 And by coming to Dublin, I guess this is a good opportunity for me to learn from the Irish diplomacy. I had in the morning excellent discussions with Leona and the colleagues in the department. And indeed, we have an excellent cooperation. Thank you again to yourself, Ambassador, and the Institute for offering me this opportunity to join the EU-Japan seminar here in Dublin. It's my second time when I'm joining such a seminar. I did it two years ago in Budapest during the Hungarian presidency, and it was also a very successful seminar in which we joined hands with excellent colleagues, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo and Japanese experts in discussing EU-Japan relations. Then I feel doing that here under the Irish presidency, indeed, it's a timely and very important exercise. It's a moment just something like one month before the EU-Japan summit, which would be by the end of March in Tokyo. The two presidents, Van Rompuy and Barroso, are going to travel to Tokyo. And it will be a very important moment which will mark the implementation of the decision taken in May 2011 when the leaders decided to launch the negotiations for a framework agreement and an economic partnership or an FDA. And that would be my pleasure to get involved in that work together with the colleagues in the Kaimushu, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, start implementing this decision taken by the EU and Japan leaders. I would say this is opening a new chapter to a certain extent based on the excellent cooperation and friendship we had in the previous years and something which is very much expected and supported by the member states. At the same time, I would say that comes in the way in which we, the service for the European external action service, we are trying to perform our role in being very instrumental in enhancing, developing and stepping up the relations with strategic partners. As you know, Japan, it's one of the four, actually, if you want, it's out of the six strategic partners in Asia because Russia, for example, joined us and on the Asian side. U.S., well, it's a transatlantic, trans-Pacific friend, depends from where you see, from Japan it's trans-Pacific, from us it's transatlantic, strategic partner, plus, of course, all the others, China, ROK and India. Then Japan is one of those who really confirmed that we can explore together further areas in balancing, strengthening, expanding our strategic partnership and living up to the expectations on our side of the 27 member states, on the Japanese side of the Japanese friends from various walks of life. But again, I would say what is important for us now in discussing our bilateral relations is the fact that we are trying in this afternoon session in a very logical way to develop things which, as I have seen partially, were already touched upon in the morning session in talking about trade and development cooperation. Because these, of course, could be seen as two important strengths of our cooperation and actually they open new ways in expanding EU-Japan engagement. I mentioned the launch of the negotiations for the new agreements which would create the platform for the member states to engage in deeper expanded cooperation with Japan. One would be the political one. The framework agreement would be very much representing a new chapter of bilateral relations, more balanced, not only focused on trade but opening new areas which in the recent years were explored incipently, in crisis management, in energy, in political affairs, in security affairs, and being actually an answer given by both EU and Japan to the new developments in the region. And I would say that very much both are trying lately to apply our reflection in a new way to the regional context. And I would invite your attention just briefly, sorry, to the way in which we are trying now to answer to the recent developments in general in Asia. Asia will remain for quite some time one of the part of the world with fastest growing economies and experiencing at the same time rapid political changes. We have good examples like the case in Myanmar. We have still huge challenges in terms of impact on the regional and international security as it has happened recently with the missile and nuclear tests in DPRK. We have the rising global significance and influence of the region. Asian countries in many ways, full of energy, full of dynamism, contributing to many new initiatives at the global scale are producing still impressive statistics in many ways in the growth, trade, investments, science, and technology. And they engage with Asia, with intra-regional partners, but also in a more open way with us, the EU member states, and with the EU itself. Of course, many will speak about China's phenomenal growth over the last 20 years, or even three decades of continuous growth as an obvious example. But I would say to the same extent, as I have mentioned, the way in which we are trying to expand our cooperation with the six strategic partners in the region, that China is not the only big protagonist of these developments, but also some others. And I would mention, for example, the way in which EU supports ASEAN as a group of nations, the 10 nations in Southeast Asia, who represent a good attempt of following the example of the regional integration, which was successful here in Europe. And we are trying to share our experience to the extent to which the Southeast Asian nations will feel that this is appropriate and useful for them. And we are trying to support the role, quite a central one, in shaping up the new regional architecture. Because we believe this is an answer, the regional integration, a new unfolding multilateral security architecture, an answer to many challenges, which recently are being more visible and exerting certain pressure on the countries in the region. At the same time, I would say that it's in our interest as Europeans and as one of the biggest world market trading bloc to be more active also on the trade side to explore more ways to engage Asia. We are witnessing lately a good number of competing trade arrangements. And our Japanese friends can tell us about their understanding of the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the ongoing negotiations and expansion of the interest in supporting this initiative. They also can tell us how they see the regional developments down in the Southeast, the initiative of the ASEAN, in trying to arrange a regional comprehensive economic trade arrangement. But also about many others, which would cover also not only East Asia, but also the Pacific Rim. And of course, from this point of view, we have our own strategies which are trying to answer, to connect with the partners in the region and offer themselves alternatives compatible with their own interests. Again, as I have mentioned, there are a number of flashpoints, challenges in the security landscape. And I'll have to mention also the recent rising tensions across the seas because of certain maritime disputes and territorial disputes. And I will recall in that respect that while we do not take sides, since if you want in inverted commas, we are sort of neutral power in the region, a soft power. And not having hardware and security assets displayed in the region. We still have substantial, visible, engaged, strategic interests of contributing to the peace, security and stability from North East Asia to Southeast Asia. And we have an interest in contributing to the handling, the settlement, and to the development of mechanism who can address the issues and disputes in the region in a way which is compatible with our core values and the peace and stability interests in the region. I mentioned how much for certain countries, especially for ASEAN, our experience in regional integration may represent an example to follow, may represent an experience in keeping peace and stability. And it was a good reminder to see how Mr. Yamamoto in his presentation in the morning, referring to the brochure presenting the Lisbon Treaty's experience, has mentioned the experience of the continent, the European continent, where the EEC and the European Union, of course, achieved a historical victory in keeping peace and stability given this unification integration efforts. It's a project which may have a value for the friends and partners in Asia, from Northeast Asia down to Southeast Asia. We really believe that the way in which, in Europe, the settlement of certain disputes from borders, territorial disputes, to shared management of natural resources has been done in the past and is still going on in a way which would respect the interests of neighboring countries. It's something which may provide good experience for our Asian partners and friends. Then in many ways, I would say, increasingly now in these years is becoming clear that Asia matters to Europe for many reasons. But also, Europe matters to Asia as a continent with rich historical experience in handling difficult issues, and again, because Asia's future growth, dynamics, prosperity, access to good markets like ours, may still nurture stronger, deeper links with the EU. In spite of the relatively slow economic recovery of the EU, we still remain the largest global economy, the largest donor, as it was mentioned in the morning when a good number of distinguished panelists here spoke about development assistance. And in many ways, also, I would say, a point of reference for positive, substantial experience in regional integration and settlement of many important issues linked to the regional interests. I would more focus to refer now to the relations with Japan. We always felt that Japan was a natural partner for the EU, both being democracies, sharing common values and interests, largely being civilian powers, but increasingly willing to deploy military assets abroad for peace and stability and making efforts in contributing in many parts of the world to the peace building and the management of crises. We both believe in rules-based, effective multilateralism to respond to many global challenges including climate change, sustainable development, and I would say in many respects, our combined global economic weight and international standing adds value, making a difference in many respects. But maybe just because of this very comfortable background, sometime our close positions, similar interests, did not reflect immediately in very substantial engaged concrete joint actions and there is a good deal of untapped potential in this relationship. I just recalled a few minutes ago the decisions made by the Prime Minister Kan and the two presidents of the European Council and Commission how to effectively respond to the expectations and making good use of the potential of the relationship. And the decision made at the end of May 2011 to launch these two comprehensive important agreements, the framework agreement and the free trade agreement, represented not only an intention of balancing and expanding the relations, but also to inject substance into the strategic partnership. And we are now in the eve of this summit which is going to mark the launch of these negotiations. It's going to be one which by launching the negotiations of these two comprehensive agreements, it's going to shape up a new architecture of our relationship. It's going to send a strong signal in the region. I can briefly mention that we are now also negotiating an FDA with India, which may be finalized in the middle of this year. We are also, as you have seen, announcing the launch of such negotiations with the United States. With China, we are going to launch the negotiations on an investment agreement. With ROK, we already finalized the FDA in 2010. We have good progressing negotiations with a number of Southeast Asian partners. Actually, the FDA with Singapore was already finalized. We are progressing with Vietnam, with Indonesia. But I would say the way in which we'll have this articulated framework to major agreements on the political side and more than political, I would say, encompassing a good number of major areas of new cooperation with Japan. And the FDA agreement with a major economic player in the world, Japan, it's showing how much there is a political will to engage in consolidating and giving a good status to this strategic partnership with Japan in the whole context of our strategic partnerships in Asia. Both we in the EU and Japan have strong interests in building this architecture in answering to our own challenges and problems at home. As I have mentioned, we are very grateful to the way in which Japan is contributing to those financial monetary mechanisms who are supporting the efforts in addressing the challenges in the Euro area. Again, we hope that through these agreements also, the new economic policies in Japan would be able, in the short and midterm, will be able to reach their own targets, stabilizing the economic relaunch of the economic growth. We are following that very closely. We have seen a good number of members of the European Parliament visiting this spring in February and having extensive discussions and contacts with the distinguished members of the diet in the lower and upper house, in the house of consulates and in the diet. Again, good discussions with the people in various financial institutions in Japan. It's important for us to understand the new economics, the new policies. It's important for us to understand also those principles which were mentioned in recent speeches by the Japanese leaders about the way in which they would like to be more active to engage more substantially, extensively with the countries down in the Southeast Asia to see how Japan can play a stable, active, important role in general in the region. In conclusion, I do not think that Europe's integration process and our ability to put aside historical differences between nations, build and defend common values. It's necessarily a model which mechanically or most automatically can be copied and transferred to Asia. But I'm convinced that it can be a useful source of inspiration for our Asian partners. And I really believe that EU-Japan relationship can also help in this respect, can be a driver, an influence multiplier for the EU and for our friendship and strategic partnership in creating more peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and in Europe. Again, we feel that our cooperation may help in supporting other countries in the region, China and India, the emerging powers. ASEAN in its attempt to build a strong regional community and play a certain role in building up new regional architecture. In all these respects, the EU-Japan cooperation can make a difference. We can show leadership together, present real opportunities and examples for all the others about how to cooperate. It's not only about bilateral, it's about the impact of our bilateral relationship in multilateral, regional and international structures. And again, I guess this is an example to show how in spite of internal domestic challenges we both face. By joining hands and expanding and consolidated cooperation, we can bring solutions for the problems at home and again contribute to the answers and proper strategies for development and stability in our respective regions. Once again, as I have said, I look forward to work with my good colleagues, the Japanese diplomats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and my colleagues from the commission services to the same extent, looking forward to work with the colleagues from various Japanese ministries on the FTA negotiations and the framework agreement negotiations, because we really believe that by having these agreements, we would create a new platform, new chances for consolidating an important strategic partnership for Asia in Europe and answering to the challenges of this century. Thank you.