12/03/2016 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

President Obama appears to think Britain and France don't

Ahead of the British Budget - more gloom about the Eurozone

Plus: Turkey strikes a deal with the European Union

over returning migrants and asylum seekers.

With me is Marc Roche of Le Point and Le Soir,

Stephanie Baker of Bloomberg Market, Mina al Oraibi who is a writer

on Middle East affairs, and Adam Raphael, who is

You can tell when Presidents of the United States are coming

to the end of their political careers.

They start telling the truth in stark terms.

Despite all the tummy tickling from the White House spin machine

about the "special relationship" with Britain, Mr Obama appears

to think Britain and France don't pull their weight, that they depend

upon the Americans to get things done, then boast about their own

successes and complain that it is all Washington's

Yes he is telling the truth. The difficulty with his position is that

America has not been pulling its weight either. None of us have been

pulling our weight. I am kinder to politicians than most of my

colleagues. The reason for this is the electorate is not allowing them

to. The willingness to back military intervention anywhere in the world

now, is less probably than it has been for 50, 100 years. There is a

real dissatisfaction amongst isolationism in all of these

countries. We share it in Britain. The fact is, we are unwilling even

to deploy 100 SAS in Libya to take on some of these people. We are

unwilling to deploy the SAS in Syria and unwilling to deploy the SAS in

Iraq. We're not willing to commit even professional soldiers, killers.

They were not willing to risk their lives because the politicians feared

a backlash from the electorate. None of us are pulling out weight. I

should say beforehand, congratulations. You are now about

to be given an award by the French government. What have you done to

deserve that? I think that is completely wrong. France, at the

moment, is in Mali, in Syria, and is fighting covertly in Libya. You said

the US is not pulling its weight at all. They use drones, killing more

civilians than terrorists and diplomacy is completely absent. I

think there is a message there for Britain. If Britain quits the EU, it

cannot count on the Russians and will be isolationist and Europe

better stick together. France might replace Britain as the best ally of

the US! One thing we are hearing here is that Obama is Spock. That is

one of his nicknames in the Foreign Office he was cool, rational, but

not really engaged or showing real leadership. Right. That is what

worries him, a history will not treat him kindly. Even though he has

some really great foreign policy successes under his belt. He is the

president who tracked down a salad bin la done. He has announced the

closing of Lantana Row Bay. Osama bin -- Osama bin Laden. The decision

to give this extraordinary interview, ten months to go,

undiplomatic in many respects, it shows he is really worried about his

legacy, he will be seen as the president who allowed the Middle

East to go up in flames. He underestimated the threat from Syria

and Isis. He is really worried that history will not treat him kindly.

Even his accusation that the Europeans were free riders, as he

called them, is a kind of way of passing the buck about deflecting

criticism for the Mac of leadership shown in the foreign policy. One

thing I heard from the former Clinton official when the banner was

elected. He said he realised this president had been dealt the worst

hand of any president in a long while. With all the problems he has

had to deal with. You have to look where he is started, if you're going

to judge where he has got to. He started with an incredible amount of

goodwill. Just not being George Bush gave him an opportunity to change

the dynamic. If you look at the Middle East, yes, you was dealt a

bad hand. What did the people in the region say? They had to deal with an

American presidency under George Bush who thought with the invasion

of Iraq to begin with have a domino effect. President Obama said, I am

going to get out of Iraq. Quite a lot of the criticism he is handing

out is unfair and hold a lot more of the blame at this point when we look

at the Middle East. First of all, having a policy of no action is a

means of being -- as a means of being guilt free is not right. Hear

a lot of people from Washington saying, we intervened in Libya, look

at the mess. We did not intervene in Syria, look at the mess. It is the

same thing. How can a superpower go ahead with this kind of foreign

policy? It is crazy. The Europeans do not realise how much strength

they have. The UK almost went into a defeatist mode of, there is nothing

we can do. The French have it absolutely right, doing more and are

involved. The idea of either intervening militarily and invading

countries or doing nothing, it is crazy. The weakness of President

Obama in my point of view is not building on relationships and

strengths that US has in the region rather than saying there are too

many problems, let's work on the deal. What is slightly undercover

but is not under covered by the New York Times, the Gulf countries are

also much worse will do they expect us to do things and tell us to do

things privately and they are never there when we do things and get

blamed. When you look at the fight against terrorism, you have had

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and others going full force and dragging

the US into taking action against Isis. That is much earlier than

Washington wanted. That is also unfair. The problem for President

Obama is that Saudi Arabia should share the region with Iran. They do

not want to be split between Iran and Saudi Arabia. That is the

argument. You can see, going back to your point about why there is not

intervention, there is no appetite for intervention. Out of the blue

this week, a voter, let's say, a bloke came up to meet industry and

set me realise what a mess we are in. We have messed up the Middle

East and now we're missing up Europe as a spill-over for ten, 15 years of

failed policy that this was an ordinary bloke in the street. That

is the way many people think. I agree with that. Whether criticisms

from Obama are justified is over Libya. The disintegration over that

country, all of us in the West have a responsibility, not just the

United States. It is easy to lean on the United States all the time.

There is not the willingness in this country, or in France, despite what

my great friend who we enjoyed disagreeing with each other says.

There is not the appetite or indeed the understanding that we have a

responsibility. When you replace unlike Gadhafi you cannot allow the

whole country to disintegrate. It would not have required huge

resources but would have involved some risks. These Western countries

are prepare to take these risks at the moment. He suggested that David

Cameron became distracted. That is inevitable that politicians will

think about the next big thing to talk about. And that is the EU

referendum. The next big thing for Cameron was the referendum and for

President Francois Hollande was getting re-elected. After the

victory, they just forgot about Libya. Also Nicolas Sarkozy then.

Francois Hollande said it was his mess. They had a lot on their plate

at that moment. You might expect the US to step up and provide more

leadership when Europe is legitimately distracted.

From the leadership of China to the European Central Bank

to Britain's Governor and former Governor of the Bank of England one

word sums up the view of the world economy: Gloom.

You listen to these people. You think it might be a good idea to go

away for a year and hibernate. Obviously it is slowing down. The

focus is really on China. We have some worrying statements this week.

The Chinese premier is targeting growth of 6.5%, which a lot of

people think is unrealistic. The highest deficit in 35 years. Chinese

exports are collapsing. They dropped at their fastest rate since 2009.

That has prompted the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, to

come out and say interest rates might go down instead of going up.

It also prompted extraordinary action we saw from the European

Central Bank this week with trying to figure out how to stimulate the

Eurozone economy. You we saw the seesaw reaction to that that people

are really worried that now Draghi's box is empty. He has said he can't

see how to cut interest rates anymore. We are seeing a failure of

central bank policies to really get out of this hole. The problem is

liquid accrued has not -- liquidity has not come through to the real

economy. The real economy has not been gaining. Why? Demand is very

low and people of first members. They do not consume. There is no

inflation. Ageing population and so forth and so on. We are now in a

situation where the box is empty. And so the only way to go back to

the basics and what is that? Spend, spend, spend. Go on deficit even

further to finance education, infrastructure, and especially

retraining of the blue-collar workers and white-collar workers.

You sound like John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor. He said the same

sort of thing this week. Absolutely. It is great. We have to relaunch the

economy. Austerities has been a disaster. The American economy is

growing strongly. The British economy is going well. Obviously the

oil price hangs over everything and has been quite destabilising. You

know, markets boom and bust. If you judge gloom by the way the share

market are going, the real world is so different from that. I think you

have to look at the real world. Chinese economy, only 6%! If you

believe that... There is a slowdown. Life is never stable. If you want a

stable life that you would be gloomy. There are various, big

factor is leading the world economy in various directions. People are

worried, particularly people who live in stock markets, they go up

and they go down. I am an optimist. When you look at the sort of things

that are going on in this world, with the development of technology.

The idea is somehow that the computer age is finished is just

beginning. There will be huge improvements in productivity and

technology. Of course, of course. These people will be employed in

other ways. If you think, a filing clerk in the 18th-century spent his

days doing numbers one and two and three, boring as hell. Now they can

be more productively employed. If you fear change, you will be gloomy.

The Chinese economy has powered the global economy for years. You are

seeing Russia and Brazil in recession. They are two other major

economies that have helped to power the global economy. Africa is

suffering due to a collapse in commodity prices. It is not just

spooked markets reacting to what the tiny 's government is saying. That

is the nature of human psychology. Of course, these markets are

suffering. Of course, people feel gloomy. Long-term, the world is in a

terrible place. I do not believe it for one moment. I would prefer the

sunny side of the room. Ayew part of the Sunnyside of the room? I am in

between. On a good London day, the Sun comes out and it rains again.

Even here in the UK, gross now has been turned back a few points down

on what we expected. The anticipated growth would be 2.5% and now we are

saying 2.3%. We're looking at two percentage points but they are

significant. Towards the end of last year, there was more optimism and

almost going ahead of ourselves, whether it was about interest rates

or growth. The reality is, now, the toll of the slowing down in Chinese

economy and will prices, it is beginning to take its toll. It was

takes a few months to kick in and we see the reaction to that. At the

moment expectation is oil prices will stabilise. We still have to see

if that stability last longer. And the Eurozone is not dead. It is not

doing that badly. Germany is doing quite well. A bit of optimism.

Deflation, as we see with Japan, it is a big thing. The European Central

Bank and the countries are trying to do something. I would like to come

back to this gloom. The story of the next year or two could be

effectively competitive devaluation is and China exporting deflation, to

put it in simple terms. The Eurozone is actually in a very tricky

position and there are no more guns to blaze for Mario M Draghi. That is

a serious concern. He denied this. He is forecasting it will continue

to drop. If you look at Japan, they are still battling. It is hard to

get out of that spiral downwards. Right. We had the German economy

which is helping us to go forwards. We will just leave that there.

Finally, one or two viewers have tweeted that they are fed up hearing

So, with apologies to them, we are returning once more

to the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century and the deal

struck between Turkey and the European Union to shuttle

The UN questioned its legality. It is the work ability of it as well.

How would you do this? Legality, I think it is illegal. People arrived

and claim asylum and then will be deported back to Turkey. For every

Syrian sent back to Greece through Turkey, another Syrian will be

picked up and sent to Europe. He gets to choose who goes where? These

are people, not cattle. You put one person on a ship and another on a

track. On the subject of legality, there are a lot of questions. The

text gets 6 billion euros in addition to these free travel for

citizens. -- the Turks. How does that have anything to do with the

worst humanitarian crisis? The idea that Europe thinks it can put up a

firewall between this humanitarian crisis and the continent by paying

off the Turks is really very worrying. That is how it comes

across. The real way you can sort this is by having the UNHCR system

of resettlement functioning properly. Saying we will take this

many refugees and the case is being processed in Turkey, rather than in

Greece. That is what Angela Merkel and others are thinking about when

they came up with the proposal. That is who you do not have everyone

trying to process it themselves. We saw that when the Canadians decided

they would take 25,000 refugees from Syria, they sent more immigration

workers and officers to Beirut but actually work from Lebanon. Also

some in Jordan. They were able to speed up the processes and do it

legally, have on planes and see them through. It is possible. This is not

the real world. It is messy, arguably dishonourable in some ways,

possibly illegal. Actually it is the real world for of these European

countries are faced by a huge crisis. If they do not deal with it

in this way, there will be very, very adverse political development

in all of these countries. Not just in Germany but also in this country

and in France and the need to deal with the migrant crisis. Your

solution will not work. It is a messy solution that it has

possibilities. A whole series of things can go wrong. We need to go

back and look at the UN resolutions and conventions which control

migration and indeed giving succour to people who are fleeing war and

persecution. There is a huge difference and that is recognised

between economic migrants and people who are fleeing persecution. I would

go further. I think we need to re-examine fundamentally what is

going wrong. Every society has an obligation to protect people who are

in danger of their lives. That protection does not have to extend

over a lifetime. It can be during the period when these lives are

being threatened. Permanent asylum need not be granted. That is a

little clique sellable in Europe. The current situation is not. You

have to either live in the real world or not. It is about the

dictatorship killing the freedom of the press. They are blackmailing

Europe and fostering... We have some morals. Europe is based on human

rights protection on freedom and we can deal with that regime. It is a

member of Nato. A member of Nato but it is immoral, this deal. The

country is blackmailing us that the only solution is going through the

UN. They separate the refugees. The problem is that America, Canada,

Australia and the Gulf states are doing nothing, absolutely nothing.

25,000 for Canada is shameful. In America, they are doing nothing.

What we have to do is share the burden. This is the real world.

People have been talking about lack of leadership. Angela Merkel showed

leadership with this. We have an alternative, a very right wing

anti-immigration party. Very important collections for Angela

Merkel. That is the political reality. The political reality is

lots of people in Europe feel grief at a time when the economy is not

doing well. There are 1.2 million people coming in. They are there to

stay. The problem is, we have to stop this. It will be 1.2 million

this year, maybe 2 million the next year. It is not a problem for

Europe, it is a problem for the world and the US should help. And

the UK. What has the UK done? I am not going to apologise for the UK.

The fact is, we have got to... I think and luck or has done this. She

has said it is an impossible problem and has done it at source. -- Angela

Merkel has done this. We live in the real world with the whole question

of refugees. That means we would support Hitler. It is immoral. In

Macedonia and other places, it is immoral. We have allowed an immoral

situation. At least the EU and Turkey are talking and sitting down

and trying to figure out a way. It is an imperfect deal, absolutely.

Turkey needs money to deal with it. They are trying to figure out a way

to stop the trade of people across the Aegean Sea. There are a lot of

problems with that. They are looking at ways to stop it. Ultimately, this

comes back to Syria. We need to figure out how to stop the flow of

refugees from Syria. It is not just Syria, it is Iraq, Afghanistan. As

we see more and more climate change problems, close of migration

refugees will increase. As we see people having to move, not only

fleeing war but fleeing the realities of climate change in the

next decade or two or three, how will we deal with this? It is not

just climate change. I accept it is part of that. They look on

televisions and mobile phones and the livestock in the West. If I were

in North Africa I would want to get there. -- the lifestyle. We have to

deal with a real situation does involve tough choices. We cannot

allow the present chaos to continue. That is really causing hardship. You

cannot sign an agreement with a state that is blackmailing you. Of

course it is blackmailing. There are a million Syrian refugees alone. You

are looking at countries like Lebanon. More than a quarter of its

people are Syrian refugees. The region is dealing with the crisis at

the front. Labour are saying, -- they are saying we cannot contain

this. This is the Achilles heel, the resettlement policy. You have the

Hungarian Prime Minister refusing to take anymore and resistance from

other East European countries that say no, we do not want to stand up

to this. Angela Merkel can strike this deal. Where they go? They do

not want to go in France. It has a deficit and they take more. They all

want to come to England. That's it for Dateline

London for this week. Thanks for all your

tweets @gavinesler. We're back next week

at the same time. Hallow. We have quite a change in

the weather coming up over the next couple of days. An area of high

pressure will build across the country. That will bring mainly dry

conditions through the weekend with sunny spells breaking throughput

that said, we