European Commission
Malmström

As always, it is very interesting to be in the US and to meet with people who work in academia and various think tanks. I had some very rewarding discussions at Harvard with their dedicated students and a number of researchers about integration, terrorism, trafficking, the European crisis, etc. The discussion mainly focussed on immigration and asylum, which was the theme of my lecture.

I then proceeded to Washington where I had a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the fight against child sex abuse images online and cooperation in matters concerning data protection.

I Tuesday afternoon at the FBI, where I received a detailed report on their work to tackle cybercrime. It was interesting to hear about their experiences, especially as we are now establishing a cyber crime centre in The Hague.

In between these meetings I also met with a number of journalists and with various US officials who work against cybercrime and identify violent individuals who are at risk of being radicalised. We talked a lot about the Breivik case and it is evident that the trial in Oslo has received a lot of attention here as well.

Tonight there will be a big reception at the Swedish ambassador’s home, and tomorrow I will speak at a major conference on cyber security. It is organized by CSIS, a think tank where I did an internship for a few summer months some 15 years ago.

The US election campaign dominates many of the conversations here, and of course it is interesting to follow the campaign up close. Today Bo, the president’s dog made his campaign debut. You can read more about it here.

I am on a mission to the US and today I will give a lecture at Harvard. I have been invited to their European Program, the Kokkalis Program, to talk about current European challenges.

I will address three challenges. The first is the response to the Arab Spring. Following the historic developments in the Arab world, the EU will need to bring about a serious change in its policies towards its Mediterranean neighbours. The second challenge is the need for a common European migration policy. The EU is facing a declining labour force and needs to attract the rights skills and talent. And the third challenge is the need for a common European asylum policy. The EU must ensure equal treatment of asylum seekers no matter where they apply and make sure all Member States shoulder their share of responsibility. You can read the full speech here.

Tomorrow I will travel to Washington to meet with the Attorney General, Eric Holder, and to visit the FBI to learn more about their work to combat cybercrime.

About one million people worldwide fall victim to some form of cybercrime every day. The worldwide cost of these crimes is estimated to be around 388 billion dollars. These figures should obviously be handled carefully as one problem with this type of crime is that all crimes are not reported, but the figures still say something about the extent of the problem.

There are skilled people around Europe who are working to combat cybercrime, but there is still no European centre that brings together this expertise in order to assist member countries in their work. The creation of a European Cybercrime Centre is something that I’ve worked to achieve for a long time and now finally, today, I am able to report that there will be a European Cybercrime Centre called ‘The EC3′ at Europol, in the Hague. The Centre will be up running by January 2013 and will start off with around thirty people. The Centre will warn EU member countries about major threats, assist in police investigations and coordinate efforts with a focus on online fraud, dissemination of sexual abuse images and large-scale cyber attacks on critical infrastructures in the EU. More information can be found here.

Another problem with cybercrime is the lack of information. It is understandable in the case of large-scale attacks that companies and governments focus their energy on restoring the systems. But in order to identify and prosecute the perpetrators behind the attacks, law enforcement authorities must be informed. Otherwise we can not stop new attacks from occurring. I therefore hope that with an established European Cybercrime Centre, there will be a greater willingness to report cybercrimes to national law enforcement authorities.

Yesterday I paid a short visit to Stockholm to speak at Conference on Security. The Conference brings together executives in the security sector and security managers from various companies, and they had invited me as a keynote speaker. I spoke about organised crime groups and how they operate in the EU, the prevalence of cyber crime and what the EU does to meet those challenges. I told them about the proposal for a European Cybercrime Centre at Europol, which I will present next week.

I also met with the employees from the Commission’s representation in Stockholm. We talked about current issues and in particular about the negotiations on the asylum package, which are slowly but surely moving forward. The Commission’s representations organise seminars and are responsible for the EU information offices. If you have general questions concerning the EU or if you want information material you can always contact the representation in your country. The representations do a very good job and it’s always nice to meet the people working there.

Early this morning, I went back to Brussels for this week’s Commission meeting. On today’s agenda was, among other things, the enforcement of the directive concerning the posting of workers.

The Posting of Workers Directive was adopted in 1996, and it establishes the rights of a ‘posted worker’ – a worker sent from one EU country to another to perform a job during a given period of time. The directive states, for example, that all workers should receive pay, vacation days, and includes safety requirements for the workplace. When the directive was adopted there had been several cases of abuse of posted workers and the new rules sought to protect them. Now, 18 years later, we see that not all Member States have implemented the directive correctly and there are still cases where the employees are not adequately protected. Today’s proposal aims to clarify the responsibilities of Member States. The Commission also reaffirmed that social rights such as the right to strike, are on a par with economic rights, such as the freedom of establishment.

Tonight, I will fly to Tallinn where I will meet, among others, the Prime Minister and where I will inaugurate the new European IT Agency. The Agency has nothing to do with cybercrime but will instead be responsible for running the Visa Information (VIS) and EURODAC systems – making sure that they function twenty four hours a day.

With Interpol's Secretary-General Ronald K. Noble

This morning I went to visit Interpol’s headquarter in Lyon. 190 countries are members of Interpol and it has been very interesting to hear how they work. We discussed issues such as organized crime, cybercrime, child abuse etc. In recent years, cooperation between Europol and Interpol has become increasingly better. The cooperation has also led to a couple of operations and arrests of international gangs involved in selling and disseminating images of children being sexually abused . We discussed how we could further develop this cooperation when it comes to for exemple, training of police in new democracies. Tunisia and Libya are exemples of two countries where the Commission is already engaged. A functioning police force, where the police is working for the public service and not the dictatorship, is of course central for a democratic transition.

Interpol is planning to establish a centre in Singapore to coordinate the fight against cybercrime. Within a few weeks’ time, I will present a Commission proposal to establish a European Cybercrime Centre. We of course discussed a future cooperation between the two centres.

My visit coincided with Interpol’s annual conference with responsible national authorities, so there were police officers from nearly 100 countries in Lyon today. I had the opportunity to listen to the conclusions of the conference and to talk about the ongoing activities within the EU and the work with our internal security strategy.

Press conference after the meeting with the US Ministers

I am in a rainy but warm Washington for a meeting with the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security. We meet twice a year, once in Europe and once in the U.S. My colleague Viviane Reding and the Polish Presidency were also taking part in the meeting. It has recently been a major government reshuffle in Poland which means that the ministers on my issues, Home Affairs, have been replaced. This is a bit unfortunate, at the end of the Presidency and it could risk delaying negotiations which are now in its final stage.

At the meeting yesterday with the US Ministers a series of issues of common concern were discussed: cybercrime, terrorism, data protection, visa issues, etc. In addition, we had time to talk a about American politics, the various Republican candidates, the super committee of the Congress and the new sanctions against Iran.

 Washington was unusually empty, as the Americans are about to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I’ve spent the day in various meetings, starting off with my fellow Commissioners.  The hot topic was growth, and of course the situation in Greece and Italy, among other issues for discussion. It seems that it will still take some time before the question of who will govern in both countries becomes clearer. We then had a working lunch with European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek.

Now I am going to speak at a conference on cyber-security. As Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet said: “When we built the framework for the web, we did not think about security.” Now, 20 years later we see how vulnerable we are.  And not just individuals, who can have our bank accounts or Facebook accounts hijacked, but also public services, who are extremely vulnerable to this type of crime. The main responsibility to ensure that the net is free and secure lies with the Member States and industry, but due to the nature of these often cross-border crimes, we also need to build capacity within the EU. We need, which I’ve written about previously, a European cybercrime center, but also a global strategy. The EU also cooperates with the United States in this area – we jointly conducted a stress test here in Brussels last week, to test preparedness for a possible cyber attack. The outcome of this exercise will be presented later this year.

I’ve been in Budapest for the last couple of days. Yesterday I attended a conference on cybercrime. The conference was held in light of the 10th anniversary of the Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. Even though 10 years have passed since the adoption, it’s an impressively up-to-date instrument, facilitating the cooperation on EU-level in the fight against cybercrime. Most Member States have ratified the Convention and in my speech I encouraged the countries that still haven’t ratified the Convention to speed up their efforts. I also highlighted the need for a European Cybercrime Centre at Europol and the importance to encourage companies to more often report on cybercrimes. The Hungarian Presidency is now working hard to have the directive on cybercrime, that I put forward last year, adopted before the summer.

Today I’ve been in meetings with the Americans on security and justice related issues. We discussed data protection, the fight against terrorism, cybercrime and the situation in Northern Africa. It’s important to discuss these issues of mutual interest even though we do not agree on everything.

At lunch I met with Janet Napolitano, US State Secretary of Homeland Security, and my colleague Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda. We agreed to step up the transatlantic cooperation in cyber security – one of the most important priorities being a better protection of children on the internet and the fight against child pornography.

The meeting in Luxembourg continued late into the evening yesterday. I was glad to see that Member States adopted my proposal to prolong the intra-EU resettlement pilot project with Malta, which started in 2009. This is one way to show solidarity and to help this small and densely populated country. Some of the Member States also volunteered to resettle migrants, Germany for example taking 100 people. But more countries need to help out. You can see the press conference I gave together with the Hungarian Presidency here.

It is also crucial that we move forward with the decision on the European Resettlement Programme. The Programme is about pooling the Member States’ resources to resettle migrants in order to make a joint effort in assisting a specific region or maybe to empty an entire refugee camp. If we could move forward with this we could help approximately 5000 migrants in need of protection. Even though all EU institutions have agreed to go ahead with the Programme it’s blocked at the moment due to a conflict between the Parliament and the Council. It’s high time to settle this dispute. 

The meeting continued this morning with the Ministers of Justice and we discussed the state of play on the Directive on protecting children from sexual exploitation as well as the Directive on cybercrime that I put forward last year. They are both quite complex, but progress is being made. The last cyber attack towards the Commission a few weeks ago shows just how important it is to have the proper tools in order to fight and prevent these attacks. Tomorrow I’m going to Budapest to speak at big conference on the fight against cybercrime.

When landing in Helsinki this morning it was -16º C, but the sun has been shining all day. I’ve visited an EU funded integration project, Monika, who supports migrant women in all stages of the integration process. They are specialised in helping women that have been victims of violence, honour related violence or trafficking.

I also met with Minister of Migration and European Affairs, Astrid Thors and the Minsiter of Justice Tuja Brax. We discussed the situation in Northern Africa, the common Asylum and migration policy but also talked about cybercrime and corruption.

Migration policy is one topic that is getting more and more attention in the upcoming elections in Finland this April. This was also the topic for the public seminar at the European Commission representation in Helsinki this afternoon where Astrid Thors and I answered questions.