 Thank you very much, sir. And good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's my privilege to have the opportunity to address you today. Story on about the Croatia's accession process. It's a complex story with some not happy chapters. But all we know, it's a story with a happy ending. We know that we shall sign accession treaty on the 9th of November at the ceremony will start in Brussels at 9.30. An important thing is that due to the fact that ceremony will start prior to the European Council, Croatia will, with a signature, acquire permanent observer status and we will be allowed the same afternoon to sit in the European Council's room for the first time. We shall enter European Union as 28th member state on 1st of July 2013 after ratification process shall be conducted. But let me go at the very beginning. We started our negotiations on the 3rd of October 2005. And at that particular moment we were not aware that our negotiations shall be unique in more ways than one. So let me start with uniqueness, if you will, of Croatia's accession process. Croatia is the first country after Greece that shall enter European Union along. Greece in 1980s were entered just as one country. All enlargement rounds prior to that and after that contained clusters of countries, 3, 2, 10, 2, 3. But we are entering along. No country has entered so late in the calendar year. Usually entries were on the 1st of January or 1st of May in case of Big Ten enlargement wave. We shall enter on the 1st of July at the very end of existing financial perspective, which of course created additional problems for us, fiscal-wise, because it was very difficult to project allocated funds for Croatia for 1st, 6th month of the membership because it's so late in the fiscal year. Croatia is the 1st post-conflict country if you don't take into account the founding members and early days of the Union, of the Community for Steel, Boko and Steel, because then the entire Europe was a post-conflict zone. But if we put that aside, Croatia is the 1st country in the modern history of the European Union who is entering European Union after going through a very difficult post-conflict period and some elements of Croatia's succession process contained concrete obligations where we had to deal with this unfortunate imposed on us baggage that war brought in the early 90s, like war crimes, return of the refugees and etc. Croatia is the 1st country that went through a very precisely defined pre-monitoring, pre-excession monitoring process. Monitoring in a way became a method with Romania and Bulgaria, but this specific type of monitoring was designed as post-excession phase. In case of Croatia, there shall be no post-excession monitoring. Monitoring will end on 1st of July 2013, however pre-excession monitoring is rather elaborated and difficult and I will say a few words on that subject a little bit later. Croatia is the 1st country that negotiated 35 negotiating chapters. Before us, in the 5th and 6th round of negotiations, the number of chapters in the negotiating process was 33. I am deliberately saying that we are 7th negotiating round because we are in a way, it shall be the 7th environment treaty in the history of the Union that shall be signed on 9th of December. What was the difference between 33 and 35 on the 1st glance? Well, it's not that the difference, 33 and 35, but the difference was in two chapters. Increase from 33 to 35 was made in a following way. Two big chapters were split in two. One was the chapter that dealt, that's dealing with agriculture, veterinary and phytosanitary issues. In a way that for Croatia's negotiations it was split in two chapters, chapter 11 and chapter 12. One was just agriculture and rural development, the other was food safety veterinary, phytosanitary. And this division in two basically made our work to certain degree easier because Aki became so cumbersome in the meantime in these respective chapters that in a way, you know, Viking University, it's easier if you have to go through two mid-size exams than one humongous we make. But the second split of chapters in two made all the difference in the world for our process. The Judiciary and Home Affairs chapter was split in two, in chapters 23 and 24. Chapter 23, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and chapter 24 called Freedom, Justice and Security. But basically chapter dealing with integrated border management, fighting organized crime, migration, asylum, etc. Let's call it very loosely Schengen chapter. But chapter 23 became the very heart of the political process and became the most important element of the whole exercise. Chapter 23 is dealing with several important areas. It's dealing with the reform of judiciary, with fighting corruption. It's dealing with fundamental rights and in Croatia's case, now I'm going through what I had said regarding this unfortunate legacy of war. It put special emphasis on issues like cooperation with ICTY and return of refugees. So Croatia was the first with 35 chapters. And finally Croatia was the first country to start negotiations with new established benchmarking system. When we started negotiations on 3rd of October, the word benchmark didn't exist in the vocabulary of enlargement. It was introduced roughly a year later when we were way advanced into the screening process. And benchmark became the most important word in the process. So the most important number in the process was 23 because of chapter 23. The most important word was benchmark. Now the benchmarking system being a complete novelty, it took a while before it was really embraced not only by us but also by member states and the commission. We were in a way a guinea pig in this exercise and of course as you know being a guinea pig is not a pleasant thing. Even in the best of the laboratories it's not good to be a guinea pig. Even if they feed you well but it's not good. So what is the benchmarking? Well the benchmarking works in the following way. There were opening and closing benchmarks. The main doctrine was that with a few exceptions you cannot close any chapter before meeting a number of benchmarks. When it comes to the opening of the chapters the policy was less rigid. Only one third of the chapters we were attached with the opening benchmarks. We have 20 something opening benchmarks but in closing we had in almost all chapters and in total we had 137 opening or closing benchmarks. But many of these benchmarks were like I used to call them composite benchmarks composed of A, B, C, D, E. So basically more than 400 very precise requirements were put on the table that we had to meet. Now the benchmarks and this is important. They had one great advantage and one great disadvantage. Well the biggest advantage of benchmarks was that they enhanced your credibility at the end of the game. The more benchmarks you meet the more credible you are in terms of your preparedness for the membership. Like going through a super difficult university but once you graduate well then you are very well placed on the labour market with this diploma. But the problem with benchmarks is that they are time consuming and they are labour consuming. If you will you need a huge team to meet them. Gracious negotiating team give or take numbered 3,000 people in various capacities. And believe me even with the most frugal of the approaches and with more competent people than we had it's impossible to finish this with less than 1500 people. It's impossible unless you want to negotiate for 50 years. Now the problem with benchmarking is that there are various benchmarks of a completely different nature. Some benchmarks were made of action plans. Some benchmarks were legislative benchmarks. Some meaning that you have to change the law in order to meet the benchmarks. Some benchmarks required implementation in practice. Some benchmarks required establishing new institutional framework. But the most difficult were legal benchmarks. Why? In previous rounds of enlargement it was sufficient for closing the chapter to strongly commit yourself that by the given date or let's say within after you enter European Union or after you exceed. That you are going to pass the following laws or directive regulations etc. In our case in order to meet the benchmark it was necessary not only to pass the law but this law had to be pre-approved by the commission. You had to pass it in a parliament pre-approved law. It had to be published in the official Gazette and sometimes even tested in practice for month two or three. Which required tremendous translating teams on our side. Because from the beginning you had the whole process is bilingual from the day one. All the documents have to be in Croatian of course because otherwise the parliament will say well these guys are negotiating in some foreign language we cannot accept that. But everything has to be of course in English as well. Because this English is a language you communicate, you use in communicating with the commission. When you have to pass the law in a state so you have to send early draft law in English to the commission. So through years you learned a small tricks of the trade if you will for instance. When you are required to make action plan you don't put so much emphasis on the quality of translation. Because what they want to see is how good this is whether you the basic idea of the action plan is projected in the right direction. But when you are submitting a legal document the translation has to be perfect. A single word mis-translated and the meaning is lost. And this required tremendous effort on our side. So benchmarking made a process much slower, much more difficult. But it proved at the end as a worth investment. It made us better in all negotiating things. There were two I always well half jokingly used the following metaphor in dividing negotiating chapters in two categories. Track and field category and gymnastics category. Track and field category is the easy one. Because these are the chapters where a key is strong which are loaded with a key commentary. And your advancement is measured precisely like in track and field with stopwatch and meter. If you jump over eight meters you're in, you jump over eight meters, you take a meter, you measure your eight meters. You made it, you're in. But gymnastics chapters and these are chapters where a key is not that heavy. Where you have judges or like in skating where you have judges and judges are the one who decide upon your performance. So as we know from the history of the Olympics not necessarily always the gold winner was really the best performer on the given day. So you depend on subjective opinion whether you like it or not. Chapter 23 is kind of that chapter because a key commentary in the chapter 23 is minimum. So the second problem with chapter 23 is dealing with reform of judiciary, efficiency of judiciary, fighting corruption. These are the fields where the work never ends. It doesn't end when you enter European Union. It always continues. So it's very difficult to have a strong and precise measuring stick to say okay where your success, where are these eight meters that will qualify you for closing the chapters in the areas where the measuring stick is not that precise. When we started with the benchmarking, also the benchmarking requires a lot of paperwork. So the amount of gracious paperwork became huge. We lost track on how many papers we produced. But if you take just official documents that we submitted, I think that we are over 200,000 pages. But if you take all the, but if you took into account all the emails, all the first, second, third, fourth draft, I think we are in hundreds of thousands. No one knows. We lost track years ago. Commission I think never got from the public opinion sufficient credit for the effort they had to go through because this was tremendously difficult for us. But it was also very difficult for European Commission because European Commission had to respond quickly almost on daily basis for numerous small or big questions that we put to them, especially in drafting these laws. Because if this law had to be pre-approved by the Commission, then of course you keep putting questions, questions, second draft, fourth draft, fifth draft. So it's a very, very difficult exercise. In contemplating gracious process one has to take also into account the broader picture within which our story developed. Several pivotal moments happened since 2005 that had impact on the base and substance of our negotiating process. Starting with negative referendums on then European constitution in France and Netherlands. These negative referendums were not spurred, ignited by enlargement. Nevertheless they soured the atmosphere surrounding enlargement immediately and certainly didn't make our work easier. By the way our initial projected date of opening of negotiations which was March 2005 was delayed for six months because of the regarding ICTY cooperation. So when we started on the 3rd of October 2005 we started together with Turkey and we became coupled with Turkey for some time and then we became the couple. But historical record shows that Turkey started before us. It was 30 minutes before us, nevertheless for the sake of historical record Turkey opened accession negotiations prior to us. In Luxembourg the very basic, actually it was 4th of October but the clock was stopped. It was around 1am, 1.30am when Turkey opened we followed around 2am but the clock as usually was stopped on the 3rd of October. So historical is 3rd of October and I like when I explain to our young colleagues in our ministry accession negotiations then I use this example to warn them that the European Union is so powerful that it can stop the time if they want. So this was the first thing that happened and negative referendums and the fact that European constitution was taken off the table and that Union went back to the drawing board. It ended well and successfully with Lisbon Treaty but it took years to reach Lisbon Treaty ratification point. And the whole process of course pushed our accession process a little bit in a shadow. So we were not the most important thing on General Affairs Councils or European Councils agenda for many years. This again didn't have decisive impact on the end result as you can tell because it's happy ending but made our work more difficult. The second thing was absorption process within the Union that was digesting 12 new member states or better to say adjusting itself to a new wife within 27 framework from 15 before that. And many experience were learned from that process and benchmarking system that we were imposed with partly resulted, derivated from that experience. Then financial crisis started which was also not a helpful environment for the process. And of course there was our bilateral problem with Slovenia which played its own, well not a positive role on the tempo of the process but it all ended well. By the way on a day when we shall sign extension treaty and as I said it's 9th of December two things will, two form of things will occur besides our signature. One creation will become permanent observer and will have its observing seed but permanent seed in almost all working bodies of the Union plus starting with European Council. And second arbitration treaty between Slovenia and Croatia signed in Stockholm will come into effect and it's ratified by both respective countries and it's in effect but the arbitration tribunal will formally start its work. So as you can see the broader environment within which our process was unfolding was not entirely friendly for this type of exercise but again it ended well. Now just a few more minutes beforehand why it's the whole exercise so important for Croatia and what is Croatia bringing to the European Union. For us entering the European Union is much more than just joining the common market just it's much more than fulfilling our historical goal of going where we belong from the day one. For us it's above everything else decision making having finally opportunity to sit in all those rooms where pivotal decisions on European future are made, to have a right to vote, to have a right to listen, to have access to all documents. Being regardless whether these documents are just some directives or regulations of DG Senko or DG Fisheries or a pivotal conclusions that touch upon basic treaties of the Union. And for Croatia we fulfilled our strategic goals. Our first strategic goals after independence was to secure Croatia and within our international bonus and to make it certain that all our occupied territories shall be recovered. Our second goal was to enter and then we gradually entered all international fora. Our second goal was NATO. Croatia is for some years NATO member state and now our third goal is European Union which is now finally achieved. Croatia is entering the European Union. We are bringing one unique characteristic. We are the only country in Europe and in the world that is at the same time the Nubian and Mediterranean. No other country in Europe has access to Mediterranean Sea. We have 1000 where we have more than 1000 islands and huge huge coastline as you know it. But also we have Danube. No other country has both. Which makes us at the same time centre European country, Mediterranean country, the Nubian and Balkan country. So we are at the strategic crossroads of various European regions or worlds and we serve as a bridge between those worlds and we serve as a connecting. So Croatia brings very very important element in that. Commercially wise we bring important strategic, important ports, deep sea ports of Ereca and Portugal in the European Union. Which of paramount importance for the landlock EU countries like Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary and also if you will. So together with Slovenian port of Kopa and port of Trieste on the eastern side of Adriatic well the deep sea port capacity will double with our. And of course we bring tremendous experience when it comes to the region that we are eager to share with all our colleagues. Croatia and I will end with this to allow sufficient time for questions. Croatia's strategic goal is to see all our eastern neighbours follow our path and enter European Union on their own merit once they meet all requirements. We know that their road will be long if there is one constant rule in the history of enlargement. This is that every next round it's more difficult than the previous one. So their surround will be even more difficult, most likely than ours. But Croatia has passed recently in its national parliament a declaration of providing them support and emphasizing that we don't intend to use bivouac revisions to slow down anyone's road towards European Union. We are providing them with technical and expertise assistance. We gave to all our neighbours in the western Balkans complete Croatia's translation of Akiko Minutare which is intellectual property of significant market value if you will. We hope that it will help them. And we as I said stand in their disposal. At the same time we are telling them that no matter how huge our experiences negotiations are they were made. Croatia's succession negotiations were due to the benchmarking system much more they were made than previous rounds. The benchmarking is really the reason why the countries that follow our path will have different experiences and different regulations because they will not have identical benchmarks. And benchmarks will more specify, more individualize their path than this was before the case. But as I said our goal is to see our neighbours in the European Union and we think we strongly support of course that all western Balkan countries at the end of the day go on European Union. Because I think when it comes to western Balkans I don't think it's the issue where is the final frontier of the European Union. It's not expansion of the European Union, it's expansion of the European Union in terms of numbers. But it's not expansion of the European Union in terms going to let's say eastern or any other direction. Because western Balkans are in a yard of the European Union they are encircled by the EU member states already. So you are just increasing, increasing numbers and you are filling the gap in obvious, obvious ways. For Croatia monitoring, Croatia will, we met all the benchmarks but we closed as I said the process on the 30th of June. But Croatia will still be under monitoring and European Commission will produce in autumn next year comprehensive monitoring report. Three chapters are under specific monitoring, chapter 23, chapter 24, which is Schengen, or better to say Schengen related issues of integrated border management migration as well. And chapter 8 competition with a particular emphasis on privatization of Croatia's shipments. Last point, Croatian accession will bring EU border to Bosnia. Bosnia is EU locked if you will, because Bosnia is not bordering contrary to let's say Serbia or Macedonia. Bosnia is not bordering any EU state. So with Croatia's accession, 1000, 1 km long land border, you will attach EU border to Bosnia. We already very elaborated debate with our colleagues from Bosnia and Herzegovina on how to prepare the best for that moment because there are many technical things that have to be fine-tuned on the border. And we are confident that with this new wave of optimism, bigger understanding of the European Union and bigger enthusiasm for the European Union in our region shall start. Because Croatia is proving, we empirically proved that Tasavoniki agenda is implementable and we proved that even under these conditions it can be done. And this is the message of optimism which is paramount for entire Europe, not just our part of Europe. I think it's a good story, it's a story good enough to celebrate and I think it's a victory of Europe, our success. Thank you.