European Commission
Malmström

The sun has been shining in Rome, showing the city from its best side. I’m here to meet with various representatives from the new Government, the Parliament and other organisations.

The Italian government, led by Mario Monti, have totally different European interests than the former Government and it has therefore become a key ally, not least when it comes to my portfolio issues. Today I mainly discussed asylum, immigration, the situation in Lampedusa, integration and Schengen. I met with Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, Minister for Integration, Andrea Riccardi, members from both the Chamber of Deputies and from the Senate, and several journalists.

I know Giorgio Napolitano from my time as a Member of the European Parliament, having spent five years in the same committee. He is the President of Italy and an impressive man of 85 years. We had the opportunity to meet and he has an astounding knowledge of all matters within the EU. Many people would say that he has been the only stable force in Italy for the recent years and he is very popular.

Meeting with Don Luigi Ciotti, President of Libera

Another important issue for Italy is organised crime and the fight against the mafia. A month ago I presented a proposal on confiscation of criminal assets and that’s an area where the Italians have great experience. In Italy, Mafia assets are turned into social benefits, to projects for the benefit of young people, victims and more. A senior person in this area is the priest Don Luigi Ciotti, founder of Libera, a network of over 1200 different associations, groups and schools working to combat organised crime, to support victims and promoting a society based on the rule of law. They have projects all over Italy and many of them are run with the money seized form the mafia. Tomorrow I will go and visit some of these projects.

Today, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy violated human rights in 2009 by sending boat migrants back to Libya. The unanimous verdict is important and most welcome, albeit not surprising. It clarifies – and confirms the EU Commission’s position – that countries who push back migrants to where they risk persecution, without assessing their situation, are breaching international law.

Shortly after the events of 2009, my predecessor, EU Commissioner Jacques Barrot, demanded that the Italian government at the time clarified how these push-backs had been carried out. The Commission also wanted to know how Italy intended to make sure that such situations would be avoided in the future. As far as we know, no similar returns of boat migrants have been carried out since then.

Last year, more than fifty thousand migrants crossed the Mediterranean in rickety vessels to the EU. According to UNHCR, over 1500 of them died trying. We must come to the assistance of migrant boats in distress, and we must guarantee access to protection to those in need.

Now, the Commission will study the verdict from the court carefully to see whether further action is needed.

The pressure on Syria is increasing. EU Foreign Ministers this week agreed to expand sanctions, and now finally, the Arab League is too voicing its concerns. The brave Syrian people are continuing their demonstrations despite the violence perpetrated by the army. Hopefully the regime will soon come to an end, but it will not happen peacefully. The risk of escalating violence is imminent. President Bashar al-Assad must resign. Now.

In a Europe burdened by the debt crisis, Italy has now got a new government which is composed purely of technocrats. They all seem to be competent professionals with high integrity and they will hopefully create some order in the Italian economy. But the fact remains that none of them are elected. All efforts should now focus on pulling the EU out of the crisis and preparing for the future. But instead an institutional debate has appeared about whether there should be an inner and outer core of Member States – most recently discussed in an article with Alexander Stubb, Finland’s EU Minister in today’s Financial Times. The talk is now of a ‘power core’ of Eurozone countries that have triple-A rating forming within the inner core of Eurozone countries. The reasoning behind this is unfortunate, especially at a time when the EU needs to stay together for European cooperation to fully function.

This weekend we finally got the news we have been waiting for: Berlusconi has resigned and President Girgio Napolitano has appointed Mario Monti as the new Prime Minister. Monti has been an EU Commissioner and he is a highly respected economist, with great integrity. It is not an easy task that he has taken on – especially given that there were not many reforms during Berlusconi’s time. Both Monti and Papademos have clear mandates and expectations are high that they will get their countries back on track without delay. Of course it is not ideal that democratic countries are run by technocrats and not elected politicians.  But at the same time the situation is serious, and elections are also planned for.

In Brussels today I have had many internal meetings. I also met with the Foreign Minister from Moldova, Iurie Leanca, and later today I will meet with the Czech Minister for Foreign Affairs, Karel Schwarzenberg.  I will discuss visa issues with both – the state of play of negotiations on the Moldovan action plan for visa liberalisation, and the visa obligation that Canada imposed on the Czech Republic almost two years ago. Asylum seekers from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia today make up the majority of asylum seekers in Canada – and all are Roma people. This is not an acceptable state of affairs in the European Union.  The situation for the Roma people must improve drastically. Also, the visa obligation is a huge obstacle for students, business people, tourists and others, making it even more necessary that we find a solution.

Today we received the news from Athens that former Vice President at the European Central Bank, Lucas Papademos, will form the new interim government in Greece. News that is welcomed – hopefully this will create some calm and stability. Both the EU and the International Monetary Fund have been very clear that no money will be paid to Greece until there is a government that supports the necessary reforms. Now we are also waiting to hear about who the new Prime Minister of Italy will be – and of course who will form the government of Belgium.

It’s been a hectic day today. I began the morning by talking at the European Integration Forum, an annual event organized by the Commission together with the Economic and Social Committee. The conference brings together representatives from Member States, government agencies, municipalities and organizations. The focus for this year’s Forum was on the role of the country of origin in successful integration and about circular migration. Then I rushed to a round table discussion which focused on borders and border control, followed by a meeting with a delegation of senators from the French Senate. We had a long discussion on asylum, migration and above all on Schengen. From the French quarter, there has been some criticism of the Schengen proposal I presented in September. The French think we go too far in suggesting that the decision to reintroduce borders should be taken at the European level. But it was a useful and constructive discussion.

Before lunch I also had a meeting with Alexander Bastrykin, who is chairman of Russia’s Investigation Committee. The Committee is tasked with investigating serious crime, and will report directly to the President. I raised the EU’s concern about the Magnitsky-cases and the murder of Natalia Estemirova, which the Committee is looking into.

The last formal meeting was with Torbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe. We tend to meet regularly to discuss issues of common interest, but as we haven’t seen each other for a while, the lion’s share of the conversation revolved around the horrible events in Norway this summer.

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.

What a week it has been: with the circus around the Greek referendum, then no referendum occurs; the lecture on Greece at the G20 meeting; Papandreou’s resignation; and now the formation of a coalition government.  It truly far exceeds your classic Greek drama. There is no denying, a coalition government certainly would have been helpful a year ago. Nonetheless, implementing the Greek reforms will require courage and leadership, and more than a little blood sweat and tears, and through this, the politicians must remain united.

Behind the Greek drama lurks a potentially worse one in Italy. The situation in Italy is very worrying and yet the Prime Minister appears to not really recognize its seriousness. The Italian economy is much bigger and more important than that of the Greeks. The Financial Times’ editorial this weekend sent a plea to Silvio Berlusconi, with the heading, – In God’s name go! There are probably many who agree.

After a week with fantastic autumn weather and some time off, Monday comes around again, with a full agenda and rain. A busy first day back included discussions with the Georgian Home Affairs Minister on visa issues and meetings with a number of journalists.

More boats are coming to the shores of Lampedusa. But now they are not only carrying Tunisian migrants, but also refugees from Libya – mainly Somalis and Eritreans who have lived in Libya for a long time and now have nowhere to go. Yesterday, 500 refugees from Libya reached Malta. I’m in daily contact with Italy to see how we can assist them. Last year Italy got a sum of money from the European Refugee Fund and the Return Fund, and all of it has not yet been used. That money can now be used to deal with the situation in Lampedusa, and we have also additional support if that would be needed.

The humanitarian situation in Lampedusa is difficult and Italy needs to move people more quickly to the mainland. From the Commission side we are now pleading also to other Member States to take their responsibility and support Malta and Italy in taking some of the refugees arriving.

Tomorrow I am going to Tunisia together with my colleague Stefan Füle. We will discuss the current refugee situation and I hope that we can also touch upon how we can organise future cooperation on mobility, migration, visa issues, and border management. I will go to the refugee camps close to Djerba and then to Tunis to meet with ministers, UNHCR, International Organisation for Migration, NGOs, and representatives of political parties.

Today started with a long meeting with the LIBE committee in the European Parliament whom I debriefed of the state of play in the PNR negotiations with the US, Australia, and Canada, and where I presented the evaluation report of the EU-US agreement on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP). The evaluation, which was carried out by representatives from data protection authorities, the Commission, and Eurojust, shows that the agreement on the whole works well and that the data protection mechanisms are in place. But the report also lists some recommendations of areas that need improvement. I think it is important that this report becomes public, so I put it online as soon as the LIBE committee had seen it. You can access it here, as well as the press release.

I also had a long telephone conversation with the Italian Minister of Interior Mr Roberto Maroni, about the situation on Lampedusa and in North Africa. Up until now, 11 200 people have reached Lampedusa’s shores from Tunisia, and as the weather improves the number of boats coming will probably increase. We are looking at how we can support Italy in this situation, and I will also discuss with Tunisian authorities how we can cooperate to make sure that those who are not in need of international protection can return home under safe and dignified conditions. So far no refugees from Libya have arrived in Europe, but we are of course preparing for all possible scenarios.

As of yesterday the Frontex mission ‘Hermes’ is officially deployed to assist the Italian authorities in managing the inflow of migrants from Tunisia on the island of Lampedusa. The mission is being launched four days after receiving the official request from the Italian authorities. The mission is part of a broader framework of measures put in place, and includes support of border surveillance and experts to assist the Italian authorities in interviewing migrants. They have a special mission to identify those who may be in need of international protection. In other words, they are there to save lives.

Today the EU Foreign ministers met in Brussels to discuss, among other things, assistance to Tunisia as well as the current developments in Libya. Cathy Ashton sent a clear message yesterday that all violence in Libya must be stopped and that the demands of the people for reform must be addressed through open and meaningful dialogue. We are closely following the developments, and stand ready to support the democratic, social, and economic reforms needed in the region.