 Felly, rwy'n gweithio, yw'n gweithio'r Gweithgwrdd Cymru, ac mae'n gweithio'r gweithgwrdd gyda'r sceicwr, Pethr Sirannu, rwy'n gynghwylio'r gweithgwrdd Cysgrifedig General ac ymgyrchau cyfrifio'r gweithgwrdd Cysgrifedig i'r ysgrifennu ym Mhwyafolol. Felly, rwy'n gweithio'n gweithio'r gweithgwrdd cyfrifoedd yma, I could just ask if people would turn off their mobile phones so that we don't have ringing interrupting our talk. Also, just to say that the address will be on the record. If you don't mind taking questions afterwards, they will of course be off the record. The Chatham House rules no identification of the location or individuals. Either you or anybody else making a comment. So as I say, you're most welcome, Pedro. You're coming at a very interesting time for us here, both in the overall EU scenario, but also in particular in the area that you're looking after. Just to go over Pedro's background, he is a Spanish diplomat. I was going to say was, but you'll never leave. No, I'm still Spanish diplomat. I have my diplomatic passport here, Spanish. You won't give that up easily. Before he entered the European Union service in 2003, he served in Cuba, Frankfurt, Tanzania, Brussels. That's a good range. And then in 2003, Pedro entered the cabinet of his fellow countryman, Javier Solana, who had a huge influence in this area of foreign policy. Prior to becoming a deputy secretary general of the EEAS in 2015, he was managing director for crisis response operational coordination. He also previously served as principal advisor on external affairs to former president of the European Council, Herman von Rompuy, and also was, interestingly, the first to head the EU delegation in New York after the Lisbon Treaty, which of course changed the representation in EU missions abroad. So as I say, Pedro, you're coming at a very interesting time for us because there's been a lot of activity in this area of CSDP since the launch of the EU global strategy in 2016, and then the high representative presented an ambitious implementation plan. And there's been a number of initiatives launched to deepen defence coordination, PESCO, with which I think we're very familiar. And even in Ireland, we're quite familiar with PESCO, and that's been given a big jump forward with the recent council, decisions to increase the number of projects to 34. Then there's the Coordinated Annual Review, the European Defence Fund, military planning and conduct capability. All of these are designed to enhance the EU's capacity to respond so considerable activity more so, as the high representative says, I think in the last two years rather than in the previous ten. But also I think the civilian area did need, I think, a significant boost. It's been sort of the Cinderella of the CSDP because while the military missions attract more visibility, particularly ones like Athalanta and Sofia, the significant work by the existing ten and some 22 altogether has not been fully appreciated. So the Defence and Foreign Affairs Council on the 19th of November 19th and 20th produced a very significant document in terms of civilian CSDP compact with 22 political commitments to reinforce the EU in this regard and to make it more capable, more effective, more responsive, I suppose you could say. So with all the activities and all that is taking place at the moment, Heather, I give you the floor to explain where we are and in particular where we're going. So the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Mary, a real pleasure to be here with all of you this afternoon. Would you prefer to sit here? No, no, if it's okay, I'd prefer to sit here. I think it makes it more cozy and more convivial, I think. So a real pleasure. I think it's a good moment to come at the end of the year. End of the year is always a moment for reflection and what has happened. Not only the end of the year, it's also the ending of the commission mandate. We will have elections next year. The whole leadership of the European Union will be renewed. Also momentus for the European Union because one of our member states will be leaving. First time a member state leaves the European Union and it's not just any member state, it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So yes, quite a country. So all this really pushes I think all of us earlier into the festive mood of reflections and what is happening, where are we going, what have we done. And I'd like to share some views with you. You were mentioning Mary, the great progress in, you didn't say great, so I add the great progress in terms of security and defence policy in the last three years after the presentation of the global strategy by the high representative progress in many fields and developing of defence capabilities in our crisis management structures and partnerships with others in one operation. But why did this progress happen and where are we? It happened because Europeans felt threatened. Because we decided and thought that we could not continue just going on with what we were doing in order to protect our security interests, to promote our interests internationally and to protect our citizens within the European Union. And this has triggered a certain political will to move forward and to explore things that we had not been exploring before. And I think you know very well what were the main circumstances behind this, be it the situation to the east of Europe and not to be starting in 2000, well not starting into, it's been a drift. But in 2014 major change in Europe with Ukraine being invaded by Russia with Crimea annexed by Russia. So a more aggressive Russia that has been developing to the east, also threatening Moldova with the situation in Georgia that you are aware. And the situation in western Balkans which is not as smooth sailing as we all had hoped for. So that's the situation to let's say the east and central Europe. Middle east, well we have a crisis of major proportions. We have a real regional conflict and a need for a real regional solution and a concert. And that was the situation that came about after the 2011 events that we all very optimistically termed Arab Spring. But that have developed into very different situations and notably have developed into a major crisis in Syria and Iraq with real warfare with more than 300,000 people killed in seven years of war in Syria. And a major conflict between, in the region, with all the protagonists in the region really although we have not been fully treating it as such. We've been treating the situation in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, but there are connections and there's a major power game or strife in that region. And then you go to the south, Libya of course, part of the 2011 upheaval. The situation that is still very unstable, that is destabilizing neighbors and just at the coasts of Europe, obviously destabilizing the Sahel as well which is a very part and very poor region. Now this was the situation more or less as it was when we started all these major reforms and if you look back and you say is the situation better now, I think the answer is clearly no. All these risks some of them have evolved in Syria where maybe coming to the end of a war but we still have a major regional conflict. The terrorist unleashed in the course of that new conflict which has given rise to a new brand of terrorist, Daesh, is there in its morphing and developing and spreading into other parts of the world. So from that perspective certainly things are not better. In Russia well we just have to look at the incidents this weekend over the Azov or rather last weekend or last week of the Azov Sea and the situation that certainly is not improving either. So in addition I would add maybe in the last three years we have gained even more consciousness that in addition to these conflicts that surround Europe and Europe is really I won't say targeted but is really very much threatened we have a major strategic environment that has become even more volatile and dangerous and here we've discussed Russia as one of the major strategic actors which is becoming also more active in other theatres has been very active in Syria and part of that is including becoming more active in the western Balkans is becoming active in some parts of Africa. So we have a new attitude on the Russian side. We also have China which probably if anyone would ask probably any one of us what is one of the major challenges of this century in the coming years is where will China go and how it will establish itself as an international act. And in China I think there's one very interesting development as you know in the 16th century or 15th century the Chinese emperor decided to destroy Chinese fleet. They had huge fleets. They were moving and travelling to all the east African coast and there was a conscious decision of the emperor saying no we have to concentrate security and stability within China. No more adventures and what is happening now part of the phenomenon that we see maybe it's just let's say one of these Brodell used to say that he didn't care for events he cared about big trends but there are events that illustrate big trends and I think one of the events or developments that illustrates this broader trend of where China is going is its maritime position and the attitude it is having around the China seas what would I call it difference or discussions about sovereignty in the China seas. So we see China again as an actor very powerful one of the biggest country in the world 1.3 billion people biggest economy after the US and the US collectively and with the most potential becoming a military strong military actor and acting with greater assertiveness abroad including in Africa and certainly in its own region so probably handling and dealing and understanding better China and where it's going will be one of the big challenges and all this adds to the situation surrounding Europe. Then we have the United States of course the other big country which has been while it we remain strong partners and I think there's no doubt about that. Nevertheless the United States has been giving very clear messages around its America first policy that to a certain extent unsettle if not situations certainly consciousness and and this creating uncertainty on the partnership and the nature of the partnership and the evolution of the partnership with the United States. So this is the panorama that we're in I think at the end of roughly I am a schematized at the end of this year 2018. Have we done enough to address these challenges I think the answer is clearly no. Is there much more that needs to be done I think yes there's no doubt about this but for this we need clarity on what are the challenges that we're facing of what is it that we can do within the European Union framework and nationally and then we need determination and unity in pursuing this and I think that's really the big challenge for the European Union. Can we muster that determination and unity and will we have the same understanding of the challenges that surrounding the surrounding which I have described probably very clumsily and very superficially but I think those are those are the ones now. So here's where we are. I would add another element which is how are these security challenges affecting the European Union Member States and the European Union as such and here they're affecting it in different ways. This is not about territorial immediate territorial threats to the European Union nor its member states but we see organized crime responsible for example for traffic of migrants and irregular flows of migrants. We see broader organized crime threats including in trafficking of weapons and drugs no doubt we have to face we see terrorism again the new brand of terrorism that has surfaced that is more difficult to handle as well because they are using the media the all the possibilities of an interconnected world and because you don't need a lot of organization to produce damage nor means you can just stabbing an stabbing incident will be enough to trigger what terrorism is about because terrorism at the end is about creating social fear and this is what is happening and you can do that with very little effort. And then we have cyber and hybrid challenges I think and cyber very clear to all and you may need military means but you may need many other type of means you may need to address cyber threats you have this information which is part of hybrid and cyber as well so you have new threats that are confronting the member states of the European Union and the European Union as such. And here is where we see that you do need for this a mixture of elements if you want to protect yourself and if you want to build your security and defence this is not only about building defence it is about building defence you need to look at a much broader picture when you are trying to address instability in the Sahel because ultimately it will hit us it is also about development and governance in the Sahel if you want to ensure that we are protecting our societies you need to be able to combat cyber attacks and disinformation and again this is not necessarily military means and you do need to link up between your internal security instruments and your external security instruments so that we are aware there is an exchange of information and we are aware of what is coming in from the outside and what should we be looking at in the outside in order to avoid it coming in so we are in all the efforts that we have been doing in the European Union in this last years this dimension of the comprehensive nature of the threats and the need to have a much more sophisticated and wide array of tools civilian military to simplify has been one of the driving elements and the need to ensure that your internal and external instruments are interlinked also very much a very important part of how we are operating and one last point before I enter into the life of the subject the need to try to act preventatively and to look into crisis before they occur and here as well during this last years the European Union has been looking into its analysis instruments its situational awareness instruments in order to be able to identify earlier and we have developed different methods I am happy to explain afterwards in order to have better foresight about what are the challenges that lie ahead maybe in the three or four year horizon but also challenges that may be only three or four or five weeks away and that may hit and affect our interests and we have been fine tuning our tools there as well so this is the complex nature of the threats we are facing the broad approach which requires to be an integrated approach which needs to link up the internal with the external aspects and the need to think as preventatively as we can in carrying out all this in terms of our security and defence instruments we have advanced essentially along three main tracks first track has been the development of the enhanced cooperation in developing defence capabilities and why is this necessary because we have a very atomised defence industry technology will not be able to keep up and we will lose industry we will lose technological know-how unless we go towards greater consolidation and bigger efforts in producing jointly and this has been very much behind the proposals that both the high representative and the commission have been putting on the table of course it also contributes to greater interoperability which ultimately will help us also not only develop together defence capabilities but deploying them together in a more effective manner and there are four major initiatives that were developed and amazingly so I think they were all more or less developed independently but they all fit together wonderfully well and since we are great bureaucrats we exercise ourselves now in creating coherence between all these and developing mechanisms that will help us enhance the coherence between these mechanisms and there you I think you referred to a few of them permanent structured cooperation it's the European defence fund it is the coordinated annual review on defence and I would say above all of them is the inspiring document what is it that we need to produce and this is the capability development plan the military requirements that we identify in common and we have made the last iteration this is an old mechanism but the last iteration has been quite revolutionary because it has gone more into not only into the needs that the European Union might require for its little crisis management operations which are relatively unimportant but needs of member states and their own national defence needs and needs, collective needs such as the ones that can be generated within NATO so our CDP capability development plan is fully compatible with the NATO defence planning process the NDP and therefore a much more useful tool and at the same time and differently to the NATO defence planning process the CDP has been developed with a view to facilitating and encouraging and promoting cooperation amongst member states in developing defence capability so it's quite a sophisticated instrument and an important progress that was made there so this is hard and the CDP has to feed pesco projects but also projects that would be financed through commission financial instruments and here we have right now already the European defence industrial development program the EDIDP which is the precursor to the broader European defence fund that will hopefully be adopted and established starting in 2021 until 2027 and which is aimed with a proposal that was suggested 13 billion euros for the period 2021-2027 that should be able to finance projects on research for defence development and these will be financed 100% but also projects for development of defence capability up to the level of prototype and these will only be financed up to 20% with the 10% bonus if they're also pesco projects so 30% if it's pesco which means you have a multiplying effect commission multiplies by 5 could be multiplied by actually even more because it's only up to the level of prototype and then you'll have to produce the thing so if you really take all that into account it could be quite a boost in terms of defence capability development for the European Union and to support these processes both the CDP and the projects we have developed the Coordinate and Honor Review on defence which forces Member States to explain on an annual basis what is it that their national defence plans are about and to see whether they are moving towards meeting the gaps that we've identified in common and whether we can identify through comparing different national defence plans opportunities for cooperation so it's quite a sophisticated mechanism I think nothing as sophisticated has ever been created before of course when it's a very sophisticated mechanism you wonder whether it's going to work well and no doubt the proof of the pudding will be in the eating but we have I think put you have because it's Member States adopting this plus I'm sorry on pesco there are not only it's about projects it's also about commitments commitment to invest more in defence and to invest more in cooperative projects in defence and to develop capabilities jointly and to deploy them jointly so there is an element of political commitments in pesco which is I won't say as important as the projects themselves but it is very important and I know that both Ciaran I don't know if Ciaran is still around yes he is and Noel have been helping us to develop in a harmonious way in Brussels but we have it we got there so I think this is one of the elements that's missing in this box is the possible cooperation of third states in pesco projects and this is now being finalised and I hope that we will find an agreement on this by the end of the year with main elements security is the fact that a third state intervening in a project will limit or will endanger security of supply or limit possibilities of export of the goods that are produced and of course that has to be ruled out we will not want a third state if we are going to have problems of security of supply afterwards or limitations to regarding exports or obviously if the technology that is being produced it will be used against us because the state that we are inviting is not a state that is sympathetic to the principles and objectives that we seek in foreign policy so these are some of the elements and the other is the added value so whoever is supporting a project has to bring added value has to bring investment or know how to the project so that's the pesco part and I'll leave here then the box of development of defence capability if this works as my former boss and you mentioned him Herman van Rompuy used to say you can bring a horse to the water but you cannot force it to drink and here we brought the horse to the water and actually it's drinking 34 projects have been already agreed to and the latest project the latest batch of project the first one was done in a hurried manner because it was necessary to show that this was not just the paper exercise but the last batch of project is starting to be industrially significant and so I think we have hopes that the horse will drink and the horse will live happily ever after so that's for defence capability development then we have within the toolbox that the European Union has and it has a very broad toolbox in order to tackle defence challenges and part of this toolbox is the crisis management operations that we have and as you know we have right now operations fully deployed six of them are military ten of them are civilian and we have been improving the tools and you mentioned you called the civilian CSDP the Cinderella or did you? The civilian side yes no come on it is a very important part of civilian CSDP and I think acknowledged by it was the perception I think I think it is widely acknowledged that civilian CSDP is a very important part of our crisis management tools and they are delivering in very difficult circumstances be it in the Sahel or in Somalia or not to be Sahel but also one of the biggest operations that we have ever deployed has been the costable one at some point close to 3,000 people in that operation when we took over from UNMEC in 2008 so but we have decided that we had to revamp civilian CSDP and this is one of the big challenges that we have one of the differences between civilian CSDP and military CSDP is that military are normally there for deployment civilian assets be it police officers justice officials military they are there for national needs nations do not produce civilian experts in order to send them to missions abroad and this is one of the biggest challenges that we are confronting in finding the right experts to bring into these operations and part of our work is to convince the and I think this is something we have to do collectively with member states have to chip in to convince their ministers of interior of justice that they need that it is in their interest and that it is in the security interests of their own countries to send police officers abroad they may have a greater impact at the end than if they stayed home and so we have and this is what the civilian compact is partly about it is about member states committing to provide more civilian experts to the missions and having enabling arrangements and what we are discovering I think that Ireland is very much at the forefront and you have commissioned a study which we are keen to see a comparative study of the mechanisms in different member states to provide civilian experts to civilian experts to civilian missions and some countries don't have arrangements to do this actually so which makes it obviously even difficult many countries don't acknowledge the worth of the contribution of the civilian person serving abroad in the curriculum of this person so it's not even acknowledged that what this person has done in this last two or three years has been a service to his country so there are many things that can be done of course there are then there are specific trainings that may be useful and I think if we look at the years ahead of us probably we need to train in languages and I would say let's invest a bit more in French and Arabic training if I had to you don't need really a crystal ball to say that that's where we would be in the coming years so again civilian compact is aimed at facilitating and member states committing to provide these experts to look into their own arrangements internal arrangements and legislation to make this possible it's also about increased responsiveness we've committed collectively to be able to deploy a 200 man a man of women persons mission, civilian mission in 30 days and it may sound not that big but it is a lot and the kind of infrastructure logistics that you need to put 200 persons in a safe environment very far away from our borders is quite a feat so there are a number of issues we're developing an action plan member states have to develop I mean collectively in the EU but member states will have to develop national implementation plans to deliver these kind of experts so again very important move on civilian and I applaud the support and the intellectual input that our Irish colleagues have brought into this exercise but then we've also worked on something in which you've been a bit more remiss which is the military planning conduct capability is the planning capability and the operational capability for military missions and we had already agreed to take this a step forward in terms of having a capacity that would allow the EU to have command and control over non-executive military missions training missions essentially but it could be other kind of monitoring missions but these are training that we have in Somalia in Central African Republic and in Malaysia and now we have taken an important step to have that capacity also being capable of even exercising planning and conduct capability for an executive type of operations up to 2,500 persons strong which is battle group size and for that this it's all relatively modest the total number of staff of this entity would be 60 up from 24 or 25 that we currently have so 35 plus plus an augmenti capability up to 95 augmentis if an executive operation were to be launched under such a chain of command so this is another we have different arrangements for operation command and control national headquarters that are put at disposal of the European Union but this having it within the European Union would give greater level of readiness because these people would be trained and ready to launch work at a go and then it will give also greater control to member states because the operation commander will be in Brussels will be responding to the political control and the strategic direction of the PSC as we all do don't we? Noel and really at the disposal of the PSC anytime the PSC request, not headquarters which are in other parts of Europe where the control that is exercised on the operation commander is a bit more remote because of the nature of the machine itself so that's an important step as well, the MPCC another important I will I'm being a bit too long I should I think you're under time constraints so maybe another 5 minutes then the European Peace Facility this is I think one of the most important initiatives that we have put on the table it is an off budget fund which would finance the CSDP, the crisis management military crisis management operations that the European Union itself would launch operations military operations launched by partners be it groups of partners Amisum for example in Somalia as we are currently financing or the joint force of the G5 or even we could finance through this transition from Amisum to Somalia National Armed Forces we would be able to finance Somalia National Armed Forces and finally equipping one of the big problems that we've had in the last years has been the equipment of the military we train and this has led to situations even because we were not being able to equip the military we were training in Central African Republic we've had now for example the Russians providing weapons in the Central African Republic and developing their relations there so we do need to have a mechanism that will allow us not only to train the forces that we're supporting in order to in a crisis management context this is not cooperation and not training forces for let's say military adventures abroad this is training forces in the context of a stabilization effort and of a crisis management effort because we all know and the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan are very clear in this respect that it is not through executive operations normally that you are successful you become at the end the foreigner and the enemy or can be portrayed as such even if you're trying to help the populations but you can easily be portrayed as a foreign you are a foreign presence and that always has a connotation so the best way to stabilize and to address crisis is by empowering the local let's say legitimate actors to regain control over territory and this is what we're trying to do at Mali notably we're trying to strengthen capabilities of other Sahel countries we're trying to help the Somali national army to again end these and Somalian armed forces beyond the Mogadishaw also in the federal states to take over control of their country and security of their country and all this of course within UN mandates and context and in the context of as I say stabilization and crisis management efforts and so this facility which is really now being discussed and I hope that it will be finally approved next year will make a huge difference in our capacity to act and then very quickly just to mention we know that we cannot solve all the problems on our own so everything that we've done we do it with a view to working with partners yes we have to be capable of responding on our own and this is what we call strategic autonomy but we know that in most cases we need to work with others to enhance our relationship with the United Nations we're the major partner of the United Nations in crisis management and practically all our operations are linked to support to the United Nations we have developed further our relations with the African Union and we have now a memorandum of understanding for exchanges and cooperation on a yearly basis at strategic political, strategic level with the African Union and we've been cooperating with them for ages but now we formalize more the relationship and three years also enhance the cooperation with NATO considerably with 74 joint actions we have actually a system, a constant system of engagement that goes from capability development and all the capabilities that we may produce in defence would be member states capabilities which means also the disposal of NATO for those member states that are also NATO allies but also working on cyber on hybrid on operations themselves incorporating in operations be it on sea, at sea or in land so that has been also a very important part of our work I think I don't have time to refer more specifically to our operations maybe just to say it has shifted when we launched CSDP secure and defence policy in the late 90s early 2000s rather Western Balkans was the name of the game and most of the first operations were there in the western Balkans were taken over from the UN even taken over from NATO in the case of Bosnia Herzegovina now we are mostly engaged in Africa we're still engaged in the western Balkans and that's something worth discussing but most of the operational action will be I think in the foreseeable future in Africa and notably around what one could term the security belt for us which goes from Mauritania to Somalia the Sahelian security belt if we are capable of assisting these countries in controlling their borders in developing their economies in increasing their quality of their governance Europe will be much more a secure place and this will be and the last point is maritime operations I referred to them I think it was over lunch the key strategic importance of operation Sofia in central Mediterranean operation Atlanta of the coast of Somalia not only on the basis of their current mandates but in my view as well as real maritime security operations that Europe will need for many years to come so a lot of work much has been done but much more needs to be done we know that we need others and we need to work with others the European Union is a multilateralist partner and it's in this essence multilateral and it believes in multilateralism it believes that the way to address problems is through cooperation and not confrontation we have to have means to engage and to face the challenges that are confronting us and this is what we've been trying to develop in the last years very much also in the wake of the global strategy that I should have mentioned at the early at the beginning presented by the high representative in June 2016 so with this I will stop and very much eager to engage in a dialogue with you and many thanks again thank you very much