 which is about Japan, EU rations under the presidency of, Irish presidency of the Council of European Union. Could I get onto the first slides? Yes. And I hope my slides will not be so temperamental as Sayuri's. Let that go. I'll take this way. Great. Here. Oh, by the way, the Irish presidency, this is great. Because one of the things I admire about the European Union is that each member states have equal opportunity to run the huge vehicle. You had Cyprus driver, and now you've got Irish driver. This is great. It never happens in the United Nations or the World Bank. So it's amazing. Okay, so let me start with introducing a small booklet which is about your guide to Lisbon Treaty. You can find it everywhere in Brussels in the EU information center. It starts with this line, after decades of war that cost millions of lives, the foundation of European Union marked the beginning of a new era where European countries solved their problems by talking, not by fighting. This is an amazing phrase. It sounds simple, but it's one of the hardest thing in human beings. Fighting is everywhere in the world, in the Middle East and Africa. Having this in mind, let me start talking about Japan-U relationship in terms of development cooperation. Before that, let me start by looking at the impact of financial crisis on EU aid. This is interesting because when I talk to this subject, to my former boss, Sadako Gacha, she told me, you are the only Japanese who worries about the impact of financial crisis on aid. Everybody's worrying about banking and financial system in Japan, but I'm the only one who really cares about the impact of financial crisis of EU aid or EU development cooperation. But interesting enough, the mainstream politicians, such as Angela Melkel of Germany, already said that we should complete an economic and monetary union and build a political union step by step, even at this hardest time. And I met with a number of EU politicians, parliamentarians, who also said that the current crisis may offer an opportunity to further unite Europe. But nonetheless, it is true, however, that the current financial crisis is opposing a dark cloud, casting the dark cloud across Europe. Southern Europeans, Spanish Italians, Greeks are frustrated by the austerity measures of their own government. And on the other hand, northern Europeans, Dutch, British and German, I don't know about Irish, Dutch, British Nordics are getting angry to know that more and more of the tax money is being spent to rescue the dead, the American and the American southern neighbors. But Commissioner President Barroso made a very nice remark at a speech delivered at the State of Europe last October, which was organized by Friends of Europe, to which I also belong. He mentioned two demons, the Barroso's two demons. Those icons doesn't look horrible. They're Japanese demons. And during the Cold War days, West East Division, as you know, and Europeans has got rid of this demon by helping Germany to reunite their divided territories and welcoming most of the East Bloc countries as a full-fledged member of the European Union. So that has been done. And currently, you are faced with the second demon, which is North-South Divide. But I'm confident, as Mr. Barroso, that Europeans will finally solve this divide with your wisdom and sense of solidarity. But there's a Japanese saying, which says, after the rain, the soil becomes more solid. There's a Japanese saying, but yes, after the rain, there's a good news, which is good news about EU development cooperation. I haven't seen any demons in the EU development cooperation. If you look at the budget, as Michael mentioned earlier, at the European Council on April 8th, February 8th and 9th, heads of member states battered through the multi-annual financial framework over a sleepless night. And they reached the conclusion to slash the budget, EU budget for the new term, which starts from 2014 to 20 by 34 billion euros against the proposal, Fund Room Pies proposal of 994 billion. But fortunately, the budget under heading 4, which is global euro budget, including development cooperation, increased by 3.3% over the previous framework. 3.3% is not a bad figure, given the austerity situation across Europe. So I really, really glad to hear that. I'm not talking about other issues like I've recall, but as far as development aid is concerned, EU has done a good job. Your heads of states has done a good job. And what is more encouraging is the fact that according to the opinion poll conducted by the commission, it said, it showed that 85% of European citizens said it is either very important or important to help developing country. This is amazing. This is the highest ever figure supporting development cooperation in any developed country, any developed country. So amazing Europeans. I'm very, very glad to hear the result of opinion poll. Now, let me take a moment to think about the concept, the change of concept of development in the 21st century with comparison to that of Cold War days, which is in 20th century. During the Cold War, the Western government included in Japan focused to bolster the regimes of the capitalist countries. So I mean, political and economic regimes of the capitalist countries without. So they didn't so much care about the governance and human rights of the country they were working for because the primary objective is to bolster the existing regime of the country. But things have changed dramatically after the Cold War because national, ethnic and religious conflicts everywhere they emerged everywhere. So development must be linked to security, peace and state building. So the challenge has become so daunting for the development community compared with the days on the Cold War days. So now the donors has to contribute, concentrate their efforts not purely on development but on various other factors surrounding development which is security, governance, human rights, democracy and everything. So in a sense, if there's no security, there's no development. If there's no development, there's no security. This is a paradigm of development community in the current days. So for example, Iraq and Afghanistan are a case in point and Syria and Nali will be our next challenges. Okay, now let me turn to the potential of the European Union for a more global Europe or more re-emergence of Europe. The re-emergence of Europe was mentioned at the Davos Summit. This is a very good word, re-emergence of Europe or global Europe. So here I, in terms of EU institutions, the Lisbon Treaty has dramatically changed them to better serve such global demands for development. In terms of EU potential for external actions, I would highly evaluate the creation of European External Action Service, EES and the high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy which, who oversees EES currently, Catherine Ashton. EES, which functions as a foreign ministry of the European Union, so to speak, it's still at the early stage of its operation. It was created only in 2009. It's still new, but as far as I observe in Brussels, they're doing very well and very good, very well and very hard in order to ensure that the common security and foreign policy be implemented across the whole EU external action. So in development, for example, we got the huge bureaucracy, which is DGDECA, which is Development and Cooperation Directorate, and we got, you got ECHO, which is Humanitarian, EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Directorate. So in terms of linking the EU foreign policy with development policy, EES is working so hard to coordinate with DGDECA because most of the budget instruments are controlled by DGDECA, so EU has to work together with DGDECA. So in a way, particularly in the area where security and development must be linked together, EES is strong as security apparatus within its institution and they also look at political affairs of the foreign country. So they are in the position, central position to link development and security and political affairs under one roof. And also in terms of emergency assistance, Michael mentioned the linkage between emergency aid and long-term development aid. So EU is in a position trying to sequence emergency assistance with the long-term development assistance. So the role EES, I would say, is very important, crucial. They have done a good job already in Syria, Mali for example, and such a thing has never happened before they were created as a result of response treaty. So response treaty is a very good benchmark for further uniting Europe as global power. Now, after that, it's okay. This is the final stretch. So let me talk a little bit about the Japan as a potential for Japan and EU collaboration as a partner for more global Europe. Japan could be an essential partner for European Union if European Union want to exercise more global influence in the current complex society international society. As Michael mentioned, the EU development cooperation is huge. The combined ODA provided by the member states with that of the commission totals 53.1 billion euros in 2011, so which accounted for nearly 60% of the global ODA. United States 25%, Japan nearly 10%. So if EU joined up with Japan, that will be a huge impact in the development community in the world, provided that EU should speak in one voice. If EU aid is fragmented by 27 members, they won't be strong influence on the global community. If EU is more coordinated under the commission's coordination capacity, then it will be a tremendous impact. But by the way, according to the article four of the treaty of functioning of the European Union, the development cooperation and humanitarian aid is area where shared competency are secured. So traditionally EU member states can give their own aid and commission implement their own aid as part of the European Union. So it's a little bit complicated, but if that is united together, there will be a huge impact on that. And one of the things I noticed is so more coordination and more comprehensive and more impact that will be the key words for European Union aid in the coming Irish presidency. So one of the things which I notice, I recognize here is where I go. Here, this is the council conclusions adopted in May 14, 2012, last year. It is about increasing the impact of EU development policy, which is called agenda for change. This is a short paper, but four-page paper, but it says a very important things about uniting European aid. It says that the EU and the member states have a joint responsibility to reduce aid fragmentation, improve coordination and deliver concrete development results effectively and efficiently by making concrete progress on joint multi-annual programming here. Joint multi-annual aid programming, I think, is a very, will be potentially, it's a very strong vehicle or driver to unite EU fragmented EU aid in one house. It works like this. Traditionally, every member states and commission used to make their own document, which is called aid programming document, by country, by all country they serve. So in a sense, there are lots of duplication. The same thing, similar documents have been formulated by different member states. So joint programming exercise is to produce just one document, eight program documents for one country for all EU member states. This, I think, is a great step forward in terms of coordinating aid. By the way, in current year, joint programming is already going on in the number of pilot countries like Ghana, Rwanda, Côte d'Iboire, Guatemala, Laos. And Jaika has already joined the discussion as an observer in Rwanda and Laos. But basically, joint programming is for the EU member states. But it is open to other donors like Japan and the United States. And the United States has already, USAID had shown interest. When I met with the representative of USAID in Brussels a couple of weeks ago, she was very much interested to join Japan in some of the exercise in joint programming. So if EU, Japan, US is involved, that will be a huge impact on the development of the partner countries. So here again, this is the area where the role of external action service, EEA, is critical. They are the one who can coordinate different EU institutions, DEPICO, ECCO, and other institutions in terms of coordinating their activities in the particular countries. So you got currency union. Now you got banking union. So why not aid union? That is my point. Okay, lastly, I'm talking about Japan. Let me say a few things about Japan and where Japan and EU can work together. For more stable and resilient world. I mentioned earlier the stability of the world. For the stability of the world, we need to link development with security. This is absolutely necessary without security, no development, without development, no security. Okay, and for a resilient world, as Michael mentioned, we rarely need to bridge the emergency aid with development assistance. And Japan has an ample experience and knowledge on the fields of disaster prevention. So we're really keen to share our knowledge on disaster resilience with many countries in Asia and Africa. And this has been our two major themes to work where we can work together with Europe. Linking development with security and building resilient society. So these two themes is going to be very important issues not only for Ireland, but also for Japan and the European Union. So finally, I just want to emphasize the role of EU institutions and strengthening strong EU institutions to work together with other development agencies such as JICA. And this will be a very, very good news not only to EU member states, but also to other major international donors on development. So EES, DigiDepco and DigiEcho are the three important external action instruments of the European Union. And Japan will be better a partner to work with Europe if they are working together under one voice in a more coordinated way. So lastly, I think Europeans must have got to remember that Japan and the world needs more and more global Europe at the time when America is getting less and less global. Thank you very much.