 We're really happy to be joined today by Pia Arun-Kilt Hansen. She is Director General in DGCOM in the European Commission, where she leads the Commission's efforts to communicate the European Union's policies to an external audience. She's dedicated much of her life to this goal, so it's a real pleasure for her to be with us today. Thanks for joining us, Pia. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. So I might start by just touching on the results of the most recent European election in the last year. Turnout was higher than it's been in a number of decades, but there's still quite a long way to go. And what are some of the main challenges in terms of participatory democracy in the European Union, in your opinion? As you say, it was a very encouraging turnout, reversing a decline and basically getting us on the right side of 50 when it comes to the turnout of Europe-wide. We cannot be complacent about it as encouraged as we are, because it was really heartening. So we need to continue to think how we can nurture the European democracy in between the European elections, because that's also what it is about. And I think it's about making a stronger connection and a stronger perceived connection between what is decided at the European level and what is the impact, the benefits on people's lives. And this is one of President von der Leyen's six headlined ambitions, a new push for European democracy. I wonder could you talk us through some of the main initiatives the Commission will look to roll out over the next five years? Absolutely. A push for European democracy, again, making our European democracy more vibrant, living also in between, of course, the very important moments of elections, which are the most eminent moments where people express directly, of course, in votes, by the way, nationally or European-wide, their political preferences and choices. But in between elections there's a lot that we can do, indeed, to keep our democracy healthy, to keep it sound. So this new push has, at its heart, a new conference on the future of Europe. It's an initiative which is an inter-institutional one, even if it was in Mrs. von der Leyen's political guidelines, our President. It's designed to be an inter-institutional endeavour, so involving the other main European institutions, starting with the European Parliament, elected by the people of Europe, and of course also the representatives of the Member States in the Council. And other institutions where both the economy, social partners and our regions are represented, I'm sure, will also play an important role in participating in this exercise. So this conference should run over two years and indeed enable the people of Europe to have a stronger say on the issues that matter to them. We have set a frame that we believe is very important in terms of priorities for the next five years, by the way, very inspired by what the people told us in previous citizens' dialogues, for example, and national consultations of citizens as well. And this consultation should run over two years, take it to the next level, go wider, go deeper also into the, not only in the capitals of our Member States, not only speaking to the usual people who care and are interested in European affairs, but trying to engage maybe with audiences who are not so familiar with speaking about Europe. So those are some of the things that we will do over those two years. And we're in the design phase, I would say at the moment, reaching an agreement at political level as to how exactly this should work. It's not the only thing we're doing, and we're not starting from scratch. There's also a very important European Democracy Action Plan underway, which will aim at also looking at how we harness the democratic resilience of our Member States, how we also address more robustly the risk of interference in our elections, because it's of course crucial that our elections can continue to run freely and fairly and to enable people to make their choices in full independence. So those are some of the things that we're doing, in addition to focusing also on rule of law, which is a basis for our democracies, equality and other issues. So a very busy agenda. And in terms of core messages that the Commission would like to get across to European citizens, particularly the groups you mentioned that aren't traditionally engaged, what kind of messages would you seek to put across over the next five years? Well, I think the most important message is that there is no preconceived outcome of this exercise. It is really the citizens that will decide what is the outcome. The message is, join the conversation, be part of the European debate, come discuss with us whether it is about, you know, climate change, about migration, about the economy, all these issues that we know people care about, the choices that we will make as we, for example, undertake a green transformation in Europe, both to make our economies and our livelihoods sustainable, but also to create new opportunities for people. These discussions and many others we would like to hear from citizens and so we invite them to engage. Yeah, it's been a real pleasure and we wish you all the best with the rollout of this important initiative and others. Thank you very much. Thank you.