 Thank you very much Mary. I'd like really to express sincere gratitude to the Irish Presidency of the EU for inviting me and actually more than that for convening this meeting and inviting really relevant persons to discuss issues related to the accession but also issues related to the regional cooperation in the part of the world that I very much care for and part of the world I'm coming from. The RCC is a well a young organization it's a fifth year five years old we are in the sixth year of our existence but of course we do care about the links and the legacy left for us from the stability pact for South Eastern Europe and we'll try to perform as good as the impact was performing but I'm in the office as long as the Irish Presidency is in the office as of January this year when I took over as Secretary-General of the RCC and would like to pay respect to the hard work done by colleague of mine predecessor Secretary-General at that time of the RCC Ambassador Hedovic. What I'd like to share with you is what we've done in this period of time and what you should expect from us in the coming months and years. First of all on the political front and this was one of the tasks I've taken with me as of January was to make sure that the RCC as the umbrella regional organization is all inclusive and I'm very happy to report to you that in the RCC board meeting that we held on February 28 we have become the all-inclusive we are the first organization which provided full flash participation to Kosovo as a result of consensus and there I'd like to pay respect to guys colleagues of mine in the government of Serbia who were very constructive in the process and this is one of the results of the Belgrade Pristina dialogue facilitated by Mizashton and I'd like to say that I have high hopes that also in this phase while hoping for news coming from both Belgrade and Pristina that the news will be positive and that they will finally agree on all the days related to the implementation of the agreement that they've reached a few weeks back but this happened even before and it proved that region can cooperate if we invest an effort and if we really try to work out the issues sometimes very difficult and there are many bilateral issues yet to be resolved in the region and we are ready to be supported in this respect but I just wanted to point out this political hurdle which was a hurdle in during last five years in the RCC is behind us and I'm quite happy and proud for that but then what we are trying to do now and we've put we've done and was fully supported on a few weeks back on another board meeting it is that we've tried to reorganize and refocus the organization after five years we've realized it's as it was said if I'm not wrong that I may be corrected in Clinton campaign it's all about economy stupid or as I was reminded while I was in office thank you for mentioning this many constate by Yoshka Fisher at that time whenever he was meeting we was discussing only economy never really enlargement and now ten years after it's all about economy again and this is why I'm saying that what we've done on the few weeks back we have the RCC board adopting the program for the next three years and what is in our work program for the next three years is a clear definition of priorities and as it was just mentioned by Ms Papandopoulou it is the Southeast Europe 2020 strategy which is the core of the engagement of the RCC which will be in the coming years as of January 2014 onwards and I wanted to share with you what it is about we've gave it the name coming from these socialist communist countries we like the mantras sometimes slogans help a lot and this is why we call it a job creating growth and EU integration I'll be blunt though being cautious as well having in mind that Vladimir is here and other economists around who may always correct me but we have seen growth in the years after 2000 in in every part of the region but somehow the growth was also result of the privatization but the people were jobless so the employment did not follow the investments and now in the midst of the crisis we just realized that the low level of employment is a real issue for the countries in the region not only for the countries in the region therefore this strategy is called job creating growth and EU integration and we have three groups of issue that we hope to engage up to 70 percent of our resources human financial in the coming years the first group is related to economic and social development the second one is energy infrastructure and the third one is related to building human capital as we call it having in mind education research innovation we believe that we should invest our effort in the coming years through this SC strategy SC 2020 linking with the EU 2020 in these three groups of issues then remaining resource resources are going to be invested in what we've been doing before and this is just in home affairs related issues rule of law particularly fight against governance economic governance and security cooperation in the region so this is what the RCC is going to be in the coming years but look the concept has been changed during the last five years it was all about peace and stability now we are moving and focusing on development and intensified cooperation in the region this strategy is a result of an agreement reached between the ministers of economy in the region in Tirana last year 2012 and they get it together and they've set a list of regional targets 11 and list of national targets more than 70 and I share with you only few just to understand what it is about what do we want to achieve I mentioned employment employment rate is roughly 70 40 percent unfortunately 40 percent only in the region and we hope having in mind 2010 as a base year to reach by 2020 45 percent of employment then another figure that I'd like to share with you we hope to intensify the intraridional trade among the countries by 230 percent we hope to increase investment by 120 percent we hope to bring to the labor market with the with the perspective of being employed additional 300 000 of highly educated youth and there is a figure that I'd like to share with you it's that we are playing with this figure that the GDP in the region on average is 38 percent of what is the average among the 27 and I'd like you to invite you to pose on this figure what does it show that during the last 10 or more years we have seen development but the gap deepened between the countries in the region and the EU 27 and nobody's happy that the current crisis is getting hard everybody including the EU 27 might help us close this gap but I'm cynical and I'm not happy about that at all but the target we see is by 2020 to get to if possible 46 percent of what is the EU 27 average GDP so even then we may not be at a half and these are reality but this is exactly why we wanted to make clear these are the targets I'm not saying this is the promise of the minister of economy I wish I was able to say this is a promise but no one can promise but at least we have a clear guidance where do we go and this is why we have set this strategy accordingly in addition what we've done in the regional cooperation council as a part of this strategy we've developed a clear horizontal coordination mechanism have in mind that you are aware of that that there is a list of initiatives organizations in the region and I won't list them now and some of them have a specific knowledge and resources and capacity and we've actually tried to put them together and to say who is in the lead when it comes to some of these issues I mentioned trade it should be CEFTA of course if I mentioned energy it should be energy community if I mentioned education it should be education forum initiative for southeast in europe you understand what we have done we really place those who should be the key actors on a front line and then we have defined the role of the regional cooperation council at the organization which is bringing them together and filling the gap we are not the implementing agency we are dealing with the policies with the actors with the governments in the region and of course we have had we had in mind the external actors who are precious when it comes to trade is OECD when it comes to security related issues it might be the OSCE or NATO when it comes to all of these together it's European Commission European Union when it comes to rule of law related issues and human rights related issues is also the council of Europe so we've also provided a rule for them respecting their capacities and last but not least very important the line ministry is in respective governments in the region so there is also beside this besides this horizontal coordination mechanism there is a governance structure and there I'd like to share with you having also in mind those who are going to work with us in the coming months a Lithuanian chairmanship that I'd like to share with them in a way we are shifting our attention because who is now in the RCC board MFA representatives who is going to be in a driving seat when it comes to the AC 20 implementation it is and that would be my wish deputy prime minister responsible for European integration we need them to understand that this is part of their portfolio the implementation of the AC 2020 will be linked with the progress reports and therefore will be part of the success of these very persons who are dealing with the European integration in respective governments so this is a hugely important shift that I wanted to share with you and should provide more of a national stake in the process because we would hope to develop national actions plans so how my country is going to add to this figure of highly educated additional 20,000 from Serbia or additional 15,000 from post and Herzegovina so how do we reach these goals is what we are working now and this is no part of my task so after completing this political issue on being full inclusive after completing this programmatic issue in focusing on this AC 2020 and the future work now we are dealing with the with the governments in the region trying also to make sure that there is a bind for them and that there are the actions plans to follow this strategy so this is what you should expect from us and I'd like to end up by saying something to roll the ball at least on a personal level I'd like to say that while considering the future of WBIF and I think that Greece presidency as of January might have in mind also a particular role for Western Balkans investment framework I think that it would be good to link it with the six prime ministers we need to make sure that the six prime ministers cooperate regionally and do have a stake in what you're going to do with Western Balkans investment framework particularly when it comes to real investments in the region therefore I'd be very much in favor of establishing this kind of a format a regular on a regular basis that six prime ministers are gathering and discussing the regional cooperation and I have in mind those participants of the RCC who are now in a process and who have been addressed in the opening speeches these six I think do have a role to play in the coming years because being realistic we're discussing 2020 plus when it comes to future membership of the EU therefore there is room to fill the close cooperation among these six and I just wanted to share with you at the very end I'd like to invite you to follow closely in the coming days we are getting together to have SCCP South East European Cooperation process ministerial on May 31st in Ohrid and we are going to have a summit on June 1st and we hope to have a good meetings also for the first time a thematic summit which will be discussing issues related to disaster risks preparedness and prevention and this is I think a good that the countries have developed an idea that they should focus on certain issues while bringing foreign ministers or bringing presidents so that I'm very happy to be able to say that Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva is going to join us that we can discuss in depth this field of cooperation here I'd like to stop and I'm very much willing to respond to all the issues you might have as a result of what I was sharing with you on the future activities of the regional cooperation council thank you very much