 many thanks for this very warm welcome. It's of course a pleasure and a privilege for me to be there. I've just got to know that your institute is also 20 years old, in fact, is in Ukraine. And in August this year we had a special date of 20 years of Ukrainian independence. In my speech I'll try to address mainly EU-related issues and I'll try also to give you a sort of my vision where we are as a head of negotiating team for the restoration agreement as a senior person for visa-free dialogue but you know for other different issues with special relations to the EU because somehow I've been dealing now with the EU directly or indirectly you know for 15 years practically all larger part of my diplomatic career. So I will map out a number of points but I will be happy you know to take up any sort of questions related to other foreign policy subjects in our current day session and it will be great actually to answer but to say to try to answer any sort of questions you could put on me. You know I first turned my intention on the EU also working out the very famous October memorandum because we've just talked about Chernobyl and nuclear safety. Our memorandum concluded in 1995 was a milestone for Ukraine but also was a milestone for G7 how to deal with Chernobyl and to that time we started you know negotiating with the European Union on what model could be chosen for the way forward and at that time we had for our bilateral relations with the EU partnership and cooperation agreement signed in 1994. Next time I was somehow forced to deal with the European Union I tried simply to get the agreement and to understand where we are what is about partnership and what is about cooperation. You know the agreement has quite limited scope also also practically it's about probably a couple of thousands of pages and it took me probably an hour and a half to read the partnership and cooperation agreement and at that time I believed I understood what is all about EU-Ukraine relations. It was about partnership and it was about cooperation and you know excuse me for a sort of latitude but cooperation is important cooperation could be stronger but cooperation couldn't be somehow deeper in the sense if we are talking about integration and it was my first lesson on the European Union. You know that at the beginning of 90s a number of Europe agreements were concluded between the EU and now new member states and then still accession states. You know I still miss the point here and I still believe that Ukraine somehow should have concluded the same agreement not the partnership cooperation agreement at that time. I understand that the point I'm now trying to get across could be seen as a bit controversial but for me it's a missed opportunity. The missed opportunity in the sense that back to the mid 90s we could have had a real Europe agreement which could be the basis not for cooperation but for political association and economic integration at that time and for me it would have you know gone beyond beyond the normal pattern or for your enlargement and here I remember one one interesting conversation in my time when I was posted in London as a minister councillor as the former French ambassador to London I will not recall his name because we are on record now over coffee told me you know we are talking with you about enlargement but this wave of enlargement for me is not about enlargement itself for me it's about re-ignification about re-ignification it's it's about common history it's about common mentality it's about common roots so enlargement to Poland it's about re-ignification and if we decide I mean the European Union to enlarge to Ukraine it will be a real enlargement and not re-ignification and it was a very interesting point in my understanding actually what is the difference between understanding what is the part of Europe and what is not a part of Europe and it's my my second point my third point is about our progress in understanding where we were and where we are in our relations with the European Union because I have been following different stages I have been following implementation of the partnership and cooperation agreement the famous EU-Ukraine action plan and in 2007 both Ukraine and the European Union decided to start elaborating completely new type of agreement situation agreement and the novelty of this agreement is about is about different substance about different rationale because it should be based on two important principles on political association and economic integration the sense of political association is about converging our policies also foreign policies in different senses is about deeper cooperation in different spheres but it's also about values and in the future association agreement we will have the definition of values exactly as they are defined in the article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty so the definition will be completely the same and our future agreement will be based on the same understanding and I mean also legally binding understanding of values as it is in the Lisbon Treaty but economic integration is for me and in our concept is about incrementally of course but integrating into the common market on the basis of extension of all four freedoms to Ukraine of course it will be it will be quite quite a difficult process and you know the European Union does not have any problem with the extension of the first freedom of the second freedom to Ukraine but the way around the fourth freedom the freedom of movement is is quite contentious because it's extremely sensitive issue but at the end of the day economic integration is is about extension of all freedoms to Ukraine and in that sense the future association agreement should become a unique instrument a unique instrument not for for a sort of foreign policy mechanism but as a sort of future framework for reforms in Ukraine and we discovered and we introduced a special novelty in our agreement because we will attach a special list of EU legislation directives in all Ukraine will have to approximate its legislation to to every sector to every bit of the agreement if we talk about sector cooperation for example let's take transport cooperation so we'll have a list of EU a key attached to this article about transport cooperation and it will be about respective EU documents but it we will be talking also about tentative time frames for such approximation so it will be a kind of roadmap of approximating our legislation to the EU ones for the years to come approximately for for the timeframe of 10 years of course we would like to be ambitious and to approximate further but it will be a kind of comprehensive exercise for approximation and here i will come to to my next point why it's so important to for for your brain to have a sense of purpose a sense of direction in the future agreement and i mean the european perspective for your brain you know european perspective is probably one of the unique ideas which is perceived and considered through the whole ubranian society as as a sort of uniting idea because of ubranian history and it's quite complicated history there are a number of divisive issues on the agenda if you talk about nature for example in different parts of your brain for example iliv and donetsk if you talk about russian language they could be somehow considered and perceived as divisive issues but european integration enjoys always in every part of your brain at least 70 percent support and it's not just about you know to get more prosperity it's not to get probably more stability and it's not just to inject momentum in in in ukrainian reforms for your brain and i would risk to be to be quite plain on that it's a sort of civilizational choice it probably sounds a bit pathetic but at the end of the day for ukraine with her history with her mentality with the understanding of the place of ukraine in the in the in the in the present world it's extremely important to have a sense of direction and this is exactly the point why we've been fighting for a sort of european perspective in the future agreement and for us the best way out of this conundrum was the possible reference to the article 49 of the of the treaty on the european union a sort of reference which will show the way and let me stress this point here we are not talking about about a sort of membership promise not at all we are talking about possibility which could you know somehow you know taking to reality or not somehow taking to reality provided ukraine should meet all their respective criteria let me you know shortly informed you where we are on our negotiations on the session agreement two weeks ago we were able over the last important round of negotiations in brasil to eliminate every important contentious point on the fta part free trade agreement part of the association agreement now there are no points of political importance we we still have to do a bit of technical work here but we have a clear vision where we are on free trade we still have a number of issues regarding the political part of the agreement but you know there is a game and i would like to reiterate it just one issue of special political importance it's the issue about european perspective for for your brain here and understanding you know the mood in the european union understanding the the sensitivity of of this issue for a number of member states is still critically important for your brain you know to to to have this this this sense of direction and let me also stress here as a special point that we we are grateful for continuous support for you know by from the irish side in this exercise because you you were you know well very very sustainable in in this support and it's it's exactly what what does matter for for a great so our ambition is of course to wrap up negotiations till the end of this year and you know to formally proclaim until the end of the year and we are quite close to these important goals and it will be of course important milestone in european cooperation let me turn here to another important bit of our cooperation with the european union and it's about visa free visa free is extremely important not only in the sense of or for facilitation and further liberalization of visa procedures it's extremely important for you know to demonstrate the progress here for any ukrainian if you go to to to a street in every ukrainian city and that's the people about the sense of european integration the answer will be about european perspective about visas and about further economic cooperation it's it's as simple as that so visas do not matter last year in in brussels or was the last european sun we we were given e action plan on visa free it's it's a sort of two phase document uh practically in in less in less than a year we also succeeded uh to wrap up the legislative phase of this plan and now we understand we are doing quite fine uh a month ago we had the first report produced by the european commission on our achievements and it's quite a positive report exactly last week yeah last week we had missions from brussels exploring and checking our progress where we are on different reforms in in the weeks to come we will have another assessment and we believe that on the basis of this assessment we will be able to proceed to the second phase implementation phase of their of the visa action plan you know visa free is of course the core element in visa dialogue but we have also other tracks like visa facilitation back in 2007 we were able to negotiate and a bit later also to ratify visa facilitation agreement and there is quite considerable progress on that three years ago i will give you just a couple of numbers uberanias got a bit more than 400 000 shengen visas last year it was a million 100 000 visas so the progress is definitely there and it's important point for people to people contacts but for me it's also critically important that the share of multi annual visas is also growing because the sense for facilitation is also for me that uberanias simply don't need to go to reponsulate for for every time they should enter the european union for for a week or two so the idea to collect probably more than 20 documents is a challenge actually and it's still quite expensive for a lot of uberanias because practically a visa for shengen visa for uberanias costs at the moment 30 30 year it is not quite a sum of money but to collect all the documents and to you know to produce all their translations one probably needs up to 200 or 300 000 or for 300 euros and it's quite quite possible sum of money and it's exactly the point where we still have the potential to to work quite intensely on further visa facilitation and of course let me just also mention the idea of small border traffic because a lot of uberanias living quite close to Ukrainian EU border now have the possibility to cross the border just without any visa but with an appropriate permit given i would i would also like to specially touch upon different ideas about sectoral integration from February 1st this year we become the member of the energy community treaty it's a very important document which would bring up european standards to the whole Ukrainian energy sector we are working on the same approach in the transport sphere in other important spheres at the end of the day it's of course about about full integration of different sectors into the EU market i could i could of course give you a number of other examples here and we could discuss it over our q and a session but let me address one one simple point at the end of my short presentation you know i hear quite quite often different different voices about about changing conditions around Ukraine around the European Union and the point is in the last wave for often large movements has been started in early nineties the last successful of enlargement and at that time we had different European Union different Ukraine and actually a sort of different world around us and the instrument for for further integration was exactly a so-called europe agreements which are extremely similar in substance scope to our association agreement a bit a bit later a wave of signing so-called association stabilization agreement with balkan countries have been initiated and it was also a sort of successful exercise although the perspective for the balkans you know depend quite considerably on the internal development in in in the European Union but at the end of the day we understand quite well the further progress on the European integration depends mainly and all well only actually on Ukraine on her ability and her capacity to undertake comprehensive reforms and here you definitely know that in Ukraine we are now have either implemented or in the pipeline packages of reform in 21 different spheres which is the most comprehensive reform exercise in Ukrainian history the adoption of the tax codes pensionary forms and just a couple of examples of that but my point here with all the changing conditions we we believe that the future association agreement will become an important effective and reliable framework for for integration into the European Union it's our strategic goal and we also believe that such an integration is also in the strategic interest of the European Union and at the last point I I remember an old joke actually told me 20 plus years ago it was mentioned that I'm a physicist you know by education and it was in one of the lectures you know Albert Einstein a lectured in the theory of technical university and once he was prepared you know to carry out another exam on physics and he he distributed different tasks in my students and one student erased his hand wavering and asked professor you know but these are the same tasks you gave us two years ago and Einstein answered it's fine but the answers are different now and my point the answers could be different now but you know the goal especially the strategic goal is is critically important to to achieve and the prerequisite for that should be should be successful reforms back in Ukraine and the free for this reforms will be will be set up by the future association agreement let me stop here in many sense for your kind attention and I will be ready and happy of course to take up any sort of questions on on area on any area on Ukrainian or not just Ukrainian foreign policy many sense again thank you