Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, June 29, 2017

Official Report 515KB pdf

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Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Our next item of business is an evidence session on the presidency of the Council of the European Union. I welcome, from the High Commission of Malta in the United Kingdom, His Excellency Norman Hamilton, the High Commissioner; Karl Xuereb, EU policy officer; and Nerissa Sultana, political and communications officer. I invite the High Commissioner to make a short opening statement.

Good morning, members of the Scottish Parliament, and thank you for inviting me here today as High Commissioner of Malta in the United Kingdom. As you will know, Malta currently holds 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.

For the past six months, the smallest EU member state, with a population of just 455,000—the size of Edinburgh—took the reins of the Council of the European Union and steered a union of 28 member states with over 510 million citizens. Subjectively, I believe that Malta did not do a bad job of it at all, and completed the tenure with flying colours. European Council President Donald Tusk used words such as “efficient”, “impressive” and “excellent” to describe our presidency, and European Commission President Juncker used the same tone.

The past six months have served as tangible evidence of Malta’s resilience and of its people’s diligence and tenacity in the face of a challenge that I have to admit, at times, seemed 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 was compounded by the additional task of preparing for the start of the negotiations with the United Kingdom over its decision to leave the EU, which made it even more challenging.

The Maltese presidency, which is near its conclusion—one more day—marked the midway point in the current institutional cycle of the Commission and the European Parliament. It was therefore a time when many new ideas, programmes and projects that had matured over the past two and a half years were expected to start bearing fruit.

The presidency’s work over the past six months was also conducted in the context of an intensified debate relating to the future of Europe. That is 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: migration; security; Europe’s neighbourhood; maritime; social inclusion; and the single market. As we are meeting on the penultimate day of our presidency, instead of going into detail about those priorities, I will use them as references when I highlight some of our achievements over the past six months.

The presidency for Malta started slowly but surely, tackling head-on the issues of migration. Early in February, we brought together EU leaders in Malta to build on the progress previously achieved in Valletta two years earlier, to conclude the landmark agreement that will help to prevent further loss of lives in the Mediterranean, and to further secure the EU’s external border. That was also complemented by 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 done in the previous presidency, a regulation amending the Schengen borders 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 EU’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 the Council with the European Parliament on a directive for an entry and exit system and additional funding by the European Investment Bank to address migration issues.

On the latter, the Maltese supported High Representative/Vice-President Mogherini’s work and complemented it with efforts to conclude negotiations with the 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 system 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 that priority, we devoted special attention and effort in connection with the accession process for Serbia and Montenegro. Here we have achieved encouraging results with four new chapters opened 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. It is aimed at developing innovative solutions for sustainable water provision and management, as well as food production in the Mediterranean region.

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Regarding maritime issues, agreement was reached on a number of dossiers relating to port services and to passenger ship safety rules and standards, on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships operating to and from member states’ ports as well as on the system of inspections for the safe operation of roll-on, roll-off ferries and high-speed passenger craft in regular service.

Success was also achieved on a number of fisheries dossiers, including the signing of the MaltaMedFish4ever declaration. That international declaration, agreed to by both EU and non-EU Mediterranean ministers, established 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 Corps, 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 consideration of the Commission’s proposal for the European pillar of social rights, which will form part of the preparation for the social summit to be held in Sweden in November.

Several regulations, directives and decisions were agreed that enhance the scope and function of the single market and have a direct positive impact on the lives of EU citizens. Those covered the areas of digital economy, energy and climate change, consumer protection, capital markets and financial services, among others.

Overall, good progress has been made and agreements have been reached on many important digital single market proposals, including the allocation of the 700MHz band, the portability of online content, and wholesale roaming charges. The presidency managed successfully to conclude negotiations on a number of files that bring the EU up to speed in today’s digital age. Tangibly, that 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 much longer than I was asked to and therefore that I should conclude. I will say one last thing—on 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 UK, namely the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency.

Thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much. I welcome you and your officials to the committee; we appreciate you coming to give evidence.

As you rightly acknowledged, we tend see European matters through the prism of Brexit these days. Your opening statement made clear the wide-ranging achievements of your presidency and the number of challenges that face the European Union quite aside from Brexit but, as you can understand, Brexit is the focus of much of our committee’s work.

I want to ask about the theme of your presidency, which was rEUnion and bringing the Union closer together. Do you feel that that has been achieved, and how has it affected the EU27 as they go about negotiating Brexit?

The concept of rEUnion was reconnecting the citizens of the EU—individual, corporate and state—so that they could connect with Government, the EU and the world. That was the philosophy and the motto that Malta adopted, and it was decided on in November before we started our presidency.

At the start of our presidency, we believed that the EU was getting a little bit fragmented and that there was not that understanding between the 28 countries in the EU. Believe it or not, Brexit brought the Union together and made the rEUnion of the European Union possible. Where before the members of the Union were not all in exact harmony, the calling of Brexit resulted in the remaining 27 EU countries coming together. That was the rEUnion that we were hoping for.

Of course, Malta historically has had very close links with the United Kingdom, and many UK citizens live there. You will be aware of the UK Prime Minister’s statement this week on residency rights of EU citizens living in the UK and of the fact that the issue is a priority in the negotiations. What work has been done in Malta to address the issue of the British citizens who live there?

If memory serves, the remain or Brexit referendum was held here in the UK on 23 June 2016. At 8 am on 24 June, my Prime Minister went on nationwide television and addressed the audience in English instead of Maltese. There was a reason for that: he said that he wanted to address the citizens of the United Kingdom who were living in Malta—all those expatriates who had decided to settle in Malta and Gozo and all those UK workers who were currently working there—and tell them that they had nothing to fear once Brexit was concluded. The position was clear—they would be allowed to remain and retain their property and their jobs in Malta—and he hoped that the UK would act in the same way towards the Maltese migrants in the United Kingdom. Our Prime Minister made that statement of reciprocity to all UK citizens who currently live in Malta, and it still goes—I have his word on that—up to the conclusion of Brexit. Let us hope that there is reciprocity at this end, too, for the diaspora of 31,000 Maltese who currently live in the United Kingdom.

Are you still concerned about the 31,000 Maltese citizens in the United Kingdom?

They are continually phoning or writing in to find out about their future. What we are telling them is that, at the moment, all we can guarantee is that while the Brexit negotiations are going on their future in the UK is safe. We just hope that their rights will be respected in a reciprocity agreement as the rights of the British in Malta will be respected.

Thank you. There are many more questions that I would like to ask you, but I am aware of your time, so I will pass on to Lewis Macdonald, the deputy convener of the committee.

We have heard different voices from within the European institutions in response to what Theresa May said the other day about EU citizens’ rights. Does the presidency regard her statement as something that offers a basis for a reciprocal agreement, or merely as the opening stage in a negotiation?

Your Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposal was below expectations, but that is going to be left to the negotiations.

So it will be the next presidency that has that responsibility.

Estonia has the responsibility of being the president of the Union. It should have been the UK, but it is Estonia that will have that responsibility for the next six months. Let us not forget that the presidency does not have that much of a say; it is between the negotiators—Michel Barnier and whoever is negotiating on the part of the British Government.

Yes indeed. Clearly, as a member state, Malta will maintain an active interest in the process.

Definitely.

Under your presidency, work has been done, for example through the meeting of the general affairs council, to look at what the European Union will look like post-Brexit. You mentioned the rEUnion theme of the Maltese presidency. The financial impact of Brexit on the European Union will be significant. Have any conclusions been drawn on what European Union budgets will look like in future years and how they will respond to the change in circumstances?

The financial question was brought up in the meeting in Rome. Unfortunately, there was no conclusion.

It is still work in progress.

Yes.

You said that Europe’s neighbourhood is one of your priorities. Two nights ago, on television here in the UK, we saw considerable numbers of refugees crossing the Mediterranean in craft of various sizes. What has happened under your presidency to avert a humanitarian crisis as soon as the weather improves?

That issue was close to our hearts even before we took the six-month presidency of the European Union. Our country was the most lumbered with migrants who were crossing over in search of a better life—some were refugees, some wanted refugee status and some just wanted to get away from the country that they lived in. Unfortunately, they came over in all sorts of craft that could float. We had as many as 1,000 at a time coming in, but they never wanted to come to Malta. Whenever they reached Malta, they would say, “Where are we? Is this Italy?” We would say, “No, this is Malta.” They would say, “No, no, we don’t want to be in Malta; we want to go to the continent.”

However, Malta could not send them to the continent; we had to accept them. As I said, we have a population of 445,000, and having something like 0.2 per cent of that population come into our country in one go—having to accept those people and let them stay there—was a great burden on Malta. In one year, we finished up with about 10,000 to 12,000 more people, which was difficult for the Maltese population to cope with.

You might find this strange, but the most co-operation came, unexpectedly, from the United States, which took 500 of the migrants every year. The US would send a team to Malta to assess the viability of the people and choose 500, who would relocate to the US. Unfortunately, we had little or no help from Europe then.

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One of our ideas was that Europe should share the—I hate to say it—burden, if you like, but not everyone has complied with or accepted that. I am glad to see that Scotland has taken in quite a few Syrian refugees and relocated them in homes over here. We very much wanted to see that approach being implemented in all European countries but, so far, it has not been accepted by all. Let us hope that, during the next six-month presidency, that dream of Malta will become a reality.

We helped to stabilise the situation in Libya. Malta is the closest member state to Libya, which is to its south, with Italy in the north. We were worried about the problems in Libya, and we recognised the United Nations-appointed Government there. We trained the Libyan troops to recognise the smuggling boats and to destroy them before they left the shore. Unfortunately, because of the Syrian crisis, the Mediterranean Sea has been renamed the Mediterranean cemetery. I feel that personally. We want to see that situation eradicated.

We hope that all of Europe can help with the situation, but it is not an easy task. I know that every European country is already burdened with overpopulation and that taking in refugees would add to their population levels, but we hope that a solution can be found.

Have the other member states supported your presidency’s objectives of trying to sort out the issues in the north of Africa rather than waiting for the problem to arrive on their coastlines?

As my Prime Minister once said, although there were problems between Ukraine and Russia—in fact, there still are problems, because sanctions remain in place between them—at least in Russia there is someone to negotiate with. Good or bad, Mr Putin is there and you could negotiate. You would not know what the outcome would be, but there is someone whom you could negotiate with and speak to. With Libya, the UN and two other Governments involved, there was no one to negotiate with in Libya—that was the big drawback. Eventually, the UN-backed Government came into Libya and we were able to start to negotiate with it.

As I have said, the coastguards in Libya have been trained by Maltese expert coastguards in how to stop people from leaving on boats and risking their lives, having paid a lot of good money to find better grounds and new lands. We have even located places in Libya where those people could be kept until they had the legal status to leave Libya and relocate to different countries. That was Malta’s contribution to its nearest neighbour, from where we were getting the biggest influx of refugees or migrants—call them what you will—to the country.

My question relates to Brexit. First, however, I will comment on your point about refugees. It is positive to hear what you say about that issue. I recently spent time in Lampedusa, seeing what is now the first point of arrival for refugees coming into Europe. You are right to bring up Libya as a priority. 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 person crossing the Mediterranean Sea a refugee. I did not meet a single person who had made that journey who had not been kidnapped at least once in Libya or who had not been held hostage and been forced to work in various types of slavery there. The situation that has been created in Libya is making a huge contribution to what is a refugee crisis and not just a large-scale unofficial movement of people.

That aside, the theme of rEUnion was decided in November as a priority for your presidency. I think it is fair to say that, at that point, in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, the European Union was feeling relatively insecure. There were also upcoming national elections in Austria, the Netherlands and France, with a strong chance of Eurosceptics being elected, although none of that came to pass. Is it fair to say that the European Union is now in a much more confident, secure position? What effect might that have on the Brexit negotiations?

That is a good question. I will have to take it back to the capital and get back to you with an answer in an email.

Fair enough.

If I can have your details, I will email you about that when I get back to the capital.

Thank you very much.

Let us return to the theme of Brexit. You will be aware of how the negotiations have progressed. There was some surprise in this country that the UK Government was insisting that it would negotiate both an exit deal and a free-trade deal at the same time when the EU had always said that that was not possible. Indeed, every expert who spoke to the committee told us that it was not possible. On the first day of the negotiations, the UK Government conceded that the two processes would have to be negotiated in sequence. From your knowledge through the presidency of the EU, how long will it take to make progress on the exit deal before we move on to discuss future trading arrangements?

Malta is not involved in the negotiations. I would look at a timeframe of about 24 months for the negotiations, although, if I were being pessimistic, I might extend that to 29 months before everything is finalised. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. I cannot speculate—I am not allowed to speculate—on that, but I have a paper, which you probably have a copy of, that says that the EU27 have agreed that

“any agreement with the United Kingdom”

should

“be based on a balance of rights and obligations, and ensure a level playing field. Preserving the integrity of the Single Market excludes participation based on a sector-by-sector approach. A non-member of the Union, that does not live up to the same obligations as a member, cannot have the same rights and enjoy the same benefits as”

an EU member state. It states that negotiations with the United Kingdom

“will be conducted ... as a single package. In accordance with the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.

That is the line that we spoke about yesterday. It confounded me then and it still confounds me, but that is the stance that the European Union is taking. Nothing is agreed unless and until everything is agreed, and

“individual items cannot be settled separately.

Okay. Thank you.

I have a couple of questions about some of the other priorities that were put forward during your presidency. I want to tease out your comments on the single market being one of the EU’s greatest assets and find out exactly what the single market has meant for Malta. We have had a lot of discussion about that here and have identified continued access to the single market as being particularly important for Scotland, but I would be interested in hearing your perspective on it.

The single market is one of our top priorities and a lot has been done in that area. Again, I will email you the full details of that.

Okay. Social inclusion is another of your priorities. I will understand if you do not have information on that topic either. How did the presidency aim to improve the participation of women in the labour market, and what other key measures were taken, including work to combat gender-based violence and to address lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex issues? Are you able to say how that work has progressed?

Malta has undergone many changes over the past few years with the Government that we have had. It used to be considered a conservative state—a true Catholic state—but we had a referendum that introduced divorce and we had a new Government that, immediately it was elected to power in 2013, said that it would fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning rights. It gave complete rights to LGBTIQ people in about six months, including partnership rights—same-sex civil unions. We just had an election on 3 June, and the Prime Minister said that LGBTI rights, which I hope the whole of Europe will take up, will continue to be improved. The first thing that we will do is change the civil union to same-sex marriage. We will also introduce same-sex adoption of children. We will even legislate to introduce medicinal marijuana.

That is how ultra-Catholic Malta has progressed into very liberal Malta and will keep progressing in that way. Although we are little, we are trying to pass on what we are doing to big Europe in order to make all those social changes, especially gender equality.

Has having the presidency allowed Malta to focus more on such issues and allowed the issues to progress more quickly? I am interested in the impact that the presidency has had on Malta.

We have tried to get the EU countries to adopt our LGBTIQ rights. We give up the EU presidency after tomorrow, but we will remain chair in office—president—of the Commonwealth, which has 53 members. Unfortunately, 41 of them outlaw LGBTIQ people. As the chair, we are trying to bring in gender equality and recognise women’s rights, and we are asking the Commonwealth members to start accepting LGBTIQ rights even softly and slowly. We will keep pushing on that. Even if we do not still have the presidency of the EU, we will continue to lead by example.

I am keen to hear your reflections on the successes and 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 are happy that the rEUnion slogan has worked and that the 27 remaining EU member states have become more unified since the vote on Brexit. The EU now has peace and prosperity as the way forward. In our little way, we have managed to instil that. It probably came about because of the vote on Brexit and the fact that the EU considered Theresa May’s proposals to be far below expectations.

For many years, it seemed that the UK was a reluctant partner in the EU. As the EU goes forward without the UK as a member, are there any lessons that the EU27 can learn from the period when the UK was a member to help to solidify the union?

09:45  

Let me go back to the start of Malta’s membership of the EU, in 2004. Not many people know this, but our Prime Minister, who is at the forefront of supporting the EU and would never even consider leaving the EU—he is a great believer in the EU and says that it is the way forward—was completely against joining the EU when he started his political career. He was in favour of partnership. With the passing of the years and the introduction of Malta into the EU, he put himself up for election as a member of the European Parliament. He got elected straight away and went into Europe. He was still the leader of the Opposition then. He was so convinced of the benefits of the EU and the future of the EU that he came back and said that Malta’s place was definitely in the EU and we would never consider leaving the EU. That is the stance that was taken in Malta.

In response to your question, I suggest that the UK is always important. We have great ties with the UK, which we hope will continue. I am sure that the UK will engage with everyone in the EU and try to get the best deal possible. I do not know how the UK is going to continue to negotiate. At the start, it was going to be a hard Brexit and now I think that the UK is looking at a softer Brexit, which will possibly make it easier to negotiate. However, as I said, we will not be at the negotiating table.

We have always had good relations with the UK. Some things will not change. During the reception yesterday, somebody asked me, “Will any agreements that you have with the UK now stop?” I said that we will have to look into what agreements there are and whether they were signed when both countries were in the EU.

However, one agreement—the most important one for me, because I believe in it—is the reciprocal medical and health agreement between the UK and Malta. That agreement was signed prior to the EU accessions of the UK and Malta, so that agreement, luckily, will stay. That means that specialist treatment that cannot be found in Malta can be given to Maltese people who need it free of charge in the UK. Reciprocally, people from the UK who live in Malta or come to Malta on holiday will always be offered free national health service treatment in our hospitals, because that agreement between the two countries was signed before your or our accession to the EU. That is an important agreement.

Now, the Government has to study what other reciprocal agreements were signed before the EU built on them.

Thank you very much. We are under a little time pressure, and I know that the High Commissioner has other engagements. I thank the High Commissioner and his officials for coming to give evidence.

It has been my honour and privilege. Thank you for inviting me to come here. Let us say that our lesson has been learned. The EU will engage with all the member states that remain, even the reluctant ones. [Laughter.] I wish Scotland and the UK the best of luck. May you continue to prosper.

Thank you.

09:49 Meeting suspended.  

09:56 On resuming—