 Good afternoon and welcome to everyone. It's a great pleasure for me to welcome the Deputy Minister for European Affairs of Estonia, Mati Massikas, who is on a tour of a number of European capitals currently, including our own, and he has had, and I think we'll continue to have this afternoon discussions with the Department of Foreign Affairs and its leadership on European Affairs. So very welcome to dubbing in that context, but we're very pleased that you've had time to come to the Institute of International European Affairs to update us on Estonia's view of the developments currently in the Union, and particularly the ones pending in 2019, not least in the area of the future financing of the Union, and also to some extent the Institution Affairs of the Union we've touched in some of the preliminary discussion on the important year that it is in terms of the European Parliament elections and the way in which they will be profiled and organized with the candidate idea and so on. In speaking to these topics, Deputy Minister Massikas brings an enormous amount of knowledge and experience to bear. He's had a long career in the Foreign Affairs area 25 years. He has been Deputy Minister for EU Affairs in Estonia since 2016, and as such, the Minister heads up the Inter-Ministerial Task Force on Brexit, where I'm sure that his discussions in our own ministry, what we've already discussed here today, will have filled him in on the very predominant concern here about that particular aspect of the development of the Union and indeed of the financial perspectives given the whole that British exit from the Union will leave in the budget. He's also the coordinator of the first Estonian presidency of the Council of Ministers, and in that regard I think we should offer our congratulations on such a successful Estonian presidency in such areas as the digital, obviously, the Italian summit, which I think brought a political dimension to bear on the sometimes very technical areas of creating and consolidating the digital signal, but also areas like climate change, post-it workers, and I think to fisheries which always comes round at the end of the year, more in the Corridor one side than the Corridor two side, but still an achievement of the presidency. And of course your time in Brussels as the permanent representative to the Union from 2011 to 2016 is obviously particularly valuable in informing the insights which you will be able to give us in looking forward now to the MFF and other issues pending in 2019. Can I ask you as always to turn your phones either off or to silent before we begin? The Deputy Minister will speak for about 15 or 20 minutes. That part of the exchanges will be on the record. And there will be time for some question and answer afterwards to which the Chatham House rules of being off the record will apply. And could I just add a word of thanks to Ambassador Carolson for helping us to put this event together. And one of a series of events here involving Estonia, particularly the ones during the presidency, which are in an excellent way complementary to the growing and widening relationship between Estonia and Ireland within the European Union. So the floor is yours, Deputy Minister. Thank you very much Ambassador, thanks to you all for showing up. It's a great honour for me to be here in speaking capacity. I was brought twice to this institute by two previously, by two outstanding Irish diplomats. First in 2006 by the late Dermot Gellager, who was the Secretary General of the Ministry. And then for the second time in 2013 by Rory Montgomery, when we had our corrupt trip under Irish prisoners, I never dared to think that I'd be invited to speak myself. So thanks for this opportunity. The EU, as we all know, has been developed, has been developing in Christ, in various Christs. And repeatedly, while experiencing those crises, or the reason, Tia, as myself in Brussels, I was thinking about the previous crisis and people, leaders and diplomats, who solved the previous crisis and thought, but did they, while managing those crises, did they think that it's a good chance to manage this crisis and then to develop the EU further? Or did they think, oh my God, this whole thing will fall apart? I must say, I quite often, during the Eurasian migration crisis or the Ukraine crisis, thought, oh my God, how will we manage this, will this whole thing fall apart? So the EU, as it is today, is shaped by the influence of a pre-big crisis. First, the Eurasian crisis that showed us that some things that we thought would be fundamental to stay there, like a common currency, is not forgiven, it's vulnerable, it's imperfect. Then the migration crisis revealed that the EU is not equipped for managing an operational crisis. The EU still pretty much a machinery of getting legislation adopted and then overseeing and everything. But the EU does not have a headquarters, the EU does not have a general, I would say. Tomorrow a thousand border guards to this area, the day after tomorrow, 10,000 blankets to that refugee camp and so on. And the EU is facing, and may face, even more acute crisis, operational crisis than the migration crisis was. And this is a deficiency that we still have. And third, Brexit, that proved the impossible, that was thought impossible. Because a member state can leave the EU, the EU integration is reversible, it cannot, in certain circumstances, be reversible. And of course, Brexit change is quite a few balances within the EU. None of these free crises are completely solved in Brexit as you well know in this country, it's underway. And this crisis still affects many, many things that the EU needs to use. The atmosphere and circumstances that the EU is operating. On Eurozone, there have always been still two schools. The first school saying, well, we did manage, didn't we, so no need for major changes in the Eurozone architecture. And the second school saying, we barely survived. We need to prepare ourselves for the next crisis. Some changes need to be done. The former school is obviously, quite obviously, winning. There has been some talks and even some letters about nice to have, the need to have in the Eurozone reform. For me, the completion of the banking union is a need to have. That's a political promise that we gave back in 2012. It's not completed. There are elements that are missing. And the purpose of the banking union was to ease, to break the vicious link between banks and sovereigns. And this work is badly underway. Only the next Eurozone crisis, if and when it will come, will show which school was right. And I'm not sure I want to find this out at that acute. On migration, yes, the EU has bought ourselves some time with the Turkish arrangement and some other things like the strengthened EU border and coast guard. And we are still working on the reforming of the common asylum rules. But the migration crisis showed that whereas during the Eurozone crisis all the member states objective were pretty much the same to preserve, to keep the common currency alive. Migration crisis was much more volatile crisis. And member states, you would be having frontline member states, transition countries, destination countries, countries like my own where the crisis was felt because there was crisis in Brussels. And consequently the member states' interests were different and consequently the mutual understanding and atmosphere saw it badly. And this issue of solidarity was brought upon in a quite different way than previously and it affects the atmosphere and the mood in the EU among member states even today. And it will have its implications also on discussions on the next multi-annual budget of the EU. On Brexit I don't, here in Dublin I don't need to explain how bad the underway is this process. These crisis have as I said so at the mood in the EU, not only I don't mean the governments, the diplomats in Brussels also has had the direct effect on the public opinions. I mean for decades EU has by and large meant positive good things for people. Money, investments, support for farmers, possibilities to work abroad, study and everything. Suddenly with the Eurozone crisis in some member states the EU meant laying off people, cutting wages, cutting pensions, very unpopular privatisation and so on. And thus it has, it did have a big impact on public opinion and thus on the legitimacy of support for the EU and the legitimacy of the EU. Yes after the Brexit vote in all 27 member states the support for the EU, public support for the EU increased but I don't want to answer to guess whether it was out of love or out of fear. This means, this wobbling of support to the EU and the somewhat soured atmosphere means that for the next couple of years I don't see new big integration steps that would be in the past. New big integration steps or institutional changes would take treaty change that next time round would probably mean referendum more than in one member state and since the outbreak of the Eurozone crisis the heads of state and government in the European Council have not been willing to take this risk and to my mind quite right. At the same time, while managing this crisis big integration steps were taken under the economic governance system member states, Eurozone member states are now obliged to present the draft national budgets to the European Commission even before they pass it to their own parliament. If you look, if you read carefully the Para 19 of the European border and coast art regulation you may find issues there where men and women in uniform on the territory of a sovereign country in some circumstances but we have not been having a big political loud political discussion about these things the things that needed to be done and on that one the EU has been has been proven to be quite resilient. The EU, if there's a real crisis the EU needs, it gets its act together and does things but not in a way that we used to in the previously with treaty changes, conventions and all the political talk around this. So in certain paradoxical way integration has happened and is happening not in rhetoric but by necessity in the field of single market integration is happening even under its own way so massive rules that need to be updated anyway so integration is happening data protection regulation is a good case in point the previous one dated 1995 no digital element there now you have a new general directive in place. This paradoxical situation of course carries big political risks and we have seen, not least in the UK we have seen the risks that are there if things, EU related things in that context are not being discussed openly that carries huge political risks so the political elites, the political leaderships in all member states find the courage to explain the importance of EU membership, its positive aspects and they need to do it with the same conviction or passion as the opponents do so we all need to have the courage to make the positive case for the EU in these circumstances, in this overall to my mind there are four big areas where the EU has to intellectually and politically to have answers to make up its mind to choose its path the first is the choice between being open and being protectionist trade policy is a case in point each and every next trade agreement is harder to push through in the EU but it would be I think intellectually and politically not fully possible to be protectionist outside and very integrationist, very open inside let's protect our people from the impacts of foreign trade but let's tear down all the barriers in the single market unfortunately if you need to protect things you protect them 360 degrees and that's in the times that single market badly needs to be developed especially in the field of services services make up 70% of the EU economy but only 20% of cross-border trade within the EU and not many people, not many governments are pushing through the liberalizing services within the single market and that's a big that's a huge pity but it's also no coincidence unfortunately second area is the east-west divide that is again visible in the EU we are under time constraints I recommend you all reading Ivan Krestev's the Bulgarian think tanker's latest book from last year after Europe here he eloquently lists the reasons why countries in the eastern Europe have sometimes some aspects different attitudes, different policies towards immigration than the counterparts in the western Europe but here today when I speak of the issues between the eastern and western part of our union it's about the balance between social Europe and between food and developing the single market we are in this phase that social Europe issues are more prominently there but to counterbalance that with food and opening up possibilities to compete on a harmonized market is not true the Estonian presidency as you noticed did duly its part under the social Europe files we closed the social proclamation social rights proclamation was adopted and the posted workers directive was adopted but somehow had this feeling that in this equation things are a bit unbalanced the east west constellation is also very visible in the next area of concern the EU was created and the EU has long been successful in dealing with the issues between its member states the EU was created so that European countries would not go to war against each other anymore and the European peace price from 2012 is a proof of our success since the eurozone crisis at the latest the EU has to deal more and more with the issues inside member states during the eurozone crisis we learned about each other domestic politics much more than we previously and probably much more that we wanted some developments in some member states or a threat of these developments in other member states has caused quite a concern in others and the intense wide media coverage helps here, helps this as well I could not have thought that elections in a country sized Hungary previous elections would have gotten previously such a large media coverage than they did this time around it was all over the European in European media it used to be different back then the launch or by the European commission of the article 7 procedure on the state of the rule of law in Poland has brought back some issues of the impact of the 15 launch I feel that very clear has the EU become too diverse we know our own Estonian experience that in building up democracy in making democracy function traditions matter traditions come with time anyway the EU will probably have to deal with issues inside member states more broadly than just over side of the common rules in the near future and again the EU is not well equipped for that to bring up issues in a club it's a club of members distinguished members that all have joined voluntarily and have pooled some sovereignty in this kind of club 28 at the table it's extremely difficult to start to talk of one member's possible shortcomings but ways need to be found and this will be, to me this will be the litmus test for the union of ours for the next couple of years and yes these issues are already affecting the talks about the next EU budget it has very concrete particular implications it needs to be done in a realistic way and in a sensible way Brussels, the EU institutions cannot risk breathing even more tension in particular the European Commission and the European Parliament have to listen to the national concerns with a very sensitive air and fourthly and finally is the global damage I prefer to call the choice between short term and long term approach in the EU's foreign policy for me the only way to protect EU's achievements is to be a real global player because many things that we have achieved are under global influence from global actors or trends but indeed if you don't have gunboats the success of your foreign policy is measured against how do you manage the relations with your neighbours I mean quite often you hear in Brussels we need to face China I think those big players on the global scene who assess EU's foreign policy will first look of course trade policy and trade agreements they will first look on how we are stabilising our neighbourhood how we are using and projecting our soft power because we haven't any hard power really as a union our enlargement policy is probably not working precisely as it should be we are massively financing we are massively transferring money to enlargement countries not in all of them we get the return in terms of EU related reforms and the situation is even worse with the neighbourhood policy countries in particular in the eastern neighbourhood or in the eastern partnership countries there are European states who are wanting and striving to reform the societies according to the European model they want to become European the EU has already won in terms of soft power in most of the eastern partnership countries the EU's model is attractive EU soft power has already won and I mean if and we should make a better use of this of this attraction of ours in order to project stability stabilise our neighbourhood the EU will only become a real foreign policy player until we get these fundamentals right so the EU will become fit to face the challenges of our time only when we have responses between being open and protectionist rebalancing the social pillar with deepening of the single market in particular in the field of services easing the tensions between member states wealthy and less wealthy with different lengths of democratic experience find ways on how to ensure following of the common values and rules in a way that preserves the integrity of our EU and finally when we have a long term view on global foreign policy of the EU thank you