Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela yesterday spoke on the importance for Libya to establish a stable government, which was also crucial in terms of countering terrorism and migration.

Speaking in Amsterdam during a meeting of EU defence ministers, Mr Abela proposed holding joint meetings of Home Affairs and Defence Ministers.  He called for better use of the EU’s Comprehensive Approach between Home Affairs and Defence Ministers since there are common issues being debated concurrently by both Council formations especially when it comes to security and migration.

Minister Abela said that Malta reiterated its support to the EU CSDP military operation set up in June 2015 in the Southern Central Mediterranean in order to disrupt human smuggling networks known as “EUNAVFOR MED Sophia”. Malta has contributed to this mission since inception and is planning to keep contributing through specially trained personnel from the Armed Forces of Malta.

At the meeting, ministers mainly discussed the EU’s role as a global actor and security challenges arising from humanitarian crises situations around the world, notably in troubled areas in Africa such as the Sahel, Horn of Africa and the Central African Republic. In these areas, the EU is already present and active on the ground thanks to missions and operations set up under its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and which are assisting fragile governments and societies by helping to consolidate the security structures of the armed forces by means of capacity building initiatives.

 On this point, Minister Abela said that the EU’s missions and operations are a concrete deliverable under the EU’s external responsibilities and that the review of the EU’s external policies need to include above all flexibility and responsiveness. He wanted to see the process of capacity building and support to developing countries move forward, especially with regard to supporting their internal security structures. He also looked forward to the EU doing further work on this track as agreed under the Valletta Summit conclusions of last November. He underlined the implementation of what was agreed during the Valletta Summit was very important and was also a credibility test both for our citizens and with African states.

The meeting also discussed the new Global Policy for Foreign and Security Policy which is to be approved by the European Council in June 2016 and is to set out the EU’s guiding principles and activities in external relations in future. Part of the meeting was held, as customary, in the presence of the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Mr Hervé Ladsous and of NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, who discussed areas of common cooperation between the EU, UN and NATO in the promotion of international stability and security.