 Thank you very much, Mr. President. First time I came to Dublin, that's not in the speech, you know. But the first time I came to Dublin I was in the beginning of the 80s when I was a member of the European Parliament. I became a member of the European Parliament in 1980. Together with the daughter of the first Irish president, by the way, she has been a member of the European Parliament for five years. She now seems to be in, she has now an academic career, if I'm not mistaken. And the two of us were the youngest of the lot. That's not anymore the case. And so I came to Dublin because we had a parliamentary committee to prepare your accession to the European Union. I was on that delegation. And the impression I then got from Dublin was that this was a very poor city, you know. You're really poor. And after the accession to the European Union, you had a boom. Now, you have some troubles now. One could argue a lot about the reasons for all that. It's not by accident that it's happening in a number of European countries. But I must say that now, even now, I mean, during this crisis, there is a huge difference with the 80s, you know. Even now. There's a huge difference. And I'm also sure that you will get out of the crisis, you are already doing it now. And I wish you well in that. Now, having said this, Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen, as you may know, we've just had two days of discussions with European Union Trade Ministers here in Dublin under the able chairmanship of Minister Richard Bruton. And we have talked about a number of important trade issues, including negotiations at the World Trade Organization, for which we were joined by Director General Pascal Lamy, who I understand also paid you a visit on Wednesday. But as you no doubt also know, the focus of our talks has been on the negotiations for a transatlantic trade and investment partnership, an agreement that would bring European Union and the United States together in an ambitious and comprehensive free trade zone. And in my view, that focus is very understandable, not because these transatlantic negotiations are more important than progress in the World Trade Organization or than our relations with other economies. They are not. But instead because through these negotiations, we will in fact seek to strengthen the World Trade Organization and the multilateral trading system it oversees, which is the best way for us to manage our relationship with all of our trading partners. Allow me to explain. The scale of this agreement is such that it is undeniable that it will impact the rest of the world. The figures on the economic relationship between the European Union and the United States are well known. But they are no less staggering for that, 50 million jobs, 2 billion euro a day in trade flows, and mutual investment stocks approaching 5 trillion euro in total. Together we represent half of the world's economic output. Some look at the size and ask whether this agreement means the Europe and the United States are withdrawing from the rest of the world and pulling away from the multilateral system. And I have a very clear answer to that. No, we are not. European Union has no interest or desire to do anything that would undermine the multilateral rules-based trade system or our relations with other trading partners. The WTO is the foundation of Europe's economic engagement with the rest of the world. It helps reinforce growth in good times and it has prevented a downward spill of protectionism in these times of crisis. So even if we must reluctantly acknowledge the current impasse at the core of the DOA rounds, we remain fully committed to the multilateral system. And we are demonstrating this by doing everything in our power to move things forward in Geneva and I can tell you this is not always very easy. Europe's representatives are working right now to craft an agreement that will facilitate trade through more efficient customs procedures. That agreement could be worth as much as 70 billion euro to the world economy and we want to deliver it by the end of the year. We have also just started talks on a plurilateral agreement on trade in services that would already include 22 important WTO members. An agreement here would also have considerable economic significance because a big share or the value of all Europe's exports is made up of services and because open services markets facilitate goods trade too. This fact has not been lost on the Irish presidency which has done an exemplary job in securing agreement in record time on a mandate to the European Union to participate in those negotiations. The transatlantic trade and investment partnership must be seen in the same light as these efforts, not as a threat to a multilateral system but in fact as a contribution, a way of preparing the ground for the next wave of global liberalisation. The reason for that has to do with the nature of what we are trying to achieve here. The preparations for launching this negotiation took well over a year. But one thing that we in the European Commission were clear about from the outset was that if this deal was going to be worth the effort it would have to transcend everything that had gone before. Because over decades of multilateral trade liberalisation first through the general agreement on tariffs and trade and then through the WTO, European Union and the United States have opened their economies more than most others. Imports pay an average custom duty of only 4%. Our trade in services is the most significant in the world by a country mile and we are the largest hosts of foreign direct investment. On top of both of us being relatively open this is also the first bilateral negotiation either of us have carried out with a partner of equal size. In the past offering our negotiating partners the price of access to our continental scale markets has allowed us to avoid dealing with uncomfortable issues. But if we want this agreement to work both sides will need to deal with everything we would normally deal with in a free trade agreement and then go further. The most important new issue we will have to look at is regulation. Barriers caused by technical regulations and standards are much more important than tariffs in blocking transatlantic commerce. In fact we estimate they have the same dampening effect on trade as would tariffs of between 10 and 20% depending on the product. But to deal with them we will have to be creative and flexible. Because the reason regulation exists is not of course to create barriers to trade but to protect citizens from risks to their health, safety, financial well-being or environment. And clearly this agreement can and should do nothing to undermine those protections. So what we will need to look at are the methods and procedures we use to achieve those objectives. In some cases we might conclude that even if our approaches are different they protect citizens equally. In those cases we could recognize our regimes as equivalent saving the costs of complying twice. In other cases we might actually be able to have our models converge somewhat before later granting equivalence. In still other areas we might need to focus more on future regulation and try to eliminate differences before they get set in stone. All of this will require open minds but if we are successful it will represent a new landmark for international trade rules. And this brings us back to the global level. Because these ambitious new disciplines on regulatory barriers mean that these negotiations can act as a laboratory for new global rules. The solutions we develop through these complex problems can help fill the many gaps and there are gaps in the multilateral rule book later on. Now some say that this is spitting the cards before the horse. They say that if we want new global rules we should be negotiating them in a global framework from the beginning. But aside from the fact that this is simply not realistic right now, this view ignores the benefits of doing pilot work in an area that is hugely complex. Especially when that pilot already includes the two dominant regulatory regimes at a global level. And this is why the level of ambition we strike in this deal needs to be high. Because the more regulatory convergence we can achieve between us, the more scope there is for this model to influence other countries around the world. And this brings me to a broader issue. How will the transatlantic trade and investment partnership impact our relations with emerging economies like Brazil, China, India, Russia and others? This is crucial. If America and Europe are the markets of today, these are the markets of the future. From 2015, one third of global growth is expected to come from China alone. Well, the first point to make here is that the economic benefits of this agreement will not be confined to the transatlantic area. And this is because much of what we plan to do will not discriminate against any of our other trading partners developing or developed. Let me explain. A customs officer can easily adapt the duties owed on an important product depending on where it comes from. Figuring out the origin of imports is part of their regular working factor. If the product comes from a country with a free trade deal, its importer pays lower tariffs. If it does not, it costs more. But in the case of this agreement, that discrimination will be neutralized by two factors. As I said already, our tariffs are already low. So in most cases, the competitive disadvantage will be easily surmountable. But more importantly, the flexibility we have to change tariffs does not apply to regulatory barriers. And removing those barriers will be the core of this agreement. Let me give you an example. If we agree a harmonized safety standards for car airbags on the European and American markets that will lower costs for Reno and Ford. But it also benefits Kia and Toyota or any other company that exports to both our markets. Because we are clearly not going to have a more complicated seat belt standard for them. So they will reap the same cost savings as US and European companies from not having to make separate models for either side of the Atlantic. This is what happened when we created the European single market. Having one set of European rules benefited American and Japanese exporters enormously. The same can happen here, which is why we estimate the rest of the world should actually gain from this agreement. And I stress gain to the tune of 100 billion euro. Now all the same, we know that some of our partners may sit up and take notice of our decision to launch these talks, perhaps China more than most. Given the huge stake it has in both our markets. But I want to be very clear, the purpose of this deal is not to gang up on anyone. Of course, any transatlantic standards we create will have weight. Given they will apply in half of the world economy. And that will be a strong incentive for other jurisdictions to adopt similar approaches. Because it would make the lives of our exporters easier and of theirs as well. But that is as far as this goes. It creates an incentive to adopt a transatlantic approach or something similar. But it will not bind anyone other than the EU and the US. We do believe that there are issues to be resolved in the relationship between developed and emerging countries. That's only logical given the scale of the economic shifts we are seeing now. In fact, we think there is a need for a new global compact on free trade. One that recommits all WTO members, developed and developing to the principles of open markets. And one that addresses the fact that although China, India, Russia, Brazil and others are still developing countries, many of their companies compete on global markets as equals with ours. And the way that the emerging economies treat European companies on their markets should reflect that. Only an agreement of that kind will unlock the door around and allow us to move forward to the next phase of trade liberalization. And the European Union is under no illusions that such an agreement can be reached through any side door shortcuts or escape hatch. So if people see any of those things in the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, they need to have their eyesight checked. If we want to move forward at the multilateral level, it will be by addressing the difficult issues head on. Time may not be right for that yet, but we will be ready when it is. And we will be more ready if we prepare the ground in the transatlantic zone now. In the meantime, we will continue to deepen our economic ties with all our partners as much as possible. That's why I spent Monday of this week with Minister Sharma, India's Commerce Minister, talking about how we can finalize a trade agreement between our two economies, an agreement, by the way, that would create a free trade zone covering 25 percent of the world's population. It's also why I have already written to Minister Gao, my new counterpart in Beijing, to congratulate him on his appointment and to prepare a launch, to launch an agreement on investment flaws between our economies. And it is why both the EU and the U.S. worked so hard to persuade Russia to join the WTO last year. So there need to be no nonsense in this area. Europe is as committed as ever to an open, rules-based multilateral trading system that includes the entire world economy. And we believe that this agreement with the United States is one of the most useful things we can do right now to strengthen it. Given all that Ireland has to gain from free trade with the U.S. and with our partners around the world, I hope that I can count on your firm support in that effort. Thank you very much for your attention.