 But I really would like to thank you very much for organizing this event, for giving me your kind invitation and to organize it in the historic building and reminding me of course how our history is very much intertwined in Europe, that how we've been living together, that we wanted to show, that we can make it on our own just to prove that we are already mature nations, mature countries which can cooperate on equal basis with our neighbors, with our partners across the Europe. And this is something which we really need to do today because Europe and the world goes through very turbulent events and therefore we need the common projects with the vision, we need to look forward to how we, the Europe, can contribute to the positive global development, show our innovative spirit which I have seen already. It's very much present here in Ireland. And the events like today are very important for me because what I do here, I think Helen was very exactly and very precisely describing my motives from one side and campaigning for the Energy Union because I want to make sure that this is the project which is common, which is European, this is the project upon which we can manage that mobilization among our member states, among our stakeholders, industry, but especially the citizens. I'm absolutely convinced that the Energy Union cannot be built in Brussels. It must be built in the member states. It must be built here in Dublin, in Cork, on our farms, in our innovative labs, in our research institutes dealing with the ocean energy. It must be supported by the stakeholders, by the companies, by the consumers and therefore I'm very glad that I could be here today and yesterday we had lots of meetings where I was talking but I was listening a lot because each country has something to contribute and definitely Ireland has a lot of experience and a lot of innovative ideas how to advance our Energy Union project together. When the new commission was being formed, it was quite clear that the signal we received from the citizens in the European Parliament election was that they want us to do the job differently and the president decided that we have to focus really on the big thing. We have to have clear priorities. We have to overcome that perception which was very much there that we are trying to deal with almost every single detail of our European citizens lives. We have to focus on the areas where we can really make a difference when we can deliver the change and we have to do it in a way that our citizens and our member states can understand it and can support. One of these top projects which was really put on the table, I would say by the events, by the necessity, by the expectations of our citizens was the project of the Energy Union. The question is why? I think we kind of felt it already for some time that this energy and climate issues, the integration or the interaction between CO2 emissions in a field like transport, agriculture, efficiency over buildings, the research and innovation potential we have in Europe and these different developments across our member states in different subsidies for different types of energy in one country, capacity mechanism, financing in another country kind of created the situation where we had to honestly state that the energy systems and energy cooperation as we have it in Europe is not longer sustainable. I think we had to be the donest. We had to be that straightforward just to put on the table the strategy for energy union which would reflect the situation and propose how to go from that situation forward. There have been of course several reasons for that. I think that one which kind of helped us to gather the momentum for the change was also the geopolitical crisis and the situation in the eastern Ukraine where again especially in central and eastern Europe we've been reminded that our security of supply is under threat that even though we as Europe are the biggest customers in the world paying 400 billion euros for energy import cannot be sure that even for that money we can get the energy on time, we can get the energy where and when we need it and we would pay the fair price for it. So that was quite clear that we need to have a common European position speaking with one voice how to make sure that energy security is much stronger in Europe than before. And of course it was quite clear that today if you look at the energy we already overcome the traditional approach of the past decade where the energy was seen as something like very linear process where you produce the energy you distribute it you consume it. It's quite clear that it's not that simple anymore because we need to factor in many other developments like the climate change like our climate goals our our need to decarbonize our economies and we have to have really much more complex and holistic approach to these issues. The crisis which we went through in Europe and and I know that it was a particularly difficult moment for Ireland brought us another reminder that even though the Europe is one of the most prosperous place on this planet we have energy poverty in our countries. We have more than 10 percent Europeans who have problems to pay the energy bills. We have more than 10 percent Europeans who cannot heat up the houses properly and we have more than 10 percent of Europeans who are really struggling to make sure that their houses and their households have enough electricity to run their family lives or to run their small businesses. And we kind of realize also the fact that we can tackle many of these issues if we tap into the innovative potential in Europe. If we use the technologies which are already available and try to look at energy efficiency with a different eyes to see it as a new real source of energy supply to see it as an instrument to tackle some of the issues of energy poverty or to make sure that our houses are warm. Yesterday I heard such a comparison that how come in the Nordic countries they are living in this in this wooden houses and they are warm and we in Ireland have these very solid stone houses and they are cold. And I know that you all know the answers because simply the new technologies installation support for energy efficiency of our houses came probably a little bit earlier to our Nordic countries and to central East and Europe or to or to Ireland and we know what kind of potential we have there because 40% of our energy is consumed exactly on heating and cooling on our of our houses and I'm sure that we can do better and we can have much higher efficiency in Europe. One of the preconditions for that is that we need to restore what I would call normal in investment pattern in Europe because of the crisis we are in a situation where our infrastructure is still under heavy under investment. We've been losing every year during the crisis between two to three hundred billion of euros of lack of investment and you can feel it everywhere. You can feel it also in the countries like Germany where you see that the bridges been all repaired. You see it in central Europe where you see that not enough interconnectors has been built and you could feel that in the area of energy and transport and ICT infrastructure we need to invest and we need to invest a lot. So how to do that? Of course we have formidable institutions like European investment bank like EBRD but it's simply not enough because you need to tap into the potential of private investors. You need to create the conditions we are not afraid to invest. You need to give them the framework, the guidance and the helping hand that especially in these transition times when we are returning back to growth and here the island is doing enormous progress it's again safe to invest. It's good to invest. You need to have a good project and you need to have the certain safety net which we are trying to offer through the Junker investment fund which could be also seen as a first eventual lost insurance. Then you have a borderline case where you have a project where you would invest but you are still not 100% sure. There you should go to the to the Junker investment fund to make sure that you get that helping hand that you get that co-financing and that you can go together the EIB with the with the commission support for these infrastructure projects which would make the difference and where you as an investor would feel safe that investment is good secure and will bring the necessary return. Coming back to the energy union I know that you are familiar with the with the concept where we try to cover the issues really important for this economic and energy transition in Europe from these five key dimensions to make sure that we have security of supply that we are less dependent on external suppliers to complete our internal energy market to work on our hardware and software to make sure that our technical barriers represented by the lack of interconnectors by the by the by the lack of connections among our member states plus the lack of cooperation among our regulators or still until today are using different methodologies different network codes different approaches to how to regulate the market should be overcome and we should really create for our companies the possibility to make sure that energy flows freely across the borders or in the case of island across the seas and that our consumers be it industry or households would have a better possibility to choose to to let the market play its game play its role and to make sure that we have more competitive prices in Europe. We also wanted to make sure that we gave the energy efficiency much higher meaning in all what we do because we know very well that just by one percent of energy efficiency game we can we can import by two percent less of the gas and that's I think very significant if you see the potential we have in Europe in energy efficiency and you could see how significantly we can increase the the number and of course the last dimension very closely linked with our decarbonization goals with the support with renewables is very much linked with research and innovation and the new approaches to how to manage the power generation how to manage the distribution and how to offer our consumers up to date new technologies for the smart energy consumption. We are working on delivering on all these dimensions on such a three major tracks of course the first one is political because it's quite clear that we are without ownership for this process from the member state without support from the national parliament without having strong support and encouragement for this process from our citizens this very important economic and energy transition would not be possible. Therefore we are trying to engage as as much as possible with the stakeholders like you just to present you our vision our plans but also to listen to you to make sure that we find the specific fair just and good answer to the questions coming from different corners of Europe to make sure that we are building the energy union in which every country feels comfortable and feels as an active engaging partner. Here we also discussed what is the special features which would be required from Ireland. We had a very good meeting with Tishak and Dakenny with Stonishta John Burton with Alex but also with the Minister of Agriculture which is very important sector for Ireland Simon Coveney and it was quite quite clear that Ireland supports the energy union and Ireland wants to be active partner of this exercise but at the same time Ireland also wants that its specificities would be respected which is absolutely a natural and fair request. We would like to make sure that this political track would not end up with my energy union or we want to have the energy union on the table of the politicians and in the public eye permanently. I will present the first state of the energy union report in the November of this year because I would like to have this yearly exercise where in the autumn we will always have a chance to look back what we did right where we are not delivering as expected where we need to accelerate our efforts and I would like to give the ministers of energy, transport, competitiveness, environment the possibility to discuss the progress and also to feed in what I hope would be annual regular discussion on the energy climate and transport issue at the December summits where our heads of states and government will convene and when I think they have to just simply look at the progress what we achieved in Europe and also help us to keep up the momentum and if necessary to do the political arbitration how to move with the project of the energy union forward. One of the outcomes of the energy union I hope will be that in 2017 we start to work closely with our member states on the national energy and climate plans because I think that each member state have to have a look and use their own national optics how to contribute to the energy union how to be part of this exercise and how to fit the country into this big frame which we are built in Europe how to make sure that all those ambitious goals also in the field of fighting the climate change would be respected by our member states and that is something which is already happening in Ireland because with Alex we had the chance to discuss the white paper green paper and the planning the island is doing in this respect and it's exactly I would say this long-term approach which would be necessary from the point of view of member states but also from the point of view of the European Union. On the legislative track we are advancing according to the schedule we just adopted the summer package where I believe you've noticed especially the reform of the ETS proposal where we need to adjust our emission trading system to the new goals which are set for 2030. We started a public consultation on how to redesign electricity market which I think would be landmark proposal which you want to put on the table next summer and we also wanted to make sure that our citizens the consumers will see that energy union is especially about them therefore we adopted the communication which is called New Deal for the consumers where we are trying to set out the best practices and approaches which would put the consumers in this very important seat when they can decide from whom under what condition they want they want to buy the energy we want to encourage the smart meter technologies smart decisions for the household consumption as well as the proposals we made how to innovate the energy labeling because that's a good approach for the industry for the consumers to produce the most energy efficient household appliances. We will be working at this space until the autumn of the next year where we would like to bring gas package in the spring the big non ETS related package of legislations in the summer and to conclude with renewables and energy efficiency package in the autumn. Why so fast why why there is such a rush because we would like to make sure that we will put all the pieces of the puzzle on the table until the end of the next year because we want the member states to see what's on the menu what is the frame within which we have to work on this national energy and climate plans and we also want to have ample of time until the end of the term of this commission to make sure that these proposals will become legislation so when we will be leaving we can say that we are leaving with a very solid fundament of the energy and energy build endorsed and really make the transition irreversible process which would lead us to the new patterns new behavior and a new positive results for the for the next decade where island is featuring in this this exercise I think that island would benefit from the energy union a lot at first we are very much supporting the better interconnections between island and the neighbors and partners in the European Union we are working through so-called PCI projects of common interest list of projects where island has 18 18 projects already listed and highlighted and of course they are projects which are very much in the field of interconnectors we see that north house interconnector something of strategic importance we know that there is a lot of debate as about any important projects in Europe but at the same time we are absolutely convinced about its strategic importance for a better interconnection between island and northern island and we see it as one of the projects which could really help to increase the rate of interconnection between island and the neighbors up to 10 percent which is such expectation that each member states would have by 2020 but there are other projects which are very important as well as a project linking linking island with the UK linking islands with France or having island is very important partner of the offshore grid cooperation in the North Sea which is seen by many forecasters as a cooperation of enormous potential and magnitude and I know that Dutch presidency which will start on the 1st of January will see this project as one of the priorities and would like to create the new frames for this very very important cooperation so we believe that by better connecting island to the rest of Europe you will get from the position as I always heard described by my Irish friends the island behind the island by the country which through these interconnectors come into the heart of the European energy cooperation for that except the hardware we of course need the very solid software better cooperation among the regulators new electricity market design I was I was referring to and of course the respect for all those ambitious targets we set for ourselves for for 2030 if you allow me just to dwell very shortly on the third track which is very important for Europe in the energy field as well there we are working very hard on several crucial issues first we really want to have success at the conference COP 21 in Paris because I believe that this generation owes it to the next generation to hand over the planet in at least such a state as we inherited so it means we need to get the the climate change under control Europe is playing the very important role in this respect and now we have to convince other global partners to do the same or to do something which is comparable that what Europe is already doing we owe it to the next generation but I also know that our industry very much wants to be in the position when they can say that we have level playing field that we are ready to be in the leading position but we are we also want to see that industry in other global markets it's it's doing comparable effort and they're also trying to be as efficient as environmentally conscious as we are on the other front we are working very hard to make sure that the security of supply for the Europe is much stronger than before I'm mediating between Russian and Ukrainian's on gas supply for the next winter as you can imagine because of the conflict in eastern Ukraine this negotiations are also very tough very very emotional but I think that we found the good good solution good framework how to overcome these problems for the next winter and hopefully create much more confidence and confidence building in relationship between these two countries in the field of energy which we hope will also contribute to the overall improvement of the relations between these two very important neighbors and at the same time we are working on the new lng strategy for for Europe because we believe that with the current prices development on the lng lng could become new source of energy supplies we believe that if we interconnect our terminals better if we make sure that our policies in that field would encourage that development all that new capacity which is being built in the states in Australia this big potential we see in the Middle East or newly developed fields from Mediterranean could be very important supplier of gas not speaking about almost completed project bringing the Caspian gas through Azerbaijan Turkey Greece to Italy and European gas networks which would give us adequate choice and possibility to get the gas from different sources and making sure that our over dependence on one dominant supplier is under control and is not that high as it was as it was in the past if you allow me to conclude by appreciating the the way how the island managed her way through the crisis you know that you went through very difficult times I can tell you that looking at your figures of the growth of the last year and this year it's encouraging it's admirable I think you again proven that you are a country of enormous innovative potential of hardworking people who can reinvent herself in the difficult times of crisis for that you really deserve lots of compliments I can tell you that we are using your examples when you're talking about the reforms about the hard work and about the ability to change a lot and I really would like to thank you for that I would like to thank you for always being the great partners and great members of the European Union I'm very much looking forward to our discussion thank you very much