Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today.

So welcome to this press conference following the extraordinary VTC of Home Affairs Ministers,

Commissioner for Internal Affairs and migration, Magnus Brunner will debrief you on this meeting.

So you're aware today we have interpretation in English, French, German, and Spanish.

So, Commissioner, will give you a short introduction and then we'll move to your questions. Commissioner, thank you very much. Good afternoon, to everyone.

As you of course know that these past few days were, I would say, a test

of our European resilience on the one hand and of the security of our external, borders, altogether.

We have just concluded our informal meeting of, the ministers of Interior.

On last week's events, in Ceuta, and there was,

of course, full, solidarity with Spain around the table.

The meeting was, I think, also a very useful,

opportunity to, to clarify the facts, on the ground.

Minister, Grande-Marlaska confirmed, that the situation is under control,

that no one has actually moved to the mainland of Spain.

And that the Schengen area has not been affected.

But before I go into the details further on the situation, something that all ministers recalled today and which was in the middle of all the interventions of the ministers,

what the EU has jointly achieved in the last 1.5 years is real,

and the numbers also clearly show this.

Since June 12th, you know that the reformed Common European Asylum system is in force,

screening at the border, accelerated procedures, and we agreed also on the new return regulations.

So all these reforms together are there, and we can see that in the numbers and in the figures.

Illegal migration decreased by 55% in the last two years, another almost 40% so far this year, and this led To just over 49,000 people crossed illegally to our European Union across all our external borders,

and that is roughly just to give you a comparison,

this is roughly as many as arrived on the Greek islands alone in a single week of October 2015.

So this leads also, on the other hand, to decreased asylum applications, of course, across the European Union,

just to give you two examples there, in Germany, for instance,

the numbers are down by more than 33% again this year. Sweden, for instance, registered.

8400 applications last year, that is, that's the lowest in 40 years, and,

Denmark registered 1800 by the end of November, that's a historic low there as well.

By every measure, Europe has not had this much control over illegal migration in decades.

But of course the events from Ceuta, that's also pretty clear show that that dramatic images beat actually the best statistics, and that's also, of course,

11 of the learnings and as I said before, these past few days were a test of our European resilience,

a test of the security of our external borders.

And they showed these days showed clearly that there are actors who have no regard for the safety or even for lives of innocent people,

and from the first moment, of course, what we did as a Commission, we offered support to Spain, both financially.

And operationally, and this includes emergency financial assistance to strengthen the protection of the external border in Ceuta,

also supporting returns, of course, and also to prevent movements to the European Union.

In terms of support from our agencies,

Frontex is already on the ground with more than 30 people in Ceuta.

And of course, is of course ready to do more also,

and also other EU agencies like Europol,

like our asylum agency, stand ready to assist Spain. For the time being.

Europe, I think, has definitely passed this test. People did not manage to enter.

The Schengen area and security at the border was resolved quickly.

The key now is for the European Union to act, I would say,

in a united manner and also draw the right conclusions from these events.

This is also what we discussed today, of course.

Maybe some some sentences on the hard facts.

First, the breach itself, over 70,000 people, as you know, crossed in a matter of hours,

fueled by criminal smuggling networks and also disinformation,

social media disinformation, the integrity of our external border. Was placed, of course, under severe strain. That was the first hard fact.

The second hard fact, 75 lives were lost,

families who will never see their loved ones again because criminals send people on dangerous journeys,

and this is just not acceptable.

And today we discussed how to avoid such incidents also in the future.

What worked in the beginning is the response.

First, Spain today again confirmed, as I said before,

that practically all those who entered Ceuta have now returned.

People did not cross from Ceuta into mainland Spain and into continental Europe. The integrity of the Schengen area.

Was preserved and that is the result of a close of a sustained cooperation between Spain, Morocco, and the Commission over the recent days,

and I want to acknowledge it clearly and thank Spain also and the administration in Ceuta for restoring order and to work closely with Morocco to ensure the swift returns.

Secondly, Our new European rules on borders and on migration means we have a robust system in place to safeguard our security,

to safeguard Europe's security.

This includes swifter procedures at the border,

especially for countries on the EU list of safe countries of origin like Morocco is.

Morocco is part of this safe countries of origin.

And I also welcome the further deterrent action Spain and Morocco have have taken to prevent additional illegal arrivals including reinforced surveillance,

for instance, of the maritime border. What are the lessons learned from this?

This is also, was one of the main discussions, of course, today as well.

First of all, and we all agreed on that this morning.

It's about full, the full implementation of our new rules that is key, full implementation of the pact, faster procedure under our new rules on migration, including screening, border procedures, and swifter returns, very important elements there, both from a security perspective, but also, of course,

from a migration perspective and Member states want and need to make better use of tools such as the new safe third country concept,

which allows for asylum procedures outside the European Union in a safe third country under different and concrete rules,

and that is important also to further deter illegal migration. Second, our 5 point path forward.

Which President von der Leyen announced in her letter to Prime Minister Sánchez, yesterday.

We discussed that, of course, as well, and everyone, agreed there as well.

These five points, shortly, one is,

to continue preventing illegal migration through a stronger cooperation with our partners and neighbors.

We call it migration diplomacy, going beyond migration management.

We need to use our leverage in a more effective way,

be it trade, be it visa policy, be it.

Development assistance, and we are currently in the process of negotiating actually a strategic comprehensive partnership agreement with Morocco and of course,

the topic of migration is one of the core elements of this agreement.

Number 2 on this 5 points path forward is swift returns,

applying our new return regulation.

The third point, it's about further strengthening our external borders.

This means a reinforced Frontex support also both on the ground but also in third countries.

We are currently, as you know, preparing a new mandate for Frontex to be adopted after the summer break.

It also means vigilant monitoring and where needed also physical infrastructure at critical points.

The fourth point is about implementing early warning systems.

We must strengthen our capacity to follow misinformation trends,

for instance, on social media.

Working hand in hand with Europol and all the other EU agencies,

and the 5th point on that plan is about dismantling the smuggling networks.

We urgently have to adopt the global sanctions regime against migrant smugglers.

We proposed that in early July already to have more tools to stop them.

And it is why we launched also the Global Alliance against migrant smuggling 3 years ago.

So there was a common understanding that we must advance on these 5 points ahead of the JHA Council in October and then,

of course, ahead of the, the European Council as well.

So to close this week, as I said before, tested us, yes, in speed on the one hand,

in solidarity on the other hand, but also in resilience to disinformation.

But let me be equally clear about what this week also showed when it mattered,

the situation was brought back under control. That did not happen by accident. It happened because we acted together.

European solidarity is at the heart of the European project,

and Spain and its people can of course count on the enduring support of the Commission and the strength of our Union to overcome this current challenge.

But we shouldn't make any mistake, of course. We will learn from this, definitely.

We will also close the gaps and we will keep protecting our external border altogether.

Thank you.