Video: https://youtu.be/4dJjyzwu5Jo
Dear all,
Today is not a usual Council meeting.
We had excellent discussions with not only home affairs but also defence ministers and later this evening with developments ministers on both migration and security issues.
Ensuring stability in our neighbourhood will not only contribute to reducing migration flows but also to diminishing some of the root causes of terrorism.
Our internal and external security policies are closely interlinked. They are in fact a continuum, but are unfortunately often dealt with separately.
Two elements are essential: increasing information sharing between our internal and external work on security, and improving our cooperation with international actors.
The fight against terrorism, and in particular against the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters, is at the centre of both of these two elements.
Information collected in Syria and Iraq is critical to our efforts to combat terrorism inside the EU, to prosecute suspects and to monitor movements of foreign fighters.
This is why we need to improve information sharing between military and law enforcement authorities but also our cooperation with important international partners such as NATO and Interpol, together with our EU Agencies Europol and the European Border and Coast Guard.
And this is also why we need to continue our strong dialogue and collaboration with key partner countries such as the United States.
As you know, yesterday the US Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security was in Brussels for discussions on aviation security and evolving security threats.
The positive news is that we have agreed to urgently start an expert process together, to further assess potential threats, and to discuss our mitigation measures.
All of this is of course with the aim to protect airline passengers but also to avoid as much as possible the disruption to air travel.
Security threats today are volatile and rapidly evolving. The recent cyber-attack is a stark reminder not just of the magnitude of the challenge, but also how such security and criminal threats come in many forms – and how our response has to adapt too.
I therefore very much welcome today's Council conclusions which define the EU's priorities for the fight against serious and organised crime in the future.
Today we also discussed the Dublin reform and solidarity in our asylum policy.
Unfortunately, one year after the Commission made its proposal to improve Dublin, there is still no consensus in the Council.
But the clock is ticking. We need to have a reliable and predictable system which encompasses both solidarity and responsibility, and which doesn't put the burden on just a few the Member States. This would be neither fair nor sustainable.
Of course we need to do our maximum to prevent situations of crisis in the first place – this is also what I mentioned earlier and what our other discussions served for.
But we also need to have effective tools to respond to any possible crisis or emergency situation. We cannot be unprepared for the future.
The presidency has put on the table all the elements to reach an agreement on the management of migratory flows both in times of calm and crisis.
I therefore hope that Member States will find a way to move forward.
Finally, later this evening home affairs and developments ministers will discuss the cross-cutting issues between migration and development.
If we want to better manage migration today, we have to operate where migration starts – and why it starts in the first place.
This is why we need to improve the coordination between migration and developments policies of the EU, and streamline our approach with key countries of origin and transit.
The central message from today's discussions is that all these issues are horizontal, interdependent and interconnected.
I would like to thank the Maltese Presidency for the initiative on today's discussions and for building on the synergies between: migration and security, internal and external, online and offline.
We have to work together on all these issues, with trust and unity because they touch all of us equally.
Thank you.
