 First of all, welcome everybody to the Institute, it's an unusual time for a meeting and this may well be reflected in the numbers but I think as we will find there's a quality quantity issue that should show itself. First of all, I'm Tony Brown, I'm a founder member of the Institute, currently called Senior Fellow and I've been asked to chair this because for a period at the end of the last century, as I say, I was a director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in which capacity I represented Ireland and Macedonia. I spent most of my time defending these, the word Macedonia without the words former Yugoslav Republic of and when I came back from that, and I had been involved in the Institute before, we established a working group on the Balkans which was required of the most active groups in the Institute in which the people of, like Misha Glany and others addressed us on a regular basis, but of course eventually the enlargement processes a hold and the western Balkans aspect of it died down as a priority issue and so the Balkans group ceased to be as active as it was, but on this afternoon's event is evidence of this, the issue is coming back on the agenda and we have been from the point of view of the Institute, that is objectively significant but also ties in with the work that we are doing in the group here that deals with the future of the Europe of Trity Seven and we are currently discussing the whole issue on the basis of work done by our colleague John O'Brennan from Manuthus with us today. Back on the agenda I think it is going to be particularly now in the light of what we are going to be discussing this afternoon which is the very important communication from the Commission on the EU enlargement policy which was published only just a matter of a week or so ago, which is a very important contribution to the political debate in the institutions and hopefully in the member states and we also have the prospect next month of the EU western Balkans summit in Sofia under the Bulgarian presidency of the Council which would be seen as an occasion on which further impetus can be given to the debate on further enlargement. So that provides the background to this afternoon's event. Before I do any more I have forgotten to do what everybody who sits in this chair has told us to advise you to do the usual good deed with your mobiles and also to reflect on the fact that we are there in an emergency. The emergency exits are the entrances to which you came and not as some people suggest the windows which probably would lead to even more emergencies but certainly the mobile phone either off or silent if you please. So to discuss the preparation of the work that is going on to prepare for the eventual EU enlargement and Balkans we are very privileged to have Archer Popovsky who is the director, deputy director general of DG neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations or DG near in the commission who is coming back to the institute after an overview is the record of the last institute pre-presidency conference which was in 2012 so that you spoke there on the external action service and that you were I think also the deputy secretary general of that institution in the period from 2011 to 2015. Mr. Popovsky has been in his present role since April 2016 and is responsible for the southern neighborhood relations of the union and also has responsibility for migration issues and security issues in that part of Europe which is a pretty heavy and serious responsibility. Of course I have a background in the Polish foreign service and we worked in the former Poland in the institute in the early years of the decade, of the previous decade. So we are very interested to hear the own interpretation of the position that is emerging as enlargement comes back on the agenda. We of course remember that when he took office, the commission president made it clear that there would be an agreement on his watch but that is moving towards the end and recent statements both from himself and other leading figures show that enlargement at least is coming back on to the agenda of policy consideration and the situation of western Balkans is particularly interesting in terms of countries that are already candidates, countries that may be candidates from countries that are problematic in various ways in terms of their status. So we will follow the usual pattern, your remarks which we look forward to, 20-25 minutes or so on the record and then the discussion of the record of what we call Europe House Rules but really Chatham House Rules adapted to Dublin and that does not mean that they are not observed but we like the time for our own to start on these things. So without welcoming you again perhaps you would tell us what we are to expect under the rubric of this extensive work from your institution. Thank you very much. It's good to be back. It's good to see again some friends, Mary Cross with whom I have the pleasure of serving on the Political and Security Committee and everyone who took me for a trip to Somalia and this is something you never forget. But that was in my previous life. Now it's close at the home, this is the Balkans and now the last couple of weeks I basically feel like a travelling salesman because I'm going from capital to capital and talking about the strategy for the Balkans. Both in the region and in the member states and both work trends are important. But it all started with the big bank announcement of President Junker in September of last year when he gave this clear perspective and that was really like this famous sport from Samuel Goldwyn that it starts with an earthquake and then things were out to the climax and that was this earthquake moment for us because indeed President Junker decided to set the tone of discussion and in a way make this European perspective irreversible. That was part of the State of the Union address and elevated enlargement to the priority policy areas of the Commission where it belongs. For a number of reasons we see it as a completion of a certain process that started in the 90s with the preparation for the 2004-2007 enlargements. It simply confirms that the place of Western Balkans is in Europe. I mean they are surrounded by the European Union, they share the same values, they aspire to become members, they just need a little bit of push and they need to do a lot of hope. But there are also challenges that we share, whether we want it or not. You mentioned some of them, the migration crisis. In a way that was the most defining moment in 2015 that has put back Western Balkans on the European political agenda. Up to 2015 people thought of the region as they think of the past. I mean there was still some legacy issues, there was Kosovo, etc. But it was not much trouble. Then it came back with the vengeance and then also organized crime emanating from the region. There is terrorist threat, I mean again there are linkages. We know of the foreign terrorist fighters originating from the Balkans. It's not as many as we think, it was 900 from the six countries, which is double the amount of Belgian foreign fighters in Belgium, it's not that big. But it is a fact, so we can only deal with this in the European framework. So we don't want to leave a security vacuum at our doorstep and that's why we want to re-engage. So as a next step the commission put forward a strategy, a framework paper that was issued in February that reaffirms this window of opportunity that sets a date. I mean the date was mentioned by President Juncker, but then it was re-confirmed in the paper. And dates are always tricky because they raise expectations. And if the expectations are not met people get frustrated, that's life. When I was on the receiving end, so negotiating Poland's accession you were also fighting for a date. And there were European leaders who came to Warsaw and said that Poland should become a member of the European Union in 2000. Never materialized, so a lot of people got frustrated. So the date that we put forward 2025 is indicative and is to be seen as an incentive. So if everything goes well and the best prepared countries do their homework, they could possibly exceed. But they can also go back and they can, I mean others can catch up or they can even overtake the front runners. For timing we have two, Serbia and Montenegro, it's factual because they started negotiations a few years back, they've made progress, they closed a few chapters and they are more advanced in terms of the early forms. But we really wanted to open up this perspective for everyone. I mean for all the six countries some people call it the regatta principle. So they all move forward and then we see who comes in first. But of course they still need to sustain their reform efforts and fulfill a number of conditions. On the conditions the commission has always been very clear. We call it fundamentals first. I mean they have to take the commitment to the European values and the fundamental principles like the rule of law, functioning judiciary, fight against organized crime and state capture, they have to take it very seriously. We also expect the countries to settle in a binding way we say in the communication order by lateral disputes. Because we have so many examples from the past where by lateral disputes were imported into the European Union. We would like to avoid it in the future. I mean the main, the one that is on everybody's mind is Kosovo, clearly. And the strategy is very straightforward in saying that we expect a normalization of a relationship between Serbia and Kosovo. And this has to be done in a legally binding way ahead of any accession. We are not prescribing a solution. That's for them to sort out and the European Union is there to help. And that's the so-called Belgrade-Pristina dialogue that has been ongoing for some years. But we are not going to dictate the terms of the normalization to the country's concern. The economic reforms need to continue. I mean, when you look at the candidate countries, none of them except Turkey is a real functioning market economy. I mean, the structure of the economy is heavily affected by the communist past, the question of ownership, but also competitiveness, level of investment, connectivity between them. I mean, it's a relatively small region of 18 million people, but not really connected with each other. I started traveling to the Balkans when I joined the engineer, so that was two years ago. And then I discovered that the best way of getting from, say, Skopje to Belgrade is to go to Vienna. So that's the old pattern. So we want to help them improve the links, road network, energy infrastructure between them. An aspect that is really important is youth. This is a relatively young region, but faced with a very serious problem of brain brain. People are leaving because they have no job opportunities at home, are relatively well educated, are European, and living very close to Europe. So it's difficult to stop. I mean, it's part of the trend. People go wherever they want to leave, but if we offer them something meaningful to do at home, they will be motivated to stay and to prepare the countries concerned on membership. We decided to launch a number of, we call them flagship initiatives. Six flagship initiatives. I'm going to come back to them in a moment and also back them up with considerable funding. To give you only one figure, until 2020, we want to top up the pre-accession assistance for the West and Balkan Six by 500 million euros. And then we need to prepare ourselves, the European Union, we need to think of financial implications. It won't be that huge because it's not a, I mean, economically it's not a very, I mean, it's not a, it won't have a huge economic impact on the European Union, but there will be financial and also institutional implications, et cetera. Now, what's on many people's minds in Europe, in particular the countries, I mean the neighboring countries, so some member states like France and Germany is the, let's say the negative phenomena like organized crime, state capture for in meddling, pure state of judiciary. So there we have to be very firm and we have those famous list of chapters, negotiating chapters. There are two, number 24 and 25, dealing with the rule of law, with the judiciary, fundamental rights. And these will be, these will stay on the table until the very end and we really want them to take these matters seriously, to deliver on judicial reforms, to fight against corruption, organize crime, to pursue a meaningful public administration reform and to enhance the functioning of democratic institutions, including the parliaments. When you go around the region, you see that very often the opposition is marginalized. Sometimes it's their own request, I mean they simply boycott the parliament, but even if they don't, they don't have much to take. That's the role of the opposition to be pushed by the government, that's normal, but they need to play that role because otherwise there is no checks and balances. So the flagship projects that I mentioned, I will not go into all the details because that would be too boring and time consuming, but it's six of them first strengthening the rule of law. And that's not just something declaratory, we want to engage operationally on the grounds of, for instance, we will deploy a number of liars and officers of Europe, the European Police Agency in the region. I mean for the time being it will be one of the countries, starting with three countries, with Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Albania, but then we will expand it, we want to have a good footprint of operational people, to be our eyes and ears on the ground, but also provide advice in the field of police requirements. We will do something similar, not a network of liars and officers, but we will engage with Eurojust, the prosecutors network, we will support the ADL having joint investigation teams in these countries. The second flagship is reinforcement engagement on security and migration. Migration I mentioned already, you may know that the European Border Management Agency Frontex has deployed their teams on the borders in Serbia and in former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the guest officers we call them. We want to continue that and help them manage the flows, even though the situation is much less dramatic than it was in 2015. There are still some people in transit and some people trying to cross the borders on the way to European Union, be it Hungary or Croatia or Slovenia. The third flagship is enhanced support for social economic development, so that's the investment in business climate and economy. The fourth is transport and energy connectivity that I described already. Then a digital agenda for the Western Balkans, that's interesting because then we are looking ahead. Normally, because this is a relatively new dimension of our daily life, we don't want them to have to catch up when they join. There are certain things we can already prepare. So, for instance, remember there was this European legislation lowering and then eliminating roaming fees in the European Union, which is something of a direct benefit to every citizen. Well, I'm not saying it's going to happen in the Balkans tomorrow, but it should be happening at some point in time. We have to prepare that, we have to explain to the operators how to do that and if needed, back it up financially so that when the day comes they can do the same. And this is sort of a healthy dose of populism in the sense that you do really something for the people because everybody has a mobile phone and everybody is traveling. And the last but not least, it's support for reconciliation and good neighbor relations. It's not only those legacy issues that I mentioned by lack of disputes, but there is a huge need for reconciliation. I don't think I need to explain it to anybody in Ireland. We want to support the building on the best practices in our own countries, whether it's the reconciliation between Germany in France or Germany in Poland or the peace process in Northern Ireland. People out there who can help, people out there who can share their experience, we want to facilitate that. Because the potential for conflict is there. I mean, it's not acute, it's not going to explode into our face tomorrow, but there is something may happen. I was in Sarajevo on Monday and I had a series of meetings also focusing on security, internal security, organized crime, radicalization. And I was reassured by our own colleagues there, but also by NATO, still presence, the situation is fine. I mean, there is no reason to raise the alarm level, so to speak, but it's not guaranteed. It's reversible. And the way of addressing the root causes of potential conflict is to deal with all those open wounds from the past. And it's only 20, 25 years ago that it happened, so we need to invest in that heavily. So I think our roadmap is pretty clear. We have our marching orders. We are assessing all these countries regularly. You mentioned the report that was adopted by the Commission last week. That's the so-called enlargement package. So the six country reports on the Western Balkans and Turkey, very detailed. So going with the income through all the criteria, the Copenhagen criteria for membership and assessing. I think it's rather fair and we don't do it ourselves. We really reach out to everyone, to our own delegations, but also to international organizations like I don't know, Council of Europe, OECD, OECD and others to help us with these assessments. They are really well balanced, giving a fair picture of the state of preparedness and that's an annual exercise. The novelty was a clear recommendation to start accession talks with Albania and for the OECD. Because they've made sufficient progress in particular judicial reforms and governance reforms, so there are still issues out there. There are ongoing negotiations on the name of the country with Greece and that we keep our distance because it's a real bilateral issue and the UN is involved. But we hope if they manage to find a solution which seems perfectly feasible, then it would open the door for accession negotiations. By the way, it also would open the door for NATO because we would also like to join the alliance. Albania has made considerable progress in the judiciary and the government is doing a good job. So we hope in June when the members of the state are going to adopt conclusions on enlargement, we hope that they will follow our recommendation. But we are still looking at a few bumpy weeks ahead of us in Brussels. And then indeed our leaders will meet in Sofia with the counterparts from the six countries. That's the confirmation of the European perspective. We really want to keep it on the agenda. And then there's still a lot of, I mean I would say blood sweat and tears. I mean it's enough blood that has been spilled in the region but certainly sweat and tears for us and for them. But the direction of travel is clear. What we still need to do is to communicate. It is a historical opportunity and we need to close the circle. We need to complete a certain process but it's not obvious anymore. And then I'm a by-product of the 2004 investment. I joined the commission in 2008 only. But back in the 90s it was pretty obvious that the EU has to be enlarged. Now this realization is no longer there. That's why the communication is so clear on that. And we have to reach out to EU audiences in the capitals, to the parliaments and GOs. Why the audiences? That's why I appreciate opportunities like this one. I mean to explain. In some cases it's difficult because you are faced with criticism. But it's absolutely key because otherwise we risk losing a good outcome whenever it comes. So this will certainly, we spend all effort reaching out and explaining the rationale and how we want to go about it. But once again I would like to reassure everyone that we take it seriously. And we are very firm on the fundamental parameters and the fundamental values of the European Union that we expect the countries concerned to respect. I think I'll stop here and then we have enough time for a discussion. Thank you.