 to Michael Lodian. But Eastern Europe was mentioned, and that is why I'm very pleased to welcome Polish Senator and the Minority Leader of the Polish Senate. He was also a former Minister of Defense of his country. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Bogdan Kliff. Bogdan, Poland's an important country, of course, one of the most populous countries. You have been mentioned a few times, both in a positive but also let's be honest in a less favorable manner. That's why I'm very curious to hear the view from Warsaw now. I'm very glad to be here, the first, and very glad also that we have good news from this morning that there are Americans that believe in Europe. Not only Europeans believe in the future of the European Union, but also Americans do that. So it means that there is a chance for a renewal of the good partnership between Europe and the United States. That's fair. Secondly, I'm not from Israel. I'm from Central Asia. And there is a difference between Central Europe that joined the European Union when Eastern Europe didn't do that. Yes, and there is a huge difference also concerning the relationship to the values, the approach to the values. Such values that were at the beginning of the LIS in 1949, and at the beginning of the process of European integration. I mean democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties, rights of minorities, market economy. Central Europeans believe in those values. Central Europeans, although there are governments that are Euroskeptical and that are, let's say, undermined partially those values, Central Europeans are committed to this set of values. Once in my home country, 84% of people are in favor of the future of the European Union, are satisfied of our membership in the EU. So please don't put in an equal position society and the current government. This is the policy of the current government in Hungary and Poland, but this is not a position of Central Europeans. Please remember about that. Now about Europe, because this is what we are talking about. We are in the European Union in a kind of paradoxical situation, because on one hand, we are aware of deterioration, of the political situation in our neighbor. I mean in southern and eastern neighbor. Eastern Europe and Mediterranean are in crisis. The first one, after the aggressive policy of the Russian Federation towards Ukraine, we can expect, in fact, that there will be a military invasion of Russian troops to one of the parts of southern Ukraine, especially after 1994, when Russian Federation together with Great Britain and United States guaranteed sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. But it happened. But it happened. It means that eastern Europe and even more in the European Atlantic zone, the existing model of security that was once again paradoxically introduced into the strategic documents of the Alliance in November 2010, an cooperative model of security was blown up. It was blown up by this aggression of the Russian Federation, because this model was based on the assumption that dialogue is much better than confrontation. The military confrontation was excluded from the vocabulary of our cooperation with Russia. The confrontation exists after the illegal annexation of Crimea, after having so many troops, Russian troops in Donbass region, after there is no satisfying solution concerning the future of Ukrainian sovereignty, and after Russian Federation is not only assertive, but is aggressive power, and after Russian Federation decided to show its power also in the Middle East and decided three years ago to go to the war in Syria and to be engaged in this conflict. We see, you know, a set of threats coming from Eastern Europe. Similar situation is in the southern neighborhood of Europe, although the Arab street, we witnessed rather asymmetric threats than conventional. But right now, after four years, we have the unstable Mediterranean region, we have failed states like Libya, we have recovery of authoritarian military regime in Egypt, and we have all two stable countries, one of them is in Egypt and the other one in Jordan, that are partners for European community. That's why in this deteriorating environment, we have to do something with our European capability to see the fear of security and defense. It means that Europe could take more responsibility for its own security, more responsibility in the area of security. Now, we are aware that we can deal politically with crisis, the variety of crisis in our neighbor, but we are not prepared to do the same using our military capabilities because we don't have crucial capabilities that should be used in such situations. We need more planning, capabilities, we need more operational capabilities, and we need more or better coordination between CDN and military aspects of issues and operations at the level of planning and at the level of conduct of operations. I would say that CSDP right now doesn't meet new institutions because we have enough tools, sufficient tools that were incorporated into the digital tree. After 2009, we are aware that we have permanent started cooperation that we can use, that we have European defense agency that was let's say introduced into the tree. We have battle groups that were prepared, but they were not used even during the crisis in Mali. Although one of the battle groups at that time was on duty. So we have enough institutions, but we don't have enough political will to do that. So I would say and this is my first significant remark and expectation from European leaders that they will be able to sign a significant political message to the rest of Europe and the world that Europe is able to improve its capabilities concerning CSDP in future. It doesn't mean that we need more Europe everywhere. I'm very satisfied with the notion of more Europe. Because we are in different situations than 20 years ago that we expected more Europe everywhere working on constitutional trees. But there are at least two areas in which there is a need. There is a public expectation of more Europe. This is external security and this is internal security. The citizens of European Union believe and need more Europe. It means more integration in those two areas. And I don't want to say that we need to improve European capabilities concerning counterterrorism without reviewing the treaties. Probably not. Probably it would be necessary to review the treaties and to prepare a new treaty to do it in this year. But we can do without changing our treaties in the European Union. The renewal of our security capabilities outside. It means that CSDP with the operational aid, with the improvement of battle groups, with the improvement of research of European Union that we were working together on the study about that. With even the new battle groups concept the European Union is ready to do it. It is necessary to have the leadership and I hope that after the creation of the new coalition government in Germany, Germany will be together with France in this leadership of this process. I hope that after the change of the government in my country, Poland will join this leadership as we propose such changes in the first and the second final letter. I was one of the authors of the final letter proposing in 2010 some of the solutions that are being incorporated right now. Thank you.