Q Sonja Sagmeister from a little country, Austria, from Austrian Television. Mr. President, you said you came here to learn and to listen. So a quite personal question -- what did you learn from your personal talk with the European leaders? And did this change in a certain way your views on Europe and its politics?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: ItÂ’s an interesting question. I had already formed relationships with many of them. Some of them I had met when I traveled through Europe before my election. Some of them I had met because they came to Washington after the election. This is the first time IÂ’ve been in a forum with so many of them at the same time.
It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. ThereÂ’s a lot of -- I donÂ’t know what the term is in Austrian -- wheeling and dealing -- and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics. |