 introduction and thank you for welcoming me here and for this opportunity you offered me to return back to Ireland. You know that as you said before, I spent a couple of years as ambassador of Cyprus. I was the first resident ambassador of Cyprus to Ireland and this is an extraordinary moment in my personal and professional life and I'm very proud of this and me and my family we keep very fond memories of our passage to Ireland and it was not only because we were very warmly welcomed in Ireland but also it was because it was crucial to me at times for all of us, I was here at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, I was here at the moment when Cyprus along with many other member states started accession negotiations and at the time, I mean, Ireland was doing very, very well, it was the best moments of the Celtic Tiger and it was also, I mean, transformed in a feeling of real generosity and I remember at the time all the political leaders of the country when they were talking about enlargement, they were mentioning the idea that you know, Ireland benefited from accession and it was time to give back and we were all of us, all candidate countries and I share this experience with many of my colleagues while having the feeling of being embraced by the Irish people, by the Irish society, by the Irish leadership and I'm really very grateful for this and this is an opportunity for me to formally express my gratitude to Ireland and to Irish people. So time went by and now Cyprus is in the European Union and now it's time for us to assume this big responsibility which is consubstantial to membership which is assuming the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. We are starting on July 1st so it's a bit more than two weeks away and you know that the presidency has evolved after the Lisbon Treaty but it has not lost its relevance and its importance. The role of the rotating presidency entails among other things of course, steering discussions within the Council, deciding on issues to be on the agenda, mediating and negotiating among member states in order to reach compromise and an agreement in the Council but also acting on behalf of the Council with other institutions and in particular with the European Parliament which under the Lisbon Treaty came out with increased powers and is the co-legislator in most areas and you know negotiating with Parliament is one of the biggest challenges of rotating presidency since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. We have utmost respect for the rights and the prerogatives of all European institutions and our ambition is just to do the job right with full respect of the treaties. At the same time there is a new role for the rotating presidency which we didn't think about before and is in light of this multiplication at the end of the day of the centres of power. You know all over the years we were trying to think that we needed to have a reply to Kissinger's question which number you dial for Europe but we ended up having even more centres of power than before with the permanent president of the European Council with the higher representative with increased powers in the European Parliament with the Commission being very jealous about their own powers and with the rotating presidency trying to play a role and with the Franco-German engine coming back with the crisis and all those things. Therefore there is probably for the rotating presidency a new role and this role is about regulating and ensuring consistency and coherence within the system and among the various poles of the political power within the Union. I was saying once a halfly joking that we are kind of the Jedi's of the system like the Star Wars saga. But above all the presidency is about trying to move forward the agenda of the European Union and act as an honest broker aiming at achieving compromises and achieve as far as possible the overall objectives for the Union. For Cyprus the challenge is even more daunting because you know we are a small member state, we are far from Brussels, we are a new member state we don't have previous experience. We have a big national problem and it's the most difficult moment in the life of the Union so economic crisis and you know concerns about the future et cetera so it's not an easy task for us. At the same time we are here and we have all the ambition and the political will to make a lasting contribution towards European integration and at the same time we believe that through working very hard for the European Union we are going also to enhance the image of our country as a credible and responsible member of the EU and also use this if you like in order to make sure that our society, our state, our public sector are more in tune with developments in Europe so it's a formidable concentrate of experience for our country, it's a formidable concentrate of innovation and renovation boost if you like for Cyprus. We feel that we have the responsibility in this particular juncture to work towards delivering better Europe for the next generations and it is with this feeling that we are approaching our presidency. We have maybe the enthusiasm of a newcomer and we have been preparing for this presidency for three years now but we believe that during this travel times of frustration and complexity especially with the crisis in the Eurozone and all those elements that led to an intensification of the debate on the future of the Union and especially the institutional framework and these perennial debates about the pro bonance of more Europe or the Eurosceptics, the pro bonance of a strong Europe against these aspects to those other subjects that are trying to dilute it and there is also these debates about widening versus deepening et cetera and also this recurrent debate about the multiple tier Europe it was important for us to focus mainly in these difficult times on working towards a better Europe, better to take it as you like. But it has to be better and in order to be better anyway it has to be more relevant to the European citizens and the European Union has to be more relevant in the world and our goal is to work towards a better Europe through adherence to fundamental values of the EU solidarity, social cohesion, better quality of life for the European Union citizens and our vision achieves, acquires special significance in particular in the current situation because we believe that through this vision we are going to offer hope and a more positive outlook to the citizens especially the younger generations assuring them that the troubles of today can indeed be overcome leading us to a brighter future. So I would like also to say that rather than focusing on multiplying policies and actions of the European Union we are going to focus also on effectiveness. We believe that we have a lot of an hour played already and sometimes what we need is proper implementation and also when we implement policies to have always in mind that what we are doing is that we are trying to move forward the European agenda and to increase the quality of life of our citizens. So this is the two areas where we are going to evolve if you like during the Cyprus presidency. Before continuing I would like to join others in welcoming the positive outcome of the referendum in Ireland on the fiscal compact which is for us all a vote of confidence for European integration and an important step towards recovery and stability. We are also on the way to deposit our instrument of ratification of the approval by Cyprus of the fiscal compact and we hope that it will eventually enter into force as planned before the end of the year I mean first of January 2013. Cyprus regardless of its own political problem has to proceed with a successful result-oriented presidency and will act in a purely presidential manner and we will not allow our national problem to define our presidency but at the same time we are not going to allow our role as a presidency to be jeopardized by the Cyprus problem. The Cyprus issue and the presidency are too parallel with independent processes and we will not accept to have a second class presidency due to our national problem and due to the stance of Turkey towards the Council of the EU. The drafting of our presidency program is completed. It was approved by our Council of Ministers yesterday. For this we have worked hard among all the services of the government and in consultation with our partners in the Commission, the Kansas Secretariat and even the European Parliament and it's also taking it fully to account the TRIO program but we all realize and understand that to a great extent the subjects that are discussed during the presidency and more so now are more or less predetermined since they are mainly issues inherited from previous presidencies as well as issues stemming from the Commission work program for 2012 and even where it always happens that you have unpredictable things that are happening it's not what you think so you cannot really know exactly what you have to do what you need to do is just to have in place a system that prepares and gives you the right skills to work under unpredictable situations and this we are trying to do but at the same time we are very humble and modest in this regard we hope that everything will work out well but we'll see but despite all the factors that I mentioned each presidency still has some room of maneuver to give its unique touch to the presidency program and the contents of our six months program and our priorities will of course take into account the current socioeconomic developments and our own approach towards the issue let me say a few words about some of the issues that will be on our agenda we all know that one of the key issues that will be on the agenda of the Cyprus presidency is furthering and eventually reaching political agreement on the new multi-annual financial framework covering the period 2014-2020 I mean this is the ambition I cannot say that it will be fulfilled maybe it will go a bit further to the Irish presidency but we are going to work very hard at all levels in order to reach political agreement before the end of the year and you know that the multi-annual financial framework is not just a budget for the union for the seven years to come but it's at the end of the day you know the way we put our political and other priorities in all areas together and it's part of the ambition we have for the future of the European Union as a whole therefore it constitutes more a political not only budgetary framework and we need to have a clear understanding in which areas we are going to invest more or less in the future and you know that now the idea is to every extent possible to link the discussions about the MFF with the ongoing discussion on how to reconcile fiscal consolidation with growth and jobs and all this is coming together and we hope by the end of June in the European Council to have a better understanding on how do we do this link between the MFF and all the other debates about growth and jobs and if you like the pace of the necessary fiscal consolidation whilst we don't kill the elements of growth and the MFF can be really of great help and assistance in finding the right balance between these various elements I don't know to what extent you have a clear picture of the amounts involved but the overall commitment ceiling proposed by the Commission for the 2014-2020 period is 1.025 billion euros which translate into the amount of the last year of the current MFF 2013 multiplied by seven you understand that this is one of the most sensitive topics and the discussion in the European Union and we need to find a way that will allow us to move forward because the positions of member states are really divided without wanting to be overly simplistic the main dividing line is between the net contributors and the net receivers but even this divide has some further subdivisions because not all members of each category agree on everything but overall the net contributors try to bring the overall amount the size of the budgets down the net receivers they want to stick at least to the Commission proposal but as I was saying before this fundamental divide there are also debates according to various categories and headaches of the budget for example countries with major stakes in agriculture and structural funds are less inclined to accept major changes in the composition of the budget there is also an important debate about the revenue side of the budget where we have as you know the proposers of the Commission on new resources which alter the stakes of member states in the income side of the budget in addition to the differences between member states there is another complication which arises from the fact that the European Parliament has the power of consent as regards the expenditure side of the budget these changes fundamentally the negotiating arena compared to the previous multi-annual budget because the Council will now have to also incorporate the opinion of the European Parliament hence it is not surprising that this dossier poses the greatest challenge for the Cyprus presidency especially considering that the original Commission proposal calls for completion of the negotiations as I was saying before the end of 2012 the ambition we have of course on substance to reach an agreement that will contribute to economic, social and territorial cohesion we will follow on the work that was accomplished by the Danish presidency and you know that the Danish presidency managed to put together a very good negotiating box which will be it is under discussion but will be discussed also at the end of June at the European Council and then we are going to take it from there this is very helpful to us and we are going to use it as the fundamental tool in order to work for the successful completion of the negotiations then going beyond the MFF you know that in the light of the Eurozone crisis we have all those issues of enhancement of economic governance and we are going to place special emphasis in the implementation of the six pack that reinforces the surveillance of fiscal and macroeconomic policies and we also have you know now pending before parliament the two pack and we hope that it will be finalized soon and we are going to work on their implementation of course another priority for us is the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy to help the EU to achieve high levels of employment social cohesion and sustainable growth we are going to have to pay special attention to the enhancement of the single market for which 2012 will mark the 20th anniversary in this context we will place particular emphasis to further depending the single market through the promotion of the single market act and we are going to make every effort towards the adoption of the legislative proposals they are in as well as the responsiveness to consumer needs and to medium-sized enterprise small and medium-sized enterprises needs the completion and full implementation of the measures for the reform of the financial sector is also crucial for enhanced surveillance of the market and for the efficient allocation of resources so in the area of the financial services the focus of the presidency will be on proposers relating to the revised rules on markets in financial instruments, on market abuse and on credit rating agencies and of course we are going to try to bring greater market transparency and crisis management possibilities in the financial sector then we are going to place particular focus on policies for European citizens while addressing societal challenges and thus achieving more inclusive growth for the union within this framework we are going to place particular emphasis on providing employment opportunities and the more secure future to young people regarding the common European asylum system goal which is one of the main priorities of the Cyprus presidency and is a commitment of the union to finalize it before the end of the year we are focusing on having the necessary legislative proposals adopted they are for pending but we are on track the Danish presidency has done a very good job in this regard and we hope that we will manage before the end of the year though we all know that the political context is very difficult in this regard and you know link to this is also all the questions related to the integration of legally residing third country nationals there is a lot of work to be done and above all we need to do in this what we are trying to do during this Cyprus presidency we need to do a lot of work for clarification of the different issues it's one thing to talk about asylum seekers there we have an international obligation under the union convention it's another thing to talk about people entitled to international protection for humanitarian reasons because they are fleeing their countries it's another thing to talk about illegal migration it's another thing to talk about legal migration and it's another thing to talk about the freedom of movement of European citizens and you know that there is a lot of confusion around all those issues right now in Europe and you know very often those recent phenomena of xenophobia in many European countries are addressed against European citizens from other member states so we need to understand that what is at stake are fundamental values and we need to be very cautious so we don't expect or have the ambition to you know to set the record straight during our presidency on all issues but we are going towards having more clarity and better understanding of what is involved in the various debates around those issues then the presidency will focus on promoting child well-being through promoting recommendations by the commission on child poverty and what we are also to promote social inclusion of all the peasants activating and the strengthening of solidarity between generations in the context of the European year for active inclusion and intergenerational solidarity in the field of health the presidency will give emphasis to the issue of healthy aging for EU citizens as well as innovative approaches to health care in the fields of education and culture and youth we place emphasis on the modernization of educational systems and provision of better education and to increase literacy and to provide equal opportunities for everyone and of course we have the ambition and I think the Irish experience is very helpful in this regard to work towards bringing closer the universities to the industry we are going also to promote the proposed new legal framework for the production of personal data which consists of two legislative proposals and we are going also to promote legislative measures focusing on enhancing cooperation between member states in the field of justice there are commission proposals that are still pending to the council and the parliament we are going also to focus on further participation of civil society and further involvement of social partners NGOs and local authorities in the formulation and implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy in the field of external relations of course we are going to strengthen regional cooperation with neighboring countries and in this regard we are going to place special emphasis to the southern dimension the Arab Spring countries and all what is related with our part of the world without of course neglecting the eastern partnership and the other policies that are part of the neighborhood policy of the European Union we want to bring the union closer to its neighbors and have a better and more deep relationship with our neighbors if you like and we believe that the principle more for more needs to find its good expression in our external policies we believe that what happened the last couple of years in our neighborhood should lead the way for us because what conclusion we have drawn is that at the end of the day we were taken a bit by surprise because we had a single interlocutor we had only the regimes and we need to ensure that we have more channels of communication we need to promote pluralism we need to preserve all the communities in all those countries and we need to avoid instrumentalization of the democratic process in order to achieve other aims so it's a difficult task it's something that goes beyond if you like the external relations which anyway are within the competence of the higher president and we don't want to interfere with that but we believe that there is a lot of room and a lot of ground to work directly with the societies and increase our presence and our possibility to positively influence developments in these countries then of course there are issues I will come back to something that is neighborhood but not exactly which is enlargement but I will come back a bit later to this just a word on the efforts to achieve sustainable growth and resource efficiency highlighting the importance of a more competitive union based on a low carbon and green economy and enhancing the ambitious efforts of the European institutions for more concrete results on this and this is a compliment to the Danish presidency we don't have any new to propose we are going to follow on the footsteps of the Danish presidency which is doing an outstanding job on this area as 2012 has been declared the year of water the presidency will carry on work aiming at the sustainable use of water resources on the basis of commissions blueprint to safeguard Europe's water resources then it is important for the Cyprus presidency to relaunch the integrated maritime policy during our presidency and we expect that in October we are going to host a special event in Cyprus in order to adopt a special declaration in this regard there are many other issues on trans-European networks infrastructure on transport energy and telecommunications within or without the connecting Europe facility that will be part of our program if you like but I don't think that I should go more into depth on those if there are questions I would be very happy to answer and of course as I was mentioning before the presidency will carry on the work on the enlargement package we believe that we need to keep the process alive and the union cannot just close the door we need to be open and we need to find ways to respond positively to the aspiration of those countries that have a vocation to join us in the European Union we will ensure that the enlargement agenda remains high amongst our priorities and we will therefore do our utmost to advance the process on the basis of the own merits approach strict conditionality of course but also equal and equitable treatment for candidate countries and potential candidates we expect in this regard to take forward the Iceland accession negotiations aiming at bringing the process as close as possible to its conclusion though we all know that there will remain a few chapters let me say the most difficult chapters to be negotiated under the Irish presidents moreover the enforcement of Turkey's accession prospects is of critical importance and the presidency will focus on advancing this prospect in line with Turkey's negotiating framework and relevant council conclusions at the same time we stand ready to co-operate in a constructive manner with the commission on the issue of the positive agenda for Turkey in line with the conclusions of the December 2011 General Affair Council as regards the western Balkans we stand ready to contribute to the decisive advancement of Montenegro's accession course as you know that there is a prospect there to open accession negotiations before the end of June if everything goes well the last day of the Danish presidency we'll see if everything goes well if so the Cyprus presidency will continue the negotiations of course during the Cyprus presidency we'll be more screening than real opening of chapters so if everything goes well we hope to be able to open a couple of chapters before the end of the year there again it will be up to the Irish presidency to take this over then we will see what happens with Serbia which was granted candidate status but we'll see if it is possible by the end of the year to have a decision on opening accession negotiations then of course we have a commitment to oversee that the accession process of Croatia proceeds well there is already a number of ratifications including ours we will follow the monitoring process and we hope that everything will go well and Croatia will join on July 1st 2013 no much progress is expected on the other candidate countries for the time being in conclusion I would like to mention that our vision is to promote Europe as a hospitable space we say in Greek which in our interpretation does not mean only welcoming the foreigners and the hospitable Philoxenostobos is part of our vision for our country is part of the forethought for our presidency is part of our aspiration for a better Europe Philoxenostobos is part of our aspiration for a European Union which is more relevant to its citizens and in the world our vision is to promote the European space as a welcoming space for enterprises, for ideas for services for innovation, for culture I would like to thank you very much once again for your presence here today