 Thank you very much for the invitation, because I always love the position that we can explain what we are doing in Brussels, knowing that it is quite complex but sometimes it is good to at least see a positive trend within all the difficulties which may have to become on television. And I know I talk to quite a knowledgeable public, so I also look forward to the many questions you might have. I'll try to concentrate on the positive trend. Now that there are a lot of complexities and problems to solve, but I just want to make sure we all see that positive trend and I will of course quite willing to also do any nasty questions on the problems that might be less optimistic. But I think there is a good reason to be positive, but my topic given to me was the comprehensive approach and the EU and US military role within the external election service and I'll focus on that. You had some very good speakers, so before me you will have one, just a bit later though, sort of a great manager in external election services, so nice to have him here as well. So I'll focus completely from the military point, but I will not only talk about the military, I will look at the external election service from the military perspective and then what is our role. To understand that perspective, I'd like to start with what is my role and I know David Licky, my predecessor was here some time ago. He might have explained as well. Though much changed since then. If I would explain what my role is, it's called the Director General EU Military Staff and the military staff you could see a bit like a kind of defence staff. In some countries when I arrived they present me as the chief of defence staff of the European Union. I like it, but it is not true. There are 27 chiefs of defence and I serve them. So basically in the EU the military committee, which at this highest level is all the jobs together, who decide in consensus and I serve them. Single nations already can ask me to prepare something for this discussion but they have to decide on those proposals in consensus. For those who know NATO, for me now the biggest difference between NATO and the EU is that for this first part, my counterpart, Jeremy Bournemont, who is the Director General of the NATO Military Staff, he has only one chief and that is the military committee, chaired by the chairman of the military committee. That part is the same. The second part is I have this other head that formally my roles now since the first of January is the High Representative Special Vice President of the Commission, Cathy Ashton. And why is this such an important difference that in many occasions I'm not writing any more documents directly for the military committee, which was the case before. But we decided to be comprehensive and we have all the instruments for crisis management, which we normally also would have within governments under one roof. So not only the military, also with the CPCC, the civilian planning and conduct capability on operations by civilian counterpart with police missions, civilian monitor missions, training missions for civilians, whatever, in the security sector reform arena. That was already something we developed two years ago. But with the Lisbon Treaty and the creation of the External Election Service and the mandate of the High Representative slash Vice President, she now basically is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense. We can't call her that way. We say, High Rep slash Vice President. But if you look what are her tasks and what does she have in her organization, she's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense. And she has the mandate to coordinate all external action of the EU. Now, you heard this before because I saw the briefing of General Syren. He told you and David O'Sullivan might tell you again from his perspective because it has a lot of management complexities. From my perspective, this is great. I've been working in coalitions of the Billing and NATO for a long time. We always, as military, we're the first to acknowledge we cannot solve this problem ourselves. And then we have a lot of other people telling us you cannot solve this problem yourself. As we told you, we need others to do that. That is how it went for a long time. But nobody wanted to be coordinated by NATO because it was basically only military with the political diplomatic power, of course, as well. But you all know diplomatic power is based on the instruments you have behind you. And at NATO, that is only military. So NATO, if they talk about comprehensive approach, they are always looking for others to be the civilian parts. And the civilians never want to be coordinated by NATO. And it's also not the other way around. And then you get situations like we have in Afghanistan. Before the comprehensive approach starts, it goes very slowly because you have so much discussion. In the EU, it's not the case. And I already have proof of it because we have several crises now since we started to work as external access service. And I'm absolutely positive about it. We have a crisis. We sit around the table and the chair by Kefi Eshten or Secretary General V. Mol, if she's out. And she's out a lot because she's minister of foreign affairs. And then we sit around the table. Hakan, Siren and I are the only military around the table. In total, there are 28 people around the table. And they all represent instruments. It can be the geographical desk which has under his authority all the EU delegations and business. So diplomatic powers there. We have my civilian colleague who can do police training, monitoring missions, et cetera. I came to come up with military options. But we also have development. 11 billion to spend on all kinds of programs around the world. We have ECHO. I'll just give you one for me. The most simple difference between NATO and the EU. How it works. And then for more context you will understand it works as well. We started to work, though not formally external exo-service yet. I was there. So the procedure we started work when we had a fraud in Pakistan last year. She called the whole table around her. We discussed it. I came with military possibilities. One of the most logical was we can deliver military transport to bring whatever needs to be brought to Pakistan. NATO did exactly the same. But at our table also commissioner Christina Georgieva sits and she says well for this kind of crisis we still have about a billion. I think I can decide now to use the 200 million of our budget because this is really a big disaster. Four days later we were flying to Pakistan with military planes. They delivered by member states. But that is how it works. I can only organize, plan and coordinate member states. The EU doesn't have capabilities of itself. By the way, NATO has some capabilities of itself but the bill has the capabilities of also member states. But at NATO's side in two weeks they could deliver planes but nobody was buying the goods. Informally we handed over goods bought by the commission and gave them to NATO and they brought it to Pakistan. Small example, I will give you one other example, Ivory Coast. Very important advice was that in the beginning of the year the civilian war was coming on. We offered military options like evacuation of EU citizens, support to get the refugees out. But most effective, at the end, were the civilian instruments, blocking visa for people to go around Bakbo to go to Europe. And I think the most effective one blocked his bank accounts so he couldn't pay his mercenaries anymore. And then at NATO the French were successful in getting him out but that's because more and more mercenaries came to fight for him. So this really is the strength of the EU and if we talk about comprehensive approach I'm very glad as a military though it is my first military job in the EU to be part of this because this will be the strength to solve many more prices in the future. And be free to ask any questions what are the problems for me to be quick enough related to all my civilian partners who have different position making cycles. But if I start to explain now I might talk to more in the beginning. Then I of course understand from an Irish perspective you look to NATO in a bit different way but I so often get the question why do we need to do military if you already have NATO. So I'm going to tell you to do you anyway. And for me it is essential that we continue to have NATO for common defence, security, high intensity security and defence they remain essential but also I can only organise military operations for the EU thanks to NATO not because of the 3rd and plus but because they make sure we are interoperable within the EU and with all the other third parties which often deliver to us as well. And we are not in the EU duplicating anything everything which is at a technical technical operational level military we not duplicate but we are developing a lot of concepts and doctrines focused on the cooperation between military and civilian because NATO doesn't have it so that's if I talk about policy development it's very much about how do military work together with all the civilian parties. So strength for me better the bottom line in crisis management and the strength of the EU is the comprehensive approach of the EU. Then the role of the military staff itself well it's the same as most defence staffs. I have a role for current operations and planning for new ones but only at the political level I have no capacity at all to do operational work. I do not have the staff to make conceptual operations operands and conduct operations we have to activate operational headquarters for that. Three options I have a headquarters that is empty with all the materials in my building we call it the operational center. I could do if we activated it would cost about 90 people in total. I could run small operations up to better group with support to the other group. For all other I have to activate the national headquarters like we do for Atalanta at the moment still and what we did for child in Paris where Patrick Nash was an excellent commander. The third option is the Berlin plus range which we have with NATO. In Bosnia Herzegovina we may use it the cheapest way to do our business because we duplicate nothing. We use the command and control of NATO but it will never happen again because the EU has the policy of inclusiveness all members should be able to take part. NATO does not allow one in and therefore we will always be blocked. And here is the weakness by the way of the military because we do not have that capacity but all those instruments in the EU we might civilian counterpart but also in the commission they can act much more quickly and not have to wait to activate an OHU which is a difficult political position on itself. Operations on one side I would say 80% of my time is more focused on the future capabilities. One of them is creation of new concepts how to work with civilians and the other approach to what capabilities do we need as a EU for the future and how do we get countries to work together so we get the capabilities we need. Let me first focus on NATO because it's such a high percentage of my time. You know several years ago we agreed upon a headline goal 2010 many of you know about it. It determines what is the level of ambition for the EU. We agreed on five scenarios going from the easy humanitarian assistance to the high level peacekeeping, big peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations. An ambition up to 60,000 in total. The sum of the different operations. We had the last time we went through the cycle of this is the ambition, this is what we need this is what countries have so this is the shortfall with the same process you will do at home if you have to define what is necessary. Well this was already quite long with the shortfall of 10 very critical shortfalls. We could have agreed on a new headline goal politically. Why? Because we never reached the headline we didn't even want to evaluate it and we know if you would try to define a new headline and we look at the world and the interests of the EU the ambition should go up. The reality is went down. And member states are even hesitated to tell me where they have cut or certainly where they will cut and they make the national decisions anyway. It's a painful process. I'd say if I could make visible and I now try to do with my staff just following the newspapers and Google to defence the ministries where they decide to cut and you will see to our common embarrassment that many of our countries of the member states have cut even in areas which are in the shortfall 10 priority. Also my country by the way but we can go around you will find it everywhere. So I'm afraid we're in a situation where if you look at what interests of the EU are the ambition should go up but the reality is went down. I make this remark also related to the speech of State Secretary Gates. We've got to make up our mind in Europe what it means that in the future the EU might not always come to a rescue in all those situations which I did before. And if the analysis is we might have crisis where EU interest might be involved we then have to make sure we get the capabilities to just protect our own interest as a EU. Difficult messages in time of financial crisis and budget and I fully understand that if the Social Security is cut and education is cut it's difficult to explain that the fence needs to go up and I accept it. And we only can have strong military if we have strong economy so our governments need to find the balance. At the same time I just want to mention this. Just because it's so closely I go back to operations I go and within my 20-25 minutes I have I've already mentioned them with some key remarks and then feel free to ask any questions about it if you want to know more. Althea in Bosnia-Hochemina our only first and most likely last person operation with an executive mission still to support the local authorities for a safe and secure environment they have been successful in it that more and more countries not see the use of it we already started with a non-executive mandate so we start to train the military and that is working fine. I guess somewhere at the end of the year we will get a decision on how to continue this mission. Then a very good example of a comprehensive approach though historically it started different in a different way in the Horn of Africa with piracy of course everybody in the sense of the symptom of the problem which is on land and we now see in the external action service that all those key players start to work together and we for the first time have a Horn of Africa strategy and we're now working on an action plan under this Horn of Africa strategy where we bring all instruments together to solve the problem of piracy but also the famine and also the insecurity on land in Somalia and also the lack of capacities at the security side of all our partners in the region and well Operation Atamanta is one part of it important for our shipping so important for our economy but also very important in support of the World Food Program World Food Program all their ships are escorted by us they feed 1.3 million people and it's going up because of the fact that 26 million is the estimate of World Food Program I mean that's a very good reason to come to piracy as well and second priority but still until now as high as World Food Program we escorted all Amazon shipping and Amazon of course is essential to get security on the ground in Somalia in support of the government in support, T.D.G. in all the region and the commission does projects in Somalia and ECHO is doing humanitarian support in Somalia and we try to have all those instruments together and this is one of the reasons for the first time I see this comprehensive approach and the military terms we often call it campaign planning we now call it the new action plan because campaign planning sounds too military but we use the technique of campaign planning to get all those instruments together very interesting and it will make us more successful Libya I'd like to mention because I didn't have much cover in the media the EU and we were part of a civil middle mechanism we took out 4,400 EU citizens with military means out of Libya when the crisis started and before the intervention was there all the total 7,500 EU citizens in Libya then we had a lot of refugees going to Egypt and Tunisia especially at the Tunisian border it became such a big problem that Tunisian authorities asked support of ECHO the European Human Services Organization and they asked us if we had an absolute aid and we only took several thousands of the 10 thousands of refugees out but it wasn't the beginning and I think still that was an important contribution as well and then we had the discussion who's going to do what and at the end the discussion was NATO's going to do the intervention after the crisis started and the embargo support the humanitarian assistance on request of ECHO I'd like to explain this has been a huge political game can you imagine where all the different countries came from in the beginning and the EU was the only organization who decided that military be it for humanitarian assistance and security to humanitarian assistance we were allowed and we were prepared to go into Libya and there were several scenarios prepared on request of ECHO one of them was around Israta when the fight was going on and we couldn't get enough civilian support at the end the good news is the humanitarian disaster never became so big that they had to ask our support from a professional point of view it's maybe a bit disappointing that from a humanitarian point of view of course that's good news we're now at the end I'd expect on very short notice to get decisions to stop with that operation due for Libya because ECHO is not likely to make a request anymore and the next phase is completely going to be civilian dominated from the EU side why? because MTC asks they may not even want foreign boots on the ground other than some experts so if you can expect some military support to the new Libyan authorities it will be only some experts to advise in certain areas I do not expect much more all the other operations or missions will be civilian by the way my staff largely supports the civilians or CIS but do that as invisible as possible we did so in Georgia for instance as well okay I can always speak much longer than necessary therefore my agency already told me it's now time so I'll not go into but I also did not plan to but I want to mention the topics which are currently key topics and the results are most likely also for you if you are in a policymaking or security defense under the policy presidency of course and that's the improvement of the command and control capacity SIV NIL in the EU the improvement of NATO the EU coordination Pooning and sharing as the buzzword to get more capabilities I forgot to give one message here you cannot pool and share if you not have it and the shortfall list is a long list most of them we not have it so if we think we can pool and share and fill all the gaps we are to honestly but I do seek a lot of possibilities to be more efficient with our money and then maybe we can use it in those other categories but the technical topic the improvement of the usability of the data groups is one topic that's going to be a very difficult one to get consensus on even under the policy presidency I leave it there just to have some remarks and then open to whatever question you might have