 It's my pleasure to be here today and I want to thank the Institute for giving me this opportunity to discuss the issues about the European integration session about Macedonia and some aspects from the region. And I'll be glad to share some of our views and not only the views, what we are doing with this respect, but I will very much look forward on the second part of questions and answers, which definitely will have the opportunity to discuss different views, different aspects, that I will take a beverage from that discussion and can take something with me back to Skopje. Let me at the beginning here just very briefly to share with you why I'm here today in Dublin. And actually this is part of my, as I call this diplomatic tour, the Europe before the summit of European Council when will be discussed one of the issues of course we expect to be the EU enlargement in the south-east in Europe. And one of the aspects that we also consider to be the timing is that there was the so-called high-level accession dialogue for our country, which was the point to speed up the process of reforms. And instead of on an annual basis to look on our progress to give the opportunity in this mid-year period during the June summit to have our spring report about the progress and see the opportunities forward to start the negotiations with the European Union. I will try to very briefly share with you actually some update about our current status, the process, and then I'll try also to share with you the aspects how we see the European integration, what the region and our country has benefitted from this process, what are the challenges that we have still in this process and what are the opportunities that we see in this process. Actually, as was mentioned in 2004 during your presidency, we made the application for EU membership and next year we got a candidate status. And since 2009, Macedonia in consequence is getting the recommendations from the European Commission to the European Council about starting the negotiations. And in this process we have some challenges ahead. One of the issues is actually I will go on this with respect to the conclusions that were last December in the European Council. Those are the high level accession dialogue, five priorities that we have there. Then good-neighbor relationships and the name issue with Greece. So these three conclusions were in December. So if we have shown progress during this period it was supposed that we get the date from June this year. Actually, in this process in the meantime we had progress report on spring, actually in April that the European Commission of FILE proposed. Then there was a resolution that passed in the European Parliament actually noting the progress that Macedonia has done with respect to these three conclusions. From December and what are still some open issues on this respect. I want to say now before we go what is the problem at what stage we are and what do we expect. Actually, I want to share with you some background information about this and how we deal with this. In our country, European integration or Euro-Atlantic perspective is considered a strategic priority and there is a political consensus on this issue from all political parties. There is strong support from all citizens on this issue. It is somewhere between 80 and 90% depending on the period. So this means a strong support from European integration from our citizens. On the other side we consider that these expectations of people on the European integration process the values that we expect to be introduced and also the opportunities since it started from the Stabilisation Association Agreement when we signed in 2001 visa liberalisation and some benefits that we expect from this EU enlargement. Based on these expectations I can say that European Union theme or perspective for countries in the region helped to bring peace, security and stability. And there are facts for this. Since the 90s were the decade with conflicts and wars in the Balkans we got the next decade which was relatively calm, stable. But the challenge now that we face is how much this is sustainable. For Macedonia particularly I will also refer to the period when it was the most challenging in terms of security. It was the conflict of 2001. And afterwards with facilitation from the international community, EU, United States it was the support that we got and the politicians at that time that gave the opportunity through this peaceful agreement to find the way peacefully to build democracy in the country. And this document is based on our Euro-Atlantic future and concept and values to promote in the country and develop. And that became part of our constitution. So for this period Macedonia and the region we had the stability and security. But especially now after a decade in the period of economic crisis and challenges the expectations of people transferred to concerns and frustrations economic and social aspect which in a complex multicultural environment as it is Macedonia and the region it became very risky in terms of continuing with security and stability that the region has. And we have been on such challenges talking not particularly Macedonia but also the region on some nationalistic ideas or politicians that wanted to put those agenda back on the political scene. And it is good that from regional perspective European concept what helped the regional politicians to bring on the same page that worked out with the agreement that was achieved between Serbia and Kosovo that gave the opportunity for the European perspective and it was a positive sign and encouragement for this process for the Balkans. And I consider that this relaxed a lot the region and we look forward this to be a successful example and implementation which will be from both sides acceptable as this will create additional positive momentum for the region to be part of the European Union. Going back to Macedonia or good news is as I mentioned there is a political consensus and there is a strong support from our citizens. On the other side I want to say what we have still the challenges in this process. The challenges are one of these issues are this the name issue that is still pending is open with Greece and we have also to work further on good neighbor relationship with Bulgaria and these are countries that in December we had actually the issues to be solved before we getting the date. So with respect to these issues we have had several initiatives to have meetings and also to work out in how we can improve this cooperation. For example let's say with Greece now we have had expert level meetings from Ministry of Foreign Affairs last year from our side in Athens and this year from Greece I came to Skopje. I met this year a month ago I met Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens we discussed about the European perspective for the region for our country and this is of interest for both countries Macedonia and Greece also for the region and also made public statements that we have to look forward for finding the solution as soon as possible for it will be better for European perspective. With Bulgaria there are several activities and we expect that with the new government we will have opportunities to work further on these issues. In terms of high level of session dialogue the other two issues that we still have as a challenge are one is to implementation of political dialogue that was achieved on 1st of March between the two political parties. One is the ruling party in the government and the other one is the largest opposition party and I'm glad to share with you that one of the biggest issues that was on this agreement was to set up an inquiry commission in the parliament so it can work out and make a report for October report that we will send that European Commission will present this to European Council and this is a step forward that we showed that there is still a capacity, a democratic capacity in our country of institutions to promote democracy in the country. The second issue or the second challenge that we have it is on one of the priorities of high level of session dialogue this is the dialogue with media and after the events that we had in our parliament in December it happened that the dialogue with media or generalist association stopped and at the meantime there was initiative for a new media law and there was a lack of communication and this dialogue we tried to extend the timing for the law, for public debate tried to have written comments on this law at experts from TIEX experts for the law and expertise from Council of European Union and OSE and we are looking forward on the new draft of the Ministry of Information prepared we will look forward to have an improved text and this is published again for explanation for the comments I personally have been involved in some public debates and tried to meet all the media associations and journalists although officially they didn't want to meet governmental officials but informally I tried to meet and it was a successful attempt and now we have all comments from all the association what we should make sure is that we have the dialogue, we have them on the same table and we create a better perception about the freedom of expression in the country in addition to this I want to make a point of interethnic relationships in the country which are followed as a progress of the implementation of the Oakley framework agreement it is one of a high level accession dialogue priorities that was mentioned how we develop this interethnic communication in the country and actually was published for the first time after 10 years how far we have gone with the implementation, what is the progress and the next stage is to design policies for further improvement on this process in order to make sure that we have an inclusive process in our country of all technical communities in the country and of course we are addressing some open issues how we can make further improvements and the reason I mentioned this is that as the process was taking longer a new integration and as I mentioned in the beginning the challenges for economic situation interethnic social issues can easily be transferred as interethnic issues and sometimes they can take this sign on the social economy they can have a ethnic base which is becoming a very serious issue to be considered from politicians in terms of stability in the country so I want to say that so far we have managed to prevent any big conflicts on this issue but there has been some incidents that were managed properly from the site of institutions and now we can say that we have a stable country but in order to make sure that this is sustainable and we have a very sound basis for stable and economic development we also have to make sure that we show certain progress on the European perspective on European accession so in this terms I want to share with you that European perspective from our country point of view and believe that this more or less is also pose for European other countries and the region is that a European perspective is an issue which is not only for improving the welfare development and prosperity but also for security and stability of the region so with this I want just to make a point from the European perspective from the region and I want to say having in mind that European Union as a concept which was initially promoted few years after the Second World War to look forward in terms of how peacefully to have developed stronger and bigger Europe and last year it was also awarded with Nobel Prize as a concept which I fully agree about this and I support that idea and I really believe that it was the right decision but the region of Western Balkans or Southeast Europe is still unfinished finished for this peaceful project of Europe so by this I want to say that having Southeast Europe part of European Union is a win-win game for the region and for European countries so stop here and we'll be glad to continue with discussion Thank you