT @carlbildt Former Prime Minister, Former Minister for Foreign A„ airs GOVERNMENT OF SWEDEN

Carl Bildt has served as both Prime Minister (1991-94) and Foreign Minister (2006-14) of Sweden.

During the fi rst period his government initiated major liberal economic reforms, as well as negotiated and signed a membership agreement with the . The reform period in the early and mid-1990s is generally seen as having paved the way for the successful growth decades that followed.

Subsequently, he served in international functions with the EU and (UN), primarily related to the confl icts in the Balkans. He was Co-Chairman of the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia and became the fi rst High Representative in the country. Later, he was the Special Envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the region.

Bildt was an early advocate of the new ICT technologies. In 1994, an email exchange between him and President Clinton was the fi rst between heads of state/governments. After stepping down as leader of the Moderate Party of Sweden in 1999 and leaving Parliament in 2000 he was also engaged in corporate boards in Sweden and the US as well as di‚ erent international think-tanks.

Returning as Foreign Minister of Sweden in 2006, he was seen as one of the most prominent and vocal European foreign ministers during those years. He was one of the initiators of the EU’s Eastern Partnership, and also pushed the EU forward on issues related to the Middle East.

Bildt has also continued to encourage the use of social media in international diplomacy.

FREDERIC MAZZELLA @mazaic Founder and Chief Executive Oˆ cer BLABLACAR

Frédéric Mazzella is the Founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar, the leading European ridesharing community that connects drivers with empty seats and people traveling the same way, so they can share the cost.

Mazzella originally imagined a new transport network, built on people, when he could not get home one Christmas, several years ago. He had no car. The trains were full. The roads, too, were full of people driving alone in their car. It occurred to him that he should try to fi nd a driver going his way and o‚ er to share fuel costs... BlaBlaCar was born. Today, with more than 20 million members worldwide and two million people transported per month, BlaBlaCar is making road travel social, money-saving and more sustainable. Mazzella leads BlaBlaCar’s vision, focusing on the excellence of the product, brand communication and interactions with the ridesharing community.

Mazzella holds an MBA from INSEAD, a Masters of Science in Computer Science from Stanford and a Masters in Physics from ENS Ulm (Normale Sup). Prior to founding BlaBlaCar,9 he worked for three years as a scientifi c researcher at NASA (USA) and NTT (Japan). Mazzella is a regular speaker at international conferences and medias (CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC...) on the theme of sustainable development, entrepreneurship, global marketplaces and building trust in online communities. Mazzella is also an accomplished classical pianist and tweets @mazaic.

MIKE ALLEN @mikeallen Chief White House Correspondent POLITICO

Mike Allen is the Chief White House correspondent for POLITICO.

He comes to us from Time magazine where he was their White House correspondent. Prior to that, Allen spent six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush’s fi rst term, Capitol Hill, campaign fi nance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000. Before turning to national politics, he covered schools and local governments in rural counties outside Fredericksburg, Virginia, for The Free Lance-Star, then wrote about Doug Wilder, Oliver North, Chuck Robb and the Bobbitts for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where he nurtured police sources on overnight ride-alongs through housing projects. Allen also covered Mayor Giuliani, the Connecticut statehouse and the wacky rich of Greenwich for The New York Times.

Before moving to The Times, he did stints in the Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post. Allen grew up in Orange County, California, and has a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.

RALPH BÜCHI @BuechiR President International AXEL SPRINGER

Ralph Büchi has been President International of Axel Springer since 2008 and a member of the Board of the European edition of POLITICO. Ralph Büchi was Co-Owner and CEO of the Swiss publishing group Handelszeitung before becoming CEO of the Supervisory Board of Axel Springer Schweiz AG. He was Member of the Axel Springer SE Executive Board from January 2012 until April 2014. 10 JOHN F. HARRIS @harrispolitico Editor-in-Chief POLITICO

John F. Harris is Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of POLITICO.

Harris was part of the small team that launched the publication in 2007, and in the years since has overseen POLITICO’s growth as one of the country’s dominant news organizations covering national politics and the workings of the federal government in Washington. As of 2013, POLITICO comprises 250 people in its news and business operations.

Prior to launching POLITICO, Harris worked for 21 years as a reporter and editor at The Washington Post. After covering Virginia politics at the start of his career, he joined the Post’s national sta‚ and spent six years covering Bill Clinton’s presidency, from January 1995 through January 2001. His time covering the Clinton White House was the foundation for his book, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, a New York Times best-seller and notable book of the year in 2005.

Harris is seen frequently as a political analyst on such shows as MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” CBS’s “Face the Nation” and PBS’s “Washington Week.” He was named by The Telegraph as one of Washington’s top journalists and by GQ as one of the capital’s most infl uential people.

He is a native of Rochester, New York, and a 1985 graduate of Carleton College, where he serves on the board of trustees. He and his wife, Ann O’Hanlon, live in Alexandria, Virginia, with their three children. MODERATORS 11 PIERRE BRIANÇON @pierrebri Senior Correspondent POLITICO

Prior to joining POLITICO, Pierre Briançon was Reuters Breakingviews’ European editor. He joined Breakingviews.com in 2006 after a three- year stint as Dow Jones Newswires Paris bureau chief.

Previously, he had been: business editor of the French news daily Libération; Moscow, then Washington correspondent for the same newspaper; and deputy editor of L’Expansion.

He is also the author of Messier Story (2002), on the fall of Vivendi’s former chief executive, and Héritiers du désastre (1992) on the collapse of the Soviet Union. His latest book is San Quentin Jazz Band (2008).

CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN @cbudo brown Managing Editor, Europe POLITICO

Carrie Budo‚ Brown is Managing Editor at POLITICO’s European edition.

She began her career in journalism at the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in the summer before her freshman year in college. She worked as an editor at The Daily Targum, the student-run newspaper of Rutgers University, and interned at the Richmond Times Dispatch and The New York Times. She worked as a sta‚ writer at the Hartford Courant and the Philadelphia Inquirer before arriving at POLITICO on the day it launched in 2007.

Between 2009 and 2014, Budo‚ Brown served as POLITICO’s White House correspondent. She has covered the Senate, the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, the 2010 health care overhaul bill, Wall Street reform and various tax cut battles in U.S. Congress.

FLORIAN EDER @fl orianeder Managing Editor, Policy, Europe POLITICO

Florian Eder is POLITICO’s Managing Editor, Policy, overseeing the newsroom’s policy coverage.

Prior to joining POLITICO, Eder was EU correspondent for DIE WELT, covering EU politics and policies from Brussels where he arrived at the peak of the euro crisis in 2011. Eder spent three years in DIE WELT’s Berlin newsroom as an editor and previously worked as Italy correspondent for the Deutschland. 12 RYAN HEATH @PoliticoRyan Senior EU Correspondent POLITICO

Ryan Heath is Senior EU Correspondent at POLITICO.

He began writing for national newspapers in his native Australia in 1999, and is the author of two books including the cult classic Please Just F* O˜ , It’s Our Turn Now, an account of how Baby Boomers are viewed by the Millenial generation.

After working as a speechwriter for the British civil service for seven years, he joined the European Commission spokespersons service in 2011 working for President José Manuel Barroso and Vice President . Heath has been a regular policy commentator on outlets such as BBC, Deutsche Welle and Al Jazeera, and reported from major events such as the in Davos and Eurovision.

MATTHEW KAMINSKI @KaminskiMK Executive Editor, Europe POLITICO

Matthew Kaminski is the Executive Editor of POLITICO’s European edition.

Prior to joining POLITICO, Kaminski was a member of ’s editorial board in New York, where he wrote editorials, opinion columns and features, mainly on international a‚ airs. For the previous 15 years, Kaminski worked as journalist throughout Europe. From 1997 to 2001, he was a roving Brussels-based correspondent for the Journal, focusing on Central Europe, EU politics and NATO and trans-Atlantic security. He joined the Journal’s editorial department in 2002 to write opinion columns and editorials. Based in Paris, he was the editorial page editor of the Journal’s European edition in 2005- 08. The German Marshall Fund in 2004 awarded him a Peter Weitz award for excellence in reporting on European a‚ airs for a series of columns about the EU. He started his career in the former Soviet Union, serving as a Kiev-based correspondent for the Financial Times and The Economist from 1994 to 1997.

Born in 1971 in Poland, Kaminski emigrated to the United States in 1980. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s in international politics from the Centre Européen de Recherches Internationales et Stratégiques in Brussels.

Kaminski lives in Brussels with his wife, Alexandra Geneste, a journalist for Le Monde, and their two children. NOTES 13 NOTES14 NOTES 15 CONTACT16 US Newsroom: Email: [email protected]

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