 Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee in 2017. I would like to remind members and the public to turn off mobile phones, and any member who is using electronic devices to access committee papers should please ensure that they are turned to silent. Apologies have been received from Jackson Carlaw MSP. Our first item of business today is to welcome Rachel Hamilton MSP back to the committee I invite her to declare any relevant interests. Welcome, Rachel. Thank you, convener. I just like to draw members to my register of interests and the fact that I own a hospitality business in the Borders. Thank you very much, Rachel. Our second item of business today is the decision to take items 7 and 8 in private. Are members content? Thank you. Our next item of business today is an evidence session on the presidency of the council of the European Union. I would like to welcome his excellency Norman Hamilton, High Commissioner for the presidency of the European Union, and Carol Zurabeg, EU policy officer. There is a sultana at the political and communications officer of the High Commissioner for Malta in the UK. I would like to invite the High Commissioner and his excellency to make a short opening statement. Good morning, members of the Scottish Parliament. Thank you for inviting me here today as High Commissioner of Malta in the UK. Malta, as you all know, is the country currently holding the rotating presidency of the council of the European Union, albeit for just one more day. It is my pleasure to share with you my country's experience over the past six months. The smallest EU member state, with just a population of the size of Edinburgh of 455,000, took the raise of the council of the European Union and steered a union of 28 member states with over 510 million citizens. I believe, subjectively speaking, that Malta didn't do a bad job of it at all and complemented the tenure with flying colours. European Council President Donald Tusk used words such as efficient, impressive and excellent to describe our presidency. European Commissioner, President Juncker, used the same tone. The past six months have served as tangible evidence of Malta's resilience and of the people's diligence and tenacity in the face of a challenge which I have to admit at times seemed to be rather daunting. We always knew that the presidency of the council of ministers of the European Union, one of the leading institutions in the EU, was never going to be an easy task. The fact that this was Malta's first experience compounded by the additional task to prepare for the start of the negotiations with the United Kingdom over its decision to leave the EU made this even more challenging. The Malta's presidency, which is near its conclusion, as I said one more day, marked the midway point in the current institutional cycle of the Commission and the European Parliament. This was there for a time when many new ideas, programmes and projects that had matured over the last two and a half years were expected to start bearing fruit. This presidency's work over the past six months was also conducted in the context of an intensified debate relating to the future of Europe. This was partly in response to the developments regarding Brexit and partly in connection with the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Rome Treaty on 25 March. From the outset, we identified six priorities for our work, namely migration, security, Europe's neighbourhood, maritime, social inclusion and the single market. Since we're meeting on the penultimate day of our presidency, instead of going into detail with these priorities, I will use them as reference when I will highlight some of our achievements over the past six months. The presidency for Malta started slowly but surely, tackling head-on the issues related to migration. Early in February, it brought together EU leaders in Malta to build on the progress previously achieved in Valletta two years earlier, where it concluded the landmark agreement that will help prevent further loss of lives in the Mediterranean and securing further the EU's external border. This was also complemented with work on the internal dimension of migration. As the presidency unfolded, we managed to move forward on dossiers in relation to the Union's comprehensive approach to migration, including the reform of the common European asylum system and effective management of external borders. There is now a common understanding that the revised EU asylum system needs to strike the right balance between responsibility and solidarity and that it needs to ensure resilience to avoid future crises. On the basis of the work to run the previous presidency, a regulation amending the Schengen border code to reinforce checks against relevant databases at external borders was adopted. The council also adopted conclusions on the protection of children in migration. Furthermore, efforts were pursued to enhance the European Union's security and to stabilise its immediate neighbourhood. On the former, work progressed on the legislative front through the adoption of legislation to respond to the evolving threat of terrorism and the start of negotiations on behalf of council with the European Parliament on a directive for an entry exit system and additional funding by the EIB to address migration issues. On the latter, the multi-supported HRVP Mogorini's work and complemented it with efforts to conclude negotiations with Parliament on the external investment plan proposed by President Juncker. The council also adopted conclusions setting out the way forward to improve information exchange and ensure the interoperability of EU information systems following the work of the high-level expert group on interoperability. The council also adopted general conclusions on security and defence in the context of the EU global strategy. As I mentioned earlier, neighbourhood policy was one of the areas of special priority for the Maltese presidency. Under this priority, we devoted special attention and effort in connection with the accession process for both Serbia and Montenegro. Here we have achieved encouraging results with four new chapters open for Serbia and two for Montenegro. We are also particularly pleased at the successful launching of the partnership for research and innovation in the Mediterranean known as Prima. This is aimed to develop innovative solutions for sustainable water provision and management as well as food production in the Mediterranean region. Regarding maritime, agreement was reached on a number of dossiers relating to port services, passenger ship safety and standards on the registration of persons sailing on board passengers ships, operating to and from ports of the member states of the Union. As well as on the system of inspections for the safe operation of Rolon-Rolof ferry and house speed passenger craft in regular service. Success was also achieved on a number of fisheries dossiers including the signing of the Malta Med Fish Forever Declaration. This international declaration, agreed to by both the EU and non-EU Mediterranean ministers, establishes a 10-year plan to bring Mediterranean fish stocks to sustainable levels. The council adopted conclusions on international ocean governance and on the priorities for the EU's maritime transport policy until 2020. Moreover, the Maltese presidency ensured that social inclusion would be given prominence on a European level. The commission's efforts were mirrored by the presidency which worked thoroughly to ensure discussions for a more social Europe. We worked hard to finalise agreement at EU level relating to two international agreements, the Marrakesh Treaty and the Istanbul Convention. The council adopted important conclusions on a number of issues including the European Solidarity Corp. High quality education for all, enhancing the skills of women and men in the labour market and guidelines for the promotion and protection of the rights of the child. During the second half of our presidency, we started the consideration of the commission's proposal for the European pillar of social rights which will form part of the preparation for the social summit which will be held in Sweden next November. Several regulations, directives and decisions were agreed which enhance the scope and function of the single market and have a direct positive impact on the lives of EU citizens. These covered the areas of digital economy, energy and climate change, consumer protection, capital markets and international services amongst others. Overall, good progress has been made and agreements have been reached on many important digital single market proposals including the allocation of the 700 MHz band, the portability of online content and the wholesale roaming charges. The presidency managed to successfully conclude negotiations on a number of files that bring the EU up to speed at a new age. Tangebly, this will mean that there will be no more roaming charges as from 2018, improved cross-border portability of online content and better protection for consumers of financial services. Progress was also registered in areas such as energy and the environment. However, I am aware that I am speaking for a little longer than I was asked for and therefore I should start to conclude. So, one last word which I'm sure you're all expecting me to talk about. Brexit. Following the UK's notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU on 29 March 2017 and the subsequent adoption of guidelines by the European Council, the presidency worked towards the adoption of the negotiating directives and authorised the opening of negotiations on the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. The presidency also facilitated discussions with regard to the adoption of the procedure for relocation of EU agencies currently located in the United Kingdom, namely the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much and you are very welcome along with your officials at our committee today and we very much appreciate you coming along to give evidence to us. As you rightly acknowledge, we tend to see matters European through the prism of Brexit these days, but in your opening statement it was very clear the wide-ranging achievements that your presidency has achieved and the number of challenges facing the European Union quite a side for Brexit. As you can understand, that is the focus of much of our committee's work. I would like to open by asking a question about the theme of your presidency, the re-EU union bringing the union closer together. I wondered whether you felt that that had been achieved and indeed how that affected the EU 27 as they go about negotiating Brexit. The union spelled R, capital E, capital U, that's for EU, union. This is the reconnecting of the citizens of the EU, individual, corporate, state to be able to connect with government, EU and the world. This was a philosophy that was adopted. This was our motto. It was decided on in November before we started our presidency and at the start of our presidency we believe that the EU was getting a little bit fragmented. There was not all that understanding between the 28 countries in the EU. Brexit, believe it or not, brought the union together to make the reunion of the European Union possible. Because, where before, the members of the union were not all in exact harmony with the calling of Brexit, the 27 remaining EU countries cloned together. This was the reunion that we were hoping for. Thank you very much. Malta, of course, has historic very close links with the United Kingdom, with many UK citizens living in Malta. You'll be aware that the Prime Minister of the UK made a statement this week on residency rights of EU citizens living in the UK and it's a priority in the negotiations. I wonder what work has been done in Malta to address these matters in terms of the British citizens who are living there. The referendum for Remain or Brexit was held here in the UK on 23 June, if my memory serves me right. On 24 June, at 8am, my Prime Minister went on television nationwide and instead of addressing the audience in Maltese, he addressed the audience in English. And there was a reason for this. He said, I'm addressing the citizens of the United Kingdom who are now living in Malta, all those expatriates who have decided to settle down in Malta and Gozo and all those UK workers currently working in Malta. They have nothing to fear whenever Brexit is concluded, the position is clear and they will be allowed to remain, to retain their property and to retain their jobs in Malta. Hopefully the UK would act in the same way towards the Maltese migrants in the United Kingdom. That's a reciprocal statement which our Prime Minister made to all UK citizens currently in Malta. That still goes to now and will still remain, and I have his word, up to the end of Brexit when Brexit is concluded. Let's just hope that the reciprocosity could also be handled on this end as well for the 31,000 Maltese diaspora currently in the United Kingdom. Are you still concerned about those 31,000 Maltese citizens in the United Kingdom? The 31,000 people in the United Kingdom are the people that continually are phoning or writing in to find out what their future is. We are saying that at the moment we can only guarantee that while the Brexit negotiations are going on the future is safe in the UK. We just hope that this reciprocosity agreement the rights will be respected as the rights of the British in Malta are going to be respected. Thank you very much. There are many more questions I'd like to ask you but I'm aware of your time and I'm now going to pass on to Lewis Macdonald, the deputy convener. Thank you very much. If I may just briefly follow that last point and just ask if, because we've heard different voices from within the European institutions in response to what Theresa May said the other day regarding EU citizens rights, does the presidency regard her statement as something which offers a basis for a reciprocal agreement going forward or merely as the opening stage in a negotiation? Your Prime Minister, Theresa May's proposal was below expectations but that's going to be left to the negotiations. So it will be the next presidency that has that responsibility? That would be Estonia. More than the present days we have the responsibility of being the president of the EU Union, it should be in the UK, but it's Estonia and it will have the responsibility for the next six months but let's not forget that the presidency does not have that much of a say, it is between the negotiators Michelle Barnier and whoever is negotiating on the part of the British government. Yes indeed, clearly though as a member state Malta will maintain a very active interest in that process. Can I ask about another matter which has been carried forward under your presidency which is to begin to look at through for example the meeting of the General Affairs Council to look at what the European Union post Brexit is going to look like and you mentioned the reunion theme of the Maltese presidency. There was a specific question, I was interested to understand the financial impact of Brexit on the European Union will clearly be significant and I wonder if there are any conclusions that have been drawn at this stage about the financial impact and what the European Union budgets in future years are going to look like and how they are going to respond to those changes and circumstances. This was the financial question was brought up in the meeting in Rome and unfortunately there was no conclusion. Right, so that's still work in progress. Thank you very much. Tavish Scott. I wonder if I could ask about your priority that you describe as Europe's neighbourhood. Two nights ago on television here in the UK we saw once again considerable numbers of refugees crossing a Mediterranean in various sizes of craft and I noticed that that was obviously one of the or that broad area of Europe's neighbourhood was one of the priorities that you mentioned earlier on. What has happened under your presidency to avert what we see as a humanitarian crisis happening as soon as the weather improves? Well, this was something that was very close to our heart even before we took the six month presidency of the EU. We were the country that were lumbered most with these migrants crossing over searching for a better life, some refugees, some wanting refugee status, some just wanting to get away from the country they lived in and unfortunately they came over in all sorts of crafts that could float. We even got 1,000 at a time coming in. They never wanted to come to Malta. Whenever they reached Malta they used to say, where are we? Is this Italy? And we used to say, no, no, this is Malta. No, no, we don't want to be in Malta. I want to go to the continent and Malta could not send them to the continent. We had to accept them. We had, as I said, we have a population of 445,000 and having like 0.2% at one go coming into our country and having to accept them and to stay there was quite a burden on Malta, a great burden on Malta. In fact, we finished up one year with about 10 to 12,000 people making very difficult for the Maltese population to cope. Luckily, you might find this strange, but we found the most cooperation came from, unexpectedly, the United States of America who every year used to take 500 of these migrants to their country. Obviously they used to send a team to Malta to assess the viability of these people and then choose 500 of them and relocate them into the United States. Unfortunately, we had little or no help from Europe then. I know that one of our ideas was that Europe shares this, I hate saying it, share this burden, if you like, but not everybody has complied, not everybody has accepted. I'm glad to see that Scotland has accepted and has taken in quite a few Syrian refugees and relocated them in homes over here. But as such, it's something we wanted very much to see being implemented in all European countries and so far it has not been accepted by all. Let us hope that on the next six month presidency this dream of Malta could eventually become a reality. We did help try to stabilise the situation in Libya, which was the country most next to Malta, after Italy on the North and Libya on the South. We were worried with the problems they had there. We did recognise the UN-appointed government in Libya. We did train the Libyan troops into how to recognise these smuggling boats going out and trying to destroy them before they actually left, because rather unfortunately, and myself I feel this very much personally, unfortunately for a time and even now with the Syrian crisis, the Mediterranean Sea has been renamed the Mediterranean Cemetery. This is something that we would like to see eradicated. This is something that we hope that all Europe can help. It's not an easy task and I know that every European country is burdened already with overpopulation and all this will add to the overpopulation of most European countries. But we're looking forward that some sort of solution could be found in the future. Did you feel that the other member states supported the presidency and your objectives of trying to sort out these issues in the north of Africa, rather than waiting for the problem to arrive on their coastlines? Well, as my Prime Minister once said, there were problems between, there still are, the fact that sanctions have remained between Ukraine and Russia, but at least with Russia there's someone who could negotiate with. Good or bad, Mr Putin is there. You could negotiate, you don't know the outcome, but there's somebody you could negotiate and speak to. With Libya, with the UN government, two other governments, there's nobody to negotiate with. This was the big drawback. Eventually the UN-backed government came into Libya and we were able to start negotiating with them. The coastguards in Libya, as I said before, have been trained by multi's expert coastguards on how to try and keep away the people from leaving into boats and risking their lives and paying a lot of good money to try and find better grounds and new lands. We even located places in Libya where these people could be kept until they could legally find the status to leave Libya into different countries and relocate over there. That was Malthus's contribution to its nearest neighbour from where we were getting the biggest influx of refugees, migrants or whatever it will coming into the country. Thank you. Ross Greer. Just a very brief question related to Brexit, but on the point on refugees, it's very positive to hear what you're saying about that. I spent some time in Lampedusa recently seeing what is now the first point of arrival in Europe. You're right to bring up Libya as a priority. It's quite clear that, regardless of the circumstances that brought someone to the north of Africa, whether they were what you would call an economic migrant or had another status, the situation in Libya makes every single person crossing the Mediterranean a refugee. I did not meet a single person who'd made that journey who had not been kidnapped at least once in Libya, who'd not been held hostage, forced to work in various kinds of slavery there. The situation that's been created there is making a huge contribution to what is a refugee crisis, not just a large-scale unofficial movement of people. On the point that you made, the theme of reunion was decided in November, as a priority for your presidency. At that point, it would be fair to say that the European Union was feeling relatively insecure in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, but also with upcoming votes in Austria, the Netherlands, France, with the strong chance of Eurosceptics being elected. None of that came to pass. Is it fair to say that the union feels it is in a much more confident, secure position now? What effect might that have on the Brexit negotiations? Good question. I think that I'll have to take back to capital and come back with an answer later on in the form of an email. Fair enough. If I can have your... Yes, we can do that. I'll email you when I go back to capital on this one. Thank you very much. Thank you. Perhaps I could return to the theme of Brexit, and you'll be aware of how the negotiations have progressed. There was some surprise in this country that the UK Government had been insisting that they would negotiate both an exit deal and a free trade deal at the same time, which the EU had always said was not possible. Indeed, every expert who spoke to this committee told us that it wasn't possible. In the first day of the negotiations, the UK conceded that the two processes would have to be in sequence. In terms of your knowledge as presidency of the EU, how long do you think it will take to make progress on the exit deal before we move on to discussing future trading arrangements? Malt is not involved in the negotiations. If you are looking at the timeline, how long the negotiations are going to take, I would look at around 24 months. Being pessimistic, maybe I would go to 29 months until everything is possibly finalised. Nothing is agreed until anything is agreed. I have a paper here, and I can't speculate. I'm not allowed to speculate on that, but here I have a paper. You probably have a copy of it, which says that the EU 27 have agreed that any agreement with the UK should be based on the balance of rights and obligations and ensure a level playing field will preserve the integrity of the single market, excluding participation based on a sector-by-sector approach. A non-member of the union does not have the same obligations and cannot, hence, have the same rights and enjoy the same benefits as an EU member state. Negotiations with the United Kingdom would be conducted as a single package, in accordance with the principle that, and this is a line that we spoke about yesterday, confounded me and still confounds me, which says nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. This is the stand the European Union has taken. Nothing is agreed unless and until everything is agreed. Individual items cannot be settled separately. Thank you very much. We have a question from Mary Evans. I just have a couple of questions about some of the other priorities that are put forward as part of your presidency. It was really some of the comments that were made around the single market, as being one of the EU's greatest assets. It was really just to tease that out a bit more and to see exactly what the single market has meant for Malta. We have had a lot of discussion about that here, and I think that it is something that we have identified as particularly important for Scotland and continued access to the single market, but I would just be interested to hear your perspective on that. The single market is one of our top priorities, and a lot has been done for this. Again, I will email you with the full details about it. Sorry, could I just come back on another one? It was just about the other priorities as well. I can understand that it is something that you do not have information on as well, but it was about the social inclusion and about how the presidency aims to improve the participation of women in the labour market. Other key measures include work to combat gender-based violence and further develop LGBTI issues. I was wondering how, if you were able to say anything today about how that work had progressed. Let me say that Malta has undergone a lot of changes over the past three years with the Government we have. Malta was before considered a very conservative state, a very too-catholic state, and suddenly we had a referendum that brought in divorce. We had a new government that said that immediately if elected to power in 2013 is going to fight for LGBTIQ rights. It gave all the rights to LGBTIQ in about six months. It also gave them partnership rights, same-sex civil unions, and the new... We just had an election on the 3rd of June and the Prime Minister has said that LGBTIQ rights, and I hope these will be taken up with the whole of Europe, will be continued, will be continued to be improved. The first thing we're going to do is change the civil union to marriage, same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption of children. Even the introduction of medicine in marijuana will be coming in the next legislation. So this is the way that extra-catholic Malta has progressed into a very liberal Malta. We'll keep on progressing that way, and we're trying to pass on these recommendations of what little us can do to big Europe and to try to implement all these social changes and gender equality especially. Thank you very much. I just had a comment. I was just going to say that, in terms of issues like that, having the presidency allowed Malta, do you think that it's allowed more of a focus on such issues and allowed them to progress quicker than they would have done otherwise? Had you not had the presidency? In terms of the presidency itself, it's the impact that it's had on Malta that I think I'm quite interested in too. The LGBTIQ rights, we have tried to send over to the EU countries to implement, and more than that, we happen to be also giving up EU presidency the next day, but we still remain chair and office presidents of the Commonwealth. That has 53 members. Unfortunately, 41 of them outlaw LGBTIQ. What we're trying to do as chair there is also to bring in gender equality over there, recognise women's rights, and also ask them to even softly, slowly, start accepting LGBTIQ rights. So we're going to keep on pushing on that. Even if not still in the presidency seat in the EU, we'll continue to lead by example on that. Thank you. Stuart McMillan. Thank you, my convener. It's just a couple of questions regarding the EU at 60. I'm keen to hear your reflections regarding the success, and also potentially some of the challenges or failings of the EU at 60. As I said, the EU was rather fragmented when we started our presidency. We're happy to see that the reunion slogan has worked and that the EU has become more, the 27 remaining, have become more unified since Brexit. And I think the EU has now peace and prosperity as the way forward. And we've managed, in our little way, to instill that. As I said, probably this came about because of Brexit and because of the way that Theresa May's proposals were considered by the EU to be far below expectations. For many years, it appeared that the UK seemed to be a reluctant partner within the EU. And going forward without the UK as a member of the EU, do you think there are any lessons that the EU can learn, or that the EU 27 can learn from the period of time when the UK actually was a member to help and solidify that union going forward? Let me go back to the start of Malta's membership in the EU, which came in 2004. Now, not many know this, but our Prime Minister, who is in the forefront for the EU, and he would never even think or consider of ever leaving the EU. He's a great believer in the EU and the way forward he says is the EU. When he started his political career was completely against joining the EU. He was in favour of partnership. With the passing of the years and with the introduction of Malta in the EU, he put himself out for election as a member of the European Parliament, got elected straight away, went into Europe and was so convinced of the benefits of the EU and the future of the EU. He was still leader of the opposition then and he came back and said, Malta's place is definitely in the EU and we will never ever consider leaving the EU. This was the standard of Malta. And to your question, the UK is always important. We have great ties with the UK, which we hope to continue and we hope will continue. And I'm sure UK will engage with everyone in the EU and try and get the best deal possible. I don't know how the UK is going to continue to negotiate. At the start it was all, it's going to be a hard Brexit and I think UK is looking at a softer Brexit which I think will make it easier to possibly negotiate. But as I said, we're not on the negotiating table. We always had very good relations with the UK. There are some things that will not change. Somebody yesterday during the reception asked me, will any agreements that you have with the UK will now stop? And I said, we have to look into what agreements there are, whether they were signed when both of us were in the UK. But one, the most important one for us, for me because I believe in it, is the medical and health agreement, reciprocal between the UK and Malta. That agreement was signed pre-EU accession of the UK and of Malta. So that agreement luckily will stay. Which means that specialised treatment that cannot be found in Malta can be given to Maltese people who need the treatment free of charge in the UK. Reciprocal in Malta, the UK people who live in Malta, come to Malta or come on holiday in Malta will still always be offered free NHS treatment in our hospitals in Malta. Because that is an agreement that was signed between the two countries before your or our accession to the EU. That's an important agreement. Now, the Government has to study what other reciprocal agreements there are that were signed before the EU and build on those. Thank you very much. We are under a little pressure of time and I know that the High Commissioner has other engagements. So I'd like to thank the High Commissioner again for coming to give evidence and his officials and I will now have a brief suspension of the committee. It's been my honour, my privilege. Thank you for inviting me to come here. Let's say that our lesson has been learned. EU will engage with all member states that remain, even the reluctant ones. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I wish Scotland all the best of luck. I wish the UK all the very best of luck. May you continue to prosper. Thank you.