Okay, I think we are good to start.

A very warm welcome to our webinar today in which we want to discuss the concept of strategic

interdependence and its pertinence to economic diplomacy and how the EU can and perhaps should

engage in the world trade organization in the future.

Our event today is a little different from our events in which we

typically discuss specific EU laws and strategies. Today we want to examine the

protoscope of economic trends and escalating geopolitical challenges and against this backdrop, we want to explore opportunities for the

EU to shape global trade rules in the future, emphasizing the world's trade organization

and also acknowledge its, I would say, ongoing institutional crisis.

Our event's primary goal is to scrutinize the concept of strategic interdependence,

and to what extent it could serve as a guiding framework for EU trade policy primarily.

But we will also delve into aspirations for EU strategic autonomy, specifically the question

of how to maintain political influence in shaping global trade rules.

When the EU is losing economic gravity, basically,

which is a trend that won't go away in the future.

Strategic interdependence may also assume greater relevance in the ongoing initiatives to rejurinate discussions and negotiations within the

World Trade Organization. And we want to talk about this too today with an inside expert who has a

lot of experience working in the World Trade Organization. That said, I am very happy and also very proud that we have two distinguished expert guests

with us today.

We have Rossi Ignacio Tori Blanca, who is the Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council

on Foreign Relations and the head of ECFR's Madrid office.

And Rossi is the co-offer of a very interesting ECFR paper titled Strategic Indie Independence,

...