 It's a great pleasure for me to open this this conference. This is number seven And we organize this every two years The the main topic of this conference would be to go into good governance into Institutional quality as you see in the title here, which is sometimes very difficult to measure of course sustainable Convergence is now the one of the focuses of our Convergence report our region used to grow fast and now it's not growing fast Reforming the institutions is exactly the challenge. We see that EU membership matters EU membership in our region is Is the single most important factor transition was about replacing unfair equality with fair inequality? unfortunately in many of our countries we have Unfair inequality inequality of opportunity our countries are slowing down This is a fact and this slow down is actually worse than in comparable middle-income economies, and this is something that is Driven by the need to reinvent the growth model the old growth model has exhausted itself So we need to think about growth model based on human capital innovation firm dynamics And for that, of course, we need better institutions that protect Competition providing scientists to integrate with the global economy in a way and so on a major shift is needed to help the region achieve a new growth model based on innovation and skills CC countries have only one way to restart the convergence machine and That is to accelerate and intensify their reform efforts. We need to work on both Boosting growth and making it inclusive formally what is needed is of course checks and balances Oversight frameworks and institutions settings, and they are mostly in place But really what is needed and what is lacking is the genuine belief in their functioning What are the preconditions for negotiations? first chapter Analyze the political criteria under the title of democracy and rule of law It's no surprise that these issues remain a cornerstone in the European Union Investments are the most important, but without institutions. You don't have them. So they go hand-in-hand FPS the key for the future Convergence process what we still do not understand to well. I think is the interaction between the political System and the economic prosperity. I would like to strike a bit more positive tone And I think we have to keep in mind where we come from Overall a big economic experiment has worked Nominal convergence is a precondition, but real convergence is required to make a common currency a sustainable advantage Yes, we we all observed the economic convergence, but there's still some lacking institutional institutional and particular cultural View on Convergence the membership does matter and does promote Disrespect once you enter the EU the the institutional convergence slows down once you are in you You put the handbrake and they just enjoy the the the wave of being in the group of Others and then maybe this is also the question whether the institutions that we are jointly building in the European Union Are still continuing to to improve the institutional quality