 It's a honor for me to be here with you this morning. Actually, I'm impressed because I thought, what would it be like if we asked the diplomatic corps and all those people interested into European affairs to come at this unethically, to talk Europe, say, in Vilnius. There would be many more empty chairs of this amperage show. I've experienced that a couple of times already. And as, thanks for kind introduction. And as you mentioned, yes, in a way, well, voucher turn gamekeeper because more or less all my conscious diplomatic life, I spend doing what I call a hardcore security policy businesses. And now I switch to the other side of Brussels. Here's one at NATO. One at NATO. We call the Keter European the dark side of Brussels. And now I realize that that's the dark side. What's been called dark side of the Keter European is NATO, actually. And which gives me a slightly different and yet propitious perspective on many challenges that lies ahead of us. What I'm going to do this morning is outlining, broadly speaking, outlining the priorities of the Canadian presidency of the EU council. And then I offer my full attention to you for questions, comments, suggestions, advices, we badly need advices. As Madam Chair said, it is the first time for us. And we are very excited to take on this task. And we say that we can prepare. And most importantly, we and I personally would be very glad to hearing your critics, slamming, lambasting, and so on, because actually it is the negative experience that we learn from. That comes from my so to speak philosophical background because I used to be educated to become a philosopher. And well, now I landed being a diplomat in charge for European affairs. Interesting history, though. But what I learned about Europe and the presidency during the last year, that I was asked to leave the preparation for and at my level, the presidency of the EU council. First I learned was that actually it is for the ties that the presidencies are remembered. And for all small, nitty, gritty, yet very visible and optical things. But I'd rather wanted to talk with you about partially covering and touching upon some organizational issues, but on substance, on legislative dossiers. And the overall European context that we have nowadays. I'm not used to it either. Yes, but let me say a few words about the general backdrop that we're going to go to our presidency. Next year it would be the 10th anniversary of Lithuanian membership in both EU and NATO. And believe me or not, and even though I said at the very beginning that actually if it were in Vilnius I could bet actually the audience wouldn't be that big as we have it this morning. But the public support for EU such as incredibly high, possibly the highest in Europe. Even though we went through very bad economic crisis, the GDP fell down 2009 by just imagine 15%. And now we're back on recovery track. Now the GDP is growing by 3% a year. And it is in the government's program to introduce Europe in 2015, meaning that we have to be fit for it and satisfy all the master criteria by 2015. And though some people say we possibly could satisfy master criteria already at the end of this year, but this still remains to be seen. But the message is this. We are very incredibly pro-European country and Lithuania will try successfully this time. Introduce Euro 2015. Now about the process that we went through in the run-up for the presidency. The way today it is the 16th day before we take over from our Irish colleague. And let me simply say that we lucked out being in the same trio with our Irish colleagues. Because you helped a lot. Yes, we have a joint trio program that represented the beginning of this year in the general affairs council of the EU. It went down very well with the ministerial audience. One presented. But more than that, we are very glad that you were willing to help us by training and learning our diplomats and civil servants. That would be a dealing with the European affairs. There's many a second disperse and out to Irish institutions to be on the spot. And we'll take advantage of their knowledge and experiences gathered here in Dublin enormously. First we started our preparations a couple of years ago by agreeing, by securing the political agreement in the parliament on the presidency priorities. And those were at those time that the gist of the matter during Clefiania's presidency spell would be to focus on energy security, eastern partnership, Baltic Sea region and EU external border. But then we thought it would be more useful and propitious to somehow mainstream those priorities into what's on the European table. And then this is how we came up with the slogan of credible, growing and open Europe to which I get back in a minute. We are a small administration, a small country. We picked up and trained around 1,500 public servants who would be directly tasked to deal with the European affairs, meaning chair the working parties or working groups. Plus as you said, yes, we have new government in place, new, in a sense, that it's operational since December last year. Still it's very committed government to the European businesses and again we lucked out, as the chair put it, by having a president who is extremely knowledgeable in European affairs. And we are small budget, low budget presidency either. Because it is in the law that we cannot exceed for running the presidency 62 million euros. The way that we're going to organize our chairmanship is called Brussels-based. Meaning that the very broad, maximum mandate, leverage to negotiate all the very complex and complicated legislative dossiers and other initiatives will be given to our people in Brussels. We strengthened our permanent representation in Brussels and by sending out our top people best, experts, diplomats, and specialists to support our permanent representation in Brussels and in most cases and instances, the owners would be on them to negotiate. It would be run rather from Brussels than from Belarus. And this may sound as a little bit contradiction to what I said a minute ago. Then we came up with the, it's not an idea, but not a thought but the very principle that we're going to be a honest broker when sharing the EU council. Meaning that we will not push for our, so to speak, national priorities. Like I said, the parliament stressed that Lithuania as a country would push for national priorities. But then we had many, many sessions with the parliament and ended up by agreeing that the slogan of our presidency would be credible, growing, and open Europe. And now I'll disclose what's in there. But before that, just imagine the backdrop against which our presidency will be run. Of course, you are specialists and experts and you know the political context. The European election approaching now scheduled for May 2014 and the elections and some member states plus the very end of legislative cycle of the EU. Meaning that the most difficult dossier, well, still, that's why they are most difficult because nobody managed to crack them yet. So we're going to engage with enormous numbers of files, legislative files. All in all, there are between 300 and 500 of them. And I'm talking only about legislative dossiers, dossiers that we have to negotiate on the European parliament to get the agreement with the European parliament if we want to close them down. It's a record number if you looked at the other presidencies, especially after the Lisbon Treaty is in place. But again, and now coming back to the priorities. Well, in principle, the priorities of both Irish and Lithuanian presidencies are perfectly dovetailed. Actually, they are more or less the same. Linguistically, they may sound a little bit different, but ensuring financial stability, caring for all the initiatives aimed at boosting the economic growth and taking care of Europe's position in the world are the same. And that was stressed during a T-shirt visit to Vilnius last week. Ambassador, for the recent time myself, we were part of the meeting with the president and the president and T-shirt, and that was a stressed couple of times. That actually, we are in a very propitious situation from this point of view. We are sharing absolutely the same priorities. Thus, our priorities are, broadly speaking, focus on credible, growing and open Europe. What is credible Europe? I will not read out what's on display, but I simply say that basically it means for us to work on implementing fiscal compact, balancing national budgets, prudent application of stability and growth pack, reinforced by six pack, and in turn this being reinforced by two pack, strengthening budgetary surveillance mechanism in Euro area, meaning that it's the same as a two pack, discussing Exanta coordination mechanism of major economic reforms across EU, and last but not least, working on a banking union. First, of course, it is a little bit technical, but in essence it's a very political bank resolution and recovery directive, single resolution mechanism regulation, deposit guarantee scheme directive. These are three basic and most important issues with regard to the banking union that we take on from the very first day on in the presidency. Then, of course, progress on negotiation on a single resolution mechanism, but that's already in the pipeline that politically agreed, but still some legislative work needs to be completed, and then protecting, of course, financial interest of EU and its member states. There are a couple of legislative initiatives related to this particular point, plus agreeing on actions to fight against tax fraud, tax evasion, and focusing on anti-money laundering files, and it wouldn't be possible to do, of course, without securing, well, without securing citizens' consent to it because you may have heard about the building blocks of economic and monetary union, and the fourth block says about the need to involve, and to secure the legitimacy and accountability of what we're doing in the European Union, but for this, first, we have to secure our, well, citizens' interest, consent, and ascent to what we're doing in Europe, and particularly this year, as we have the European Year of Citizens, perfectly shoots the purpose. By the way, the very last event of the Lithuanian presidency will be devoted to the European Year of Citizens. The second priority, we call it growing Europe, and this is, well, I've heard some, before coming here, I heard some promising news about possible agreement on MFA because that's the heart of the matter for us to stimulate European economies. First, we have to get a deal on EU budget clinched, budget meaning, budget for 2014 and for the next seven years, meaning a multi-annual financial program, and I know how hard Irish presidency has been working on it and still working, and I keep my fingers crossed that you're going to succeed on securing that political deal on MFF. Leaving us with the humble 56 legal acts to be adopted before the end of this year, allowing the money to start flowing. So the MFF and all the emanating legislative dossiers from MFF, 56, of them would be at the very heart of our endeavors with regard to boosting growth in Europe. But then, of course, EU internal market for growth, as we say. Here we're going to focus on a digital agenda, like tentella, e-identification, e-invoicing, and a couple of other things, plus broadband, coast reduction, and now, well, shouldn't be saying that on the record, but now traveling extensively, actually commuting between Vilnius, Brussels, and Strasbourg, and when I looked up the telephone bills that I have to pay for roaming, actually. Now, yes, I would go with the Commissioner Nellie Cross proposal of roaming for Europe. Then, of course, network security, and as I understand later on today, you're going to have Commissioner Malmstrom speaking with a focus on cyber security, and now we know what it is to be under cyber attack. You may have heard that the major internet news portal in Lithuania was under huge cyber attack recently, actually, a couple of weeks ago. So we're going to spend some working party days on mainstreaming cyber security dimension into the digital single market portfolio. Then, of course, our focus will be on completion of a single market attack one and making as much progress as we only can on single market attack two. Then, of course, research industry, innovation framework, Horizon 2020 will be, again, under our top-notch priorities, and better regulation, better governance, economic governments, and, of course, SMEs and services market will fall under priorities as well. Employment and boosting employment is a critical issue, and you may know that the European Council will have as a focus on youth unemployment problem, and we're going to work hard on youth guarantee schemes and apprenticeship program called Alliance for Apprenticeship. This is where our national pain and European priorities, again, perfectly dovetail, is work on energy market completion of EU energy market. Of course, that deadline for completion of EU energy market by 2040 rapidly approaching. Of course, we're going to give our full attention to this file plus getting rid of energy islands in Europe, Lithuania being one of them. As you may know, Lithuania is still energy island in the EU. And for this, it may sound a little bit technical again, but we're going to push for proper implementation of the third energy package. Market design, integration of renewables, first Europe wild list of projects of common interest, and last but not least, solid dimension of external aspects of EU energy policy. And then, it's already Baltic-Baltic slant. We're going to have this big overarching review of the Baltic and then macro-original strategies of the European Union. And it is especially pertinent now as we witnessed the flooding in central Europe last week, actually, because the gist of both strategies is caring about environment, by the way, the Baltic strategy could be encapsulated in three short sentences. Save the sea, connect the region and increase prosperity. Same goes, same is true with regard to Danube strategy. And this is where we come to the beloved... If it were my minister for foreign affairs, Lincavachos, he would talk about... He would, of course, talk mostly about open Europe, about possible relations between EU and NATO, and most importantly, about Eastern Partnership and Eastern Partnership Summit. Well, yes, this is third big priority, broadly speaking, of the Lithuanian presidency of the EU Council. So we're going to host the third Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, November 28, 29, would be appropriate place now to say it for the record. We take that Irish Prime Minister already gave its word to be there. What we look at are tangible deliverables that we can reasonably achieve during the summit. First of all, we're working on making it possible to sign association agreement with Ukraine, the integrated part of it called deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, then possibly initialing similar agreements with a couple of other countries, like Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia, and moving the process of visa facilitation and liberalization further. That's pretty ambitious agenda, and my minister spends time and energy working to secure the agreement and the willingness of European and partner countries to lead for those tangible, tangible deliverables to be achieved at the Vilnius Eastern Partnership Summit. But of course, we do our utmost to continue with the enlargement process. We are very, well, it is possibly already in our blood, it's pro enlargement inclination. It was good 15 years ago that we created so-called Vilnius group gathering together all the countries that I'm aiming at getting into both EU and NATO, and now absolute majority of them are already there, but the job is still not finished. And we're gonna continue with the Montenegro, Turkey, possibly starting negotiation with Serbia, even with Kosovo, advancing as far as we can other Western Balkan countries on their way to the EU. Then under this priority of course falls what's very close to Irish, but not less to Lithuanian hearts, TTA, pre-trade agreement with the United States. And other strategic partners like Japan, but plus Canada, plus Mercer, plus possibly other Southeast Asian countries. We'll see what's doable. But of course the main focus would be on TTA and negotiations with Japan. And it is today that actually the trade council could possibly give negotiating mandate for EU negotiators to go on and to engage with the Americans on it. Then we're gonna do some extra work on effective control of EU external borders. Again, it perfectly coincided with our national priority, if I may say so. Having one of the largest, longest EU external borders, of course it is quite natural for Lithuania to take on this issue. What I mean here is a smart borders concept, entry, exit system, registered travel program. And of course just many priorities are cross cutting. They are horizontal and it's in a way related to auntie's muggling plan for cigarette and alcohol. So we're gonna do an extra work on this plus. Of course, traditionally as every presidency is expected, we're gonna devote our due attention to EU development policies and trying, though it's difficult and trying to at least a little bit to do on EU-NATO relationship. What would it be like during 20 weeks of our presidency? Well, we will have European parliament in recess in August and before Christmas. So all in all, we're gonna have 20 weeks to close between 300 and 500 legislative files. Well, difficult and yet surmountable task. And the biggest events during our presidency are gonna be close the Third Eastern Partnership Summit and forum for Baltic Sea region. Then ICT conference, by the way, where we expect to 5,000 participants to be present. And since we are so much devoted to move on the completion of EU energy market, internal energy market, we're gonna do some extra high level events on energy. Most important thing, actually, and we started waiting extensively now and all the news about the presidency might be found if you wanted so following presidents, Twitter account, ministers, Twitter account and actually myself. That would be a short version of where we are without priorities of the EU council presidency. But I gather the most important part starts now and I offer my full attention now to engage with the EU, but please off the record. So thanks for your attention. Now I'm glad to answer all the questions and take on all your comments, suggestions and advices. Please advise us.