 So Estonia assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union for the first time in fact on the first of July of this year and it's obviously at a great time of great upheaval for the European Union. So it will be a pleasure for us that Chairman Mickelson will outline the Estonian perspective on the broader challenges facing the European Union including the future of the EU at 27. Mr Mickelson has a very broad career which makes him particularly interesting for us in terms of EU policy. He was educated in Estonia and from 1993 to 2000 he worked in the newspaper industry for the Estonian paper Postimis. He was the newspaper's world news editor and then Moscow correspondent from 1994 to 1997 and then editor-in-chief and after which he served as director of the Baltic Centre for Russian Studies from 2000 until he joined the entered parliament in 2003. He has three times been chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament which is probably a record chairman I think in parliamentary terms. He also served as chair of the EU affairs and also chair of the National Defence Committee in 2015 until November 2016 when he was again reappointed chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and he currently holds this post as well as chair of the Estonian Parliament delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I note also that Mr Mickelson has received numerous awards. I have actually counted 12 which is also I think some kind of record including from all of the Baltic neighbouring states his own country of course Sweden, France, Spain, Italy, Poland which is an indication of the high regard in which you are held. The Estonian presidency has four priorities I think which we probably at this stage are well aware of an open and innovative European economy, a safe and secure Europe, a digital Europe with free movement of data and an inclusive and sustainable Europe and all of these I think Ireland would be very much aligned with this. We are an open economy. We are a digital economy looking to broaden our digital services. So I think that is an area in which we would be very well aligned. Obviously Chairman Mickelson's primary focus is broad foreign and security policy of Estonia within the EU. I think it's the fact that the chairman has spent some time in Moscow illustrates for us here on the far side of Europe how valuable the membership in the EU of countries such as Estonia is for the EU as a whole. It's so useful to us that you know these countries to the east and that can bring that into the general European discussion as a whole. I look forward very much to hearing you outline the European perspective on the broader challenges in Europe from that impressive background. So Mr Shem, the floor is yours. Thank you very much indeed and a very good morning to all of you. I'm happy to be back in Dublin. Ireland played a very important part of our recent success in many ways because our obsession to European Union happened exactly at the time when you held the presidency in 2004. But let me just spend roughly 15-20 minutes going around these most important, perhaps topics we today see them and how do we them see in Tallinn, in Estonia, which are related both to with our current presidency but also challenges we commonly have for Europe internally but also the challenges what are have a global impact. First and foremost what is important to remember about Estonia is that we are small but very positively engaged European nation just two days ago there was another survey of how people would look at the membership in European Union and in Estonia we enjoy at the moment more than 80% support of population to the very same question and this has been actually ever since we joined European Union and there are perhaps a number of reasons why it is one of them of course that we have benefited from membership throughout these last 13 years. But also I guess as we are an other corner of European Union and geopolitically in very interesting area of course and taking into account that Estonia was isolated from its natural allies and partners in Europe for a number of years during last century then desire of people and the same applies also to our very good friends to South Latvia and Lithuania desire to be back there where we belong to and this is why today we can talk about Estonia and other Baltic States as one of the most integrated politically integrated western nations including of course being members of European Union, Eurozone, OSED but also NATO and a number of our organizations. This is why the presidency for us is not a big deal. Yes saying that of course I take full responsibility because when I was chair of EU affairs committee in our parliament in 2007, 2011, I remember in 2009 actually we asked our authorities five years after membership in EU could we be ready to take up the responsibility and be present country in EU and actually the answer was yes. So even after the surprise from last year then referendum happened in neighbouring country and the UK decided not to have presidency this half of a year then Estonia's presidency moved six months earlier and but today we could say that perhaps this was even better for us because it pushed us to be even more focused on these priorities as you highlighted them already and today then leaders of EU are together in Brussels. There are some sort of also discussion about how well some of our steps during presidency have been done including also the summit, digital summit at the end of September then we could say that so far so good and we are more than sure that during the rest of the time we can handle all the issues including the major topics of our presidency pretty well but as we all know presidency is only for six months but we have common union and we work as a very strong partner in the union with all of those who have a responsibility to rotate as a president country after us Bulgaria then Austria and so on and so forth. Now I would like to just emphasise or underline a few topics and then three challenges what are important in my understanding today to pay attention on. Of course as I mentioned Estonia as one of the most integrated western country today this is natural that the slogan and the main motto of our presidency is unity through a balance and here we see all the areas of interest of EU countries and areas of interest of members of union where Estonia is a small nation is interested to create more cohesion and more common understanding of issues what we face together and of course at the same time to promote perhaps topics or ideas which we have felt at a home felt in a positive way and this is why digital Europe is not only something what we thought what could be the interesting topic for for our presidency but this comes from very much from our own experience already what we have witnessed throughout last 25 years. Of course this is connected to this how well Estonia has been able to use technological revolution in terms to make our public services more easily accessible to our citizens and to offer less obstacles let's say and create more transparency in the governance issues and this e-governance is one of the key topics not only throughout this this six months but has been one of the priority of our number of our governments throughout years but second area of course what we understand is extremely important and where we all can benefit much more than we have done so far is to create digital single market of course as you mentioned this has been widely discussed among members already for a long time and hopefully by the end of next year we could create finally the digital single market and the numbers at least when we look at these analysis would tell what what can be unleashed and what kind of potential we could open up for our common economies that the 415 billion euros are there to to generate from this open market and sphere of digital economy and this is we strongly believe that even perhaps in the area of e-governance there are different views among member states and there are many reasons to that we believe strongly that this is future of ours anyway and will be there because this is something what will transform our societies our way of work our way of common action if to put this way. Second question of course what is extremely important for citizens of Europe today is a question about security perhaps security and defence and one of topics what is discussed among specifically ministers of defence but not only there has been much wider political discussion about that do Europe does Europe needs sort of own defence identity and what what that means at the time when we have a NATO we have strong transatlantic cooperation in field of security and defence and historically very deep rooted Estonia is in favour of position of course of creating Pesco a permanent structures cooperation in this field but let me say not going into details and hopefully of course agreement will be by the end of the year but but the the experience from last let's say 10 or 20 years of defence debate or CSTP issues the question is that we have perhaps so far lack the will kind of political will of to use already existing let's say formats on the existing capabilities to just mention the EU battle groups they have been there but we never managed to create enough political support in order to use them in interest of in a common interest hopefully this debate will lead us to the understanding what are the actually necessities for EU as a union to use in the future these common capabilities and plus of course number of other technicalities how do we get perhaps look at the standards what we have in the defence industry within Europe and can we create some better cooperation in that field and of course last but not least we all can talk about defence as much as we as much as possible but without real investment into defence expenditures this is just going to be empty discussion and Estonia has shown already for last six years their strong interest to invest into own defence capabilities currently defence expenditures running at a level of 2.2 percent and there is very strong and common position among political parties there is no debate at all in this regard and now three major topics perhaps which are not only directly related and last but not least of course a question about Brexit before I jump into this to talk about three global challenges here of course the question is put up how well EU 27 let's say is keeping unity and we all exercise this very first time what is going on and I have met both David Davies and Michel Barnier before negotiations started and and perhaps this optimism of what was seen before negotiations today has gone a little bit down but again we have to take into account these are extremely difficult negotiations but a couple of main points how do we see the for Estonia there is no doubt the EU 27 shoots maintain strong unity in this process of of negotiations you know when we tackle all the major questions either it's our citizens rights or question about the future let's say financial settlement and of last but not least of course what is very much connected to to Ireland as well the question about the border and so far as far again leaders meet today in in Brussels there is no readiness to jump forward to the next phase to talk about the future relations and this is has been a kind of agreed strong position among EU 27 of the first we have to settle these Brexit questions or exit questions and then to move on with future topics but we all know that time is running perhaps not yet running out but there is not much left if we think about the march in 2019 but I leave it this question right now there three topics what are have been in interest of ours and and which are directly affecting the of course EU in general there has been a lot of critics about EU and perhaps also about that that the liberal world order it has a lot of challenges and perhaps there are many cracks today within this liberal world order but from our point of view EU has done great job in order to bolster actually the very same liberal world order and in a way where EU has been in very strong leading position one is the Paris agreement on climate change issues we all almost daily witness stories all around the world and Ireland has been also in in this let's say news line recently unfortunately even Estonia actually was very much connected to your last hurricane because all this sand from Sahara and also dust from Portugal came up to us and we had just two days ago very dark day and you get just feel that something is it was like eclipse of a sun you know but it's it's of course directly connected to this what is happening in a global climate and here EU has done great job second area of course is promoter of free trade just Estonia parliament recently ratified the CETA agreement the free trade agreement between EU and Canada Estonia is very much dependent on on how successful we are in our expert in our trades with our partners globally and here EU with sets of free trade agreements have shown that actually we can create new rules and new areas of common trade and this is something where we are strongly supporting further agreements like with Japan other southeast Asia countries and hopefully one day we could come back to the track of having the same negotiations again with the United States now and here perhaps I would like to argue that Estonia is very transatlantically minded country transatlantist country country perhaps a little bit different reason as Ireland has and the different history of course but we have enjoyed very strong bilateral relations on different level with the United States and and even since the number November 8th of last year I could tell you I've never been able to have as many meetings that with my colleagues from senate and House of Representatives have been in case since last year and on Sunday then other delegation again from US Senate is waiting us in Tally so this is the not sort of trapping ourselves with tactical political let's say every day interesting bits and pieces we have to look at the bigger picture and bigger picture is that for Europe the absolutely the best ally and best partner is in this turbulent world United States second peak topic what we in Estonia deal with of course is a question about migration crisis perhaps we are in a similar position like Ireland and here directly the crisis has not you know touched us Estonia is not destination country for those who have left their homes in Africa or in the Middle East but we very seriously are concerned about how this full topic is influencing politics in our member in our partner countries in our allies we have seen recently this happening in different countries during different elections but what is most important is that we today have no doubles politically when we discuss about migration immigration illegal immigration and what can be done together both in bolstering security in within the union but also how we could better deal with protecting our borders Estonia also is a on the border of EU and we very seriously take our responsibility to keep our eastern border and border of EU very safe but we all understand how much more difficult it is in the south on Mediterranean but these efforts what the EU has done both through a common mission but also helping southern countries this is something what is in should be in common interest of union members of all and also last but not least not only protecting borders but to tackle these real problems what will cause migration of people from their homes in Africa or in Middle East both conflicts but also issues what are related to climate change or to bad governance and this is perhaps we could highlight during upcoming summit EU Africa summit which is planned for November and last but not least Russia this is perhaps our biggest concern and not ours as Estonia but ours as countries who are very strongly believed to democracy to rule of law to international law and and the way of life how we have our societies benefited since the end of not only gold war but since the end of world war two unfortunately what we have seen during not only last three years since Russian aggression against Ukraine but basically since mid 90s that Russia has not changed unfortunately and the way how Russia is or Russian leadership is running their countries in many ways in contradiction to their own constitution what was agreed by russian people in 93 if you read this constitution is very democratic one but what happens in reality is something what we have seen unfortunately many many decades in case of soviet union or sarist Russia they pose today we could say real threat to those who actually highlight the democracy and democratic values as a high priority and this is not only neighboring countries to Russia but Europe as large and perhaps one of the main aims the current Russian leadership already for many years have to to create situation where we can redefine Euro-Atlantic security architecture and this is why we shouldn't forget that already in 2008 Russia started when they started a war against Georgia they actually started it against NATO because it was directly connected to to stop NATO to enlarge into South Caucasus and in 2014 when Russia attacked Ukraine occupied Crimea annexed Crimea and then launched attack against the eastern Ukraine this was indirect attack against Europe against European Union because as you remember 2013 one of the triggers of those events in Ukraine was association agreement of Ukraine with European Union and the question is of course that current Russian leadership unfortunately sees in democratic processes direct and perhaps existential threat to their own interests at home and this is unfortunately has led us to the situation we have already for three years sanction policy this has been successful for you to show the strong unity and understanding that we cannot tolerate a breach of international law as Russia has done in case of occupying and annexing Crimea and still the aggression unfortunately is going on against Ukraine almost every day every single day Ukrainian soldiers are killed or wounded on a frontline this is somehow forgotten war today but forgotten war inside of Europe and this is something what is a key element for a future as well and one of highlights of our presidency and here I sum up he's the eastern partnership summit which is going to be out on 24th of November in Brussels we very much highlight this as interest of not only countries who are closer to eastern borders of the European Union but this as I said is in our common interest to really help those who would like to live in the very same way in many ways to honour rule of law democracy market economy and also to help those governments and help those people first and foremost who would like to reform their societies and countries in this particular way.