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Opening remarks of Commissioners Avramopoulos and King on the First report on progress towards an effective and sustainable Security Union Brussels, 12 October 2016 Remarks of Commissioner This first report on the Security Union that we present today is a signal of our redoubling of efforts on security. With the reinforcement of Julian King here next to me, we are also in a much better position to do so, and I will shortly pass the floor to him to give you more details on what we present today. Our security environment is evolving rapidly, and this is precisely why we need to keep tabs on all elements to deliver on a genuine and effective Security Union. Take for example the arrest in Germany on Monday morning. There is a lot in this single case that is highly relevant to what we present today: - It was the close cooperation of intelligence services and police that led to the arrest. - He was in possession of explosives, whose ingredients are supposed to be tightly controlled by our existing rules. - He was under surveillance by security services. On all these points, our actions on the Security Union will have a real impact: From strengthening our information exchange, Europol and the Counter Terrorism Centre, to making sure that Member States effectively implement all rules in the field of security, to reaching agreements soon on a number of key proposals in our fight against terrorism, but also proposing new measures later this autumn. As Sir Julian will explain to you, we have an ambitious agenda, and we are determined to deliver. What matters is that all these dots have to be connected. The Security Union is the context within which we can foster more cooperation - and most importantly trust – within and among member States and all stakeholders. I now pass the floor to Commissioner King.

Remarks of Commissioner Julian King This is my first outing with you as the new Commissioner for the Security Union. We are presenting what is going to be a series of monthly reports on the work that we are doing in this field. As Dimitris Avramopoulos said: this first report looks at the period from the spring through to the end of the year and it is firmly rooted in the work that Dimitris and some of our other colleagues have been doing, particularly in the Home and the Justice areas. This gives me an opportunity to say thank you for all of the efforts that have been put in by Dimitris and others on this agenda to date. But as we go forward building the Security Union, it is going to touch a whole lot of other areas because we are going to reinforce various pillars of activity. First of all, a pillar of activity to take our efforts forward to close down the space in which terrorists, cyber criminals and serious criminals can work and act, to cut off the means that they use for their actions and that will involve work across a whole range of different bits of the Commission. We have had three meetings of the new task force that the President asked me to convene which brings together about 20 different Directorates-General and Services. We are going to close that space down by taking action on legislation, where that is necessary and useful, by pursuing implementation, and I will come back to that in a moment, but also by using our EU agencies as effectively as we can to support Member States. Member States, as Dimitris said are very often in the front line with their law enforcement and other agencies but there is a good deal that we can do at the EU level to support them. There will be a whole range of activity that we need to do on information and information systems - as Dimitris referred to in that example. There is also work that we need to do on tackling radicalisation, preventing people from becoming radicalised, and helping to de-radicalise people who have already been tempted down the route of violence. And we also, as a third leg of activity, need to do more to build our resilience - the resilience of our societies but also the resilience of our critical infrastructure, which is, as we have seen, too often the target for terrorists and criminal activities. In all of this as well as thinking about the work we are doing internally, with the Member States, across the European Union, we need to make the connection with the external agenda and and my colleagues on the external side are completely committed to joining up the internal and external agendas. Running like a red thread through all of this activity is going to be the need to do what we have agreed collectively to do: implementation. The Member States and the institutions have taken a number of decisions over recent months, indeed years in some cases, and we need now to make sure that those are put into effect. Very often they have been, and good progress has been made but not in all areas in every case. That's why in today's report there are the first examples of us taking infringement action with some of the Member States where they have not yet put in place things that they agreed to - around PRUM and around the effective implementation of measures on explosive precursors - again very topical as Dimitris said. There are also some areas where it is not a question of infringement because the implementation date is still some way ahead of us but we need to take now the necessary steps to be able to hit the implementation target. In the report you will find a particular passage about PNR- the Passenger Name Record arrangements - which after extensive discussion were agreed and everybody has now accepted that by spring 2018 we need to have this system operational and that means we need to have built the IT and other infrastructure that is necessary to make PNR effective. A number of Member States (unfortunately not that many) are in that position already, or will be soon, with the necessary infrastructure. A significant number have plans in hand, but 11 Member States[1] do not yet have plans in hand to be able to implement effectively by spring 2018. Here is an example where we at the EU level can help Member States to implement effectively: we can help with funding, we can help with expertise and advice and we can help by facilitating peer to peer exchanges where that expertise and advice is in another Member State. So it is not just infringement, it is about helping and facilitating Member States as they pursue the targets we have all set together in these important areas. Thank you.

[1]Greece, Poland, Austria, Germany, Cyprus, Malta, Croatia, Slovakia , Czech Republic, , Ireland SPEECH/16/3428

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