 Thank you very much dear chair minister Nora. It's a great ladies and gentlemen It's a great pleasure for me to be here today back on the Emerald Island and to talk about a subject which probably as Nora has already said Has been occupying you most next to the Brexit To which I will not say anything today because basically It is for us at the moment business as usual We are a union of 28 member states and the rights and obligations continue to exist And anything else we will have to see so I've been asked today to talk to you about Migration and the European Union Policy in the area of migration and I start off and this has a read across to what I was just saying First of all by saying that when we talk about migration in the European Union We talk about third country Nationals not EU Nationals We talk about third country Nationals arriving in the European Union and dealing with these third country Nationals and Migration as we all know is one of the challenges of Globalization if you look at the latest figures Published by UNHCR 65 million Who are at the moment either refugees and or internally displaced people in the world and We are witnessing some of that obviously also in Europe When President Juncker campaigned to become president of the European Commission He actually gave a very Forward-looking speech in May 2014 Where he in Malta where he said one of my major issues that I will try and Confond when I if I were to become Commission president will be migration Something which I can say to you we have over the last years to a certain extent Not dare to touch because it was such a hot potato Whereas he actually campaigned on it and it was one of his ten Policy subject areas where he thought the Commission should engage While stopping a lot of other issues, so you know the overall saying Big on big things and small on small things President Juncker clearly thought migration was a big thing and when he became Commission president This was part of the Agenda that he put forward also when he was elected by the European Parliament And you find this also in the strategic agenda of the European Council migration has moved on the top of the issue of The Commission I Have only since two years now had the responsibility of dealing with these issues and when I took over It was still done in the old Commission People were saying to me Look here. You're getting a nice job. This is not going to be that Politically relevant you can before retirement do a bit of international negotiations and otherwise live Through a nice few years In a cozy job, I can tell you I Have been witnessing in the last 24 months the perfect storm Where in reality a lot of our policies were blown away way Where I had to Realize that we had been building together as a European Union villages of pot Yemkin agencies Which perhaps could work in fair weather conditions, but which were clearly not built to master the type of policies that or politicians But also our citizens were asking from us and this became very clear already towards the end of the year of 2014 and clearly when things evolved in 2015 We were we had a first discussion on the European migration agenda at the level of the college in January of 2015 We defined the different pillars On which we were going to work ever is a very strong focus on legal migration at the time demography illegal migration and then the horrible Accident of the ship in the central Mediterranean Happened with 900 people drowning in April. I remember it was 19th I think 18th or 19th of April of 2015 Where we then Suddenly everybody turned around and said what is Europe doing in terms of letting these people down and so at the beginning the major emphasis and the major focus of Public opinion But also of our politicians was on how do we manage to save lives and This was the major issue Which to a certain extent we had to tackle with In April we had a European Council. We had the tripling of the the money is available we had the ships mobilized and also island is contributing with Ship called. I don't know how to pronounce it. Leo was in hosin Which has just recently saved over 300 migrants, so This was the first focus but then All the people saved in the central Mediterranean route What happens with them? They're not taking back to Libya They are taking back To one of our member states In this case most of the time Italy not Malta Lampedusa and other places and Then the overall question was very quickly asked should all these people be taken care of By the one member state that has actually given them haven and which is why we then worked through a number of emergency measures Which we proposed in May And later and I will go into them in little detail and at the same time We proposed a European my agenda on migration which was actually structured Along four pillars And I'll say a little bit about these pillars to you But I think the first thing to understand about a European agenda on migration is You cannot run a European agenda on migration just from an inward-looking perspective If you want to deal with migration You have to start with a country of origin You have to look at policies in terms of country of transit whether they're outside the European Union or inside the European Union and then you also have to look at the policies in as much as the country of Then destination is is concerned and so a lot of things I will be saying now You always have to keep in mind that you know you can cut it this way, but at the same time you also have to think about Make the whole transversal aspect the four pillars in the European agenda on migration I I Basically the client declined them along Sort of headline messages Protect protect Two pillars one pillar protect second pillar protect the third pillar is manage and cooperate and The fourth pillar is attract Now go into these different Pillars the first pillar protect is the protection of those who are in need of protection asylum and Overall international protection subsidiary protection Where we have to a certain extent and I'm sorry to say this in Dublin because System has been labeled the Dublin system. We have Conceived a system which never worked and was never applied Because it was a system which to a certain extent Was built on the principle that the country the first country of arrival Would be the country which would actually be processing asylum requests Yes, it worked to a certain extent But then at the same time there was also the idea that those people who would move on would be sent back to the country or first country of arrival This was considered to be too cumbersome to complicate it never really implemented and to a certain extent We have gone through different permutations and are now at a version Mark X not to say the four words Dublin four Well, basically We say we have to rework completely or European refugee protection asylum system Which starts off by saying, okay, well, let's keep let's preserve the good idea of Dublin which is First country should deal with asylum process says but When a certain threshold is reached we have proposed hundred and fifty percent So every asylum seeker in the European Union would actually be record would actually be registered When a certain threshold and I know that I'm talking here about a general proposal an island can opt in To this or not. This is a decision which Will be taken later if ever we we end up in terms of the negotiations But if if if you get to the threshold of hundred and fifty percent you would actually Then be able to trigger the help of the other member states so that's the new Dublin system which has to go hand in hand with Different rules on asylum procedures So we are proposing in next ten days and not asylum procedures regulation Different rules in as much as reception conditions are concerned So we will be proposing a directive a rework of the reception conditions directive Different rules in as much as qualifications are concerned So we will be proposing a qualifications regulation and Different rules in as much as registration and we have already produced Proposal on a new Euroduck system, which is the fingerprinting system for asylum seekers and a totally new rule for what is at the moment called the asylum Support agency in Malta and which will be called the EU asylum agency Which will take a larger role in terms also being able to mobilize capacities for what we would call joint processing Just take the example of the Greek asylum system, which basically doesn't have enough people to process Asylum requests in Greece. So we would be able to mobilize On a European Union level Experts to help the Greek authorities. So that's the first pillar and I have only 20 minutes So I'll be more quick on the other ones second pillar protect in terms of our external frontiers So a shared responsibility for managing our external frontiers with a total rework of What's you know under the title Frontex agency? Which will basically Have different operations But also will be staffed with about 1,000 people will have a reserve of European border guard officers for different functions of another 1,500 people which can be mobilized a kind of stress test Approach to external border guarding which would be the agency actually looking at whether a member states is capable of Guarding its own borders if that's the case fine Nothing nothing needs doing, but if it's not the case the agency would make recommendations and then a complicated process in terms of Deciding Whether then certain things need doing Which can go in the end again this doesn't concern Ireland To the situation where a member states refuses to deploy other border guard officers On its external territory, but would then potentially no longer be part of the Schengen zone so this is an agreement which we have just reached a few days ago in negotiations with Between council and the European Parliament again I hasten to add this is more a general description But this is the the second pillar the third pillar Cooperate and manage Is clearly the perhaps on the on the second pillar I need to say two words again about the hotspots In reality The European Commission as is its normal role Has proposed legislation was providing money Suddenly we were sucked in the last 12 months into actually trying to mobilize operations You know in terms of helping member states on the ground how to deal with migratory flows The setting up of hotspots Something which you know essentially should be member states Business, but in the end we we have been Been pushed into being there because there was always the question. What is Europe doing? What is Europe doing? And so both on the Greek islands, but also in Italy. We've set up hotspots teams also with second-line security defense in terms of doing vetting and as much as Potential infiltration by terrorists are concerned all these things Need to be organized and we were pushed into Something which I as a sort of Constitutional lawyer who believes in the subsidiarity principle would would love to have avoided but at the same time there was was a Very strong political push on that the third pillar manage and cooperate. This is essentially Return operations. It is essentially cooperating with third countries. It is read mission agreements It is dealing with irregular migration Because if we want to have the capacity to protect Those people who are really in need of protection. We also need to be able to Very quickly process those who should be coming to the European Union if they want to come to the European Union through legal routes of migration and not through irregular migration and So this is the third pillar the fourth pillar attract Counter-side to the return operations is building up legal migration We have revised the blue card scheme Just a few weeks ago. We put a new proposal on the table Which gives a much more common approach to attracting skilled labor to the European Union We are reworking the whole a key So all the legislative basis on the European Union level in a refit program in order to see What can be should be done and in full respect of the Capacity of each member state to decide who and how many people should be coming I Still think that at some stage it would be good to have a system in place in Europe That people talk about as they talk about the Australian or the Canadian system The Canadian system. I was just in Canada a few days ago Is one which also allows the provinces actually to sit exactly the type of numbers they want to attract So we would to certainly soon be trying to create a kind of pool a European pool also for legal migration a second part of legal migration, which is linked to the protection of refugees is Resettlement which is where we actually try and Attract Or give not attract but give places to those in need of protection so that they do not actually Have to try these rather perilous journey Through the Mediterranean By providing additional places in terms of resettlement in the European Union We have in the last year Decided that some hundred sixty thousand places should be available for relocation some twenty thousand only for Resettlement we're using some of the relocation places now for the resettlement scheme with with Turkey the 54,000 which were reserved for Hungary We would be using in the context of of the resettlement scheme with Turkey chair. I've been talking too long I'm at about the one-third of what I was going to say But I think it'll be much more interesting that we have questions and then I will answer them and Bring the rest of the stuff in there. Thank you very much for your