 Good afternoon, I'm Michael Collins here Minister. I'm going to be moderating today's session so you're very, very welcome indeed as I say you're very welcome to the Institute very welcome to this IEA webinar. And we're delighted to be joined by Minister Angel Logar who's the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia, who will speak to us about the priorities of the Slovenian EU presidency, which began of course on the 1st of July. And this is the second occasion since joining the EU in 2004. The Slovenia has held the rotating presidency of the Union, the early occasion of course being in 2008 and we look forward very much to hearing the Minister's presentation about Slovenia's presidency focus on strengthening the EU's resilience and strategic autonomy, facilitating the conference on the future of Europe, addressing rule of law issues within the Union and securing the EU's external borders, as well as Slovenia's plans to reinforce the EU's capacity to better respond to crisis, and the special emphasis Slovenia will place on EU relations with the Western Balkans. So the Minister, Minister Logar will speak to us for about 20 minutes, and then we will go to Q&A with your audience, and you'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which I think you're all very familiar with at this stage. Please be free to send your questions in as they occur to you throughout the session, and we will come to as many as we can in the time available to us. A reminder that today's presentation at the IAA, both the presentation and the Q&A are both on the record, and please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IEEA. We're also live streaming this afternoon's discussion, so very welcome to all of you joining us via YouTube. Let me now just formally welcome the Minister and say the Minister has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia since 2020. Before this, he was a member of the Slovenian National Assembly, representing the Slovenian Democratic Party, where he headed a commission of inquiry into abuses in the Slovenian banking system. He was also chairman of the Parliamentary Public Oversight Committee, as well as a member of the Finance and Monetary Affairs, Foreign Policy and EU Affairs committees. He's also served as Minister of Planet Potentially for OECD relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2014, as director of the Slovenian Government Communications Office, and he was the spokesperson of Slovenia's EU Council presidency in 2008. So Minister, you're very, very welcome to Dublin. I know it's been a very, very busy day for you, having met, of course, our Minister, and also I know opening the new embassy. So congratulations on all that front. The floor is now yours. Thank you very much, Mr. Koinks. Ladies and gentlemen, at the outset, I would like to thank the Institute for hosting me today. I'll bite in a virtual form and form from the other side of the town. It is certainly good to be back in Dublin, even with the pub still in restricted mode. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to present the priorities of our presidency. You might be aware, this is already the second Slovenian presidency of the Council, but this one is taking place under very different circumstances than in 2008. In a sense, that one was the last residency that had avoided any major crisis soon after the EU had to deal with the financial and debt crisis, and then with the migrant crisis. Then, of course, came to Brexit, but without exaggeration, I can say that COVID has put the EU and its member state to the most difficult test so far. It has put our health system under tremendous pressure, and it's still affecting our social and economic life. In the short run, it imposed certain limits on our way of life, but in the long term, it would also impact the way we organize ourselves nationally on the EU level and in the global community level. Just like almost every region and country across the world, neither the EU nor the member state were ready for COVID-19 pandemic. During the first days of the outbreak, actually, those were the days when I sworn in as a foreign minister, the coordination and cooperation between the member state was often initially very difficult. We will all remember media reports about long queues of lorries at the border checks. Meanwhile, on a global level, trade flows of critical products and materials were hampered by the export restriction and prioritization of prioritization of domestic production. This made us search for emergency solution to contain the risk of shortage of medicines and medical devices. However, as the event continued to unfold, the EU's response improved in efficiency. Now with the introduction of the digital COVID certificate, I hope the travel will be back this summer after all, at least to some extent, though the last reports on the Delta variant are not very optimistic in that respect. Experience from the previous economic and financial crisis allowed the EU to be better prepared for the economic fallout. The temporary recovery instrument under the name Next Generation EU and worth of 750 billion euros was set up based on green and digital transition. The fact that the EU managed to struck a deal on a recovery fund in a record time demonstrates the capacity of the European Union to rise up to the challenges. If we know such a major crisis, I am pretty sure that EU member state will not be able to agree on such a package. So this is just a snapshot of the situation in which the Slovenian presidency is taking the helm of the Council of the EU for the next six months. The Slovenian priorities are natural and logical reflection of this event and the challenges we are facing. So let me briefly mention them. The first priority of our presidency is resilience. The main is to use the experience gained during the pandemic to run the ad hoc reaction during the crisis into structured and long-term preparedness and resilience to the pandemics, but then again also to other type of crisis. The focus will be on building the European Health Union and starting their work on the proposal for a new European authority named HERA, Health European Response Agency. Our aim is to strengthen the research and development and to scale up the production capacity for medicines and medical devices in the EU. As recent event in the US and also here in Ireland have shown, we can very quickly find ourselves in a situation where a large scale cyber attack could have similar fatal consequences as the spread of the virus. It can harm our economy, critical infrastructure, democracy, and when taking place in the health sector, it can even cause loss of life. The number of cyber incidents in Europe almost doubled in 2020 and they also grew in scale of consequences. One of our key priorities will therefore be to promote a more coordinated response to potential large-scale cyber attack in Europe. One of the most important lessons learned is that the EU should better guarantee the security of supply of critical products. Better understanding of strengths and dependencies of our society and economy will help us design the right measures to reach higher or simply the right level of strategic autonomy while maintaining our trade relations open. We especially believe in enhancing relation with like-minded partners in this regard. I'm cautiously optimistic that during the Slovenian presidency, the European economy will start to pick up after the crisis. Recent data certainly support this view, including those for Slovenia. One of our presidency's first important task is to ensure that national recovery and resilience plans are confirmed as soon as possible. Europe's recovery after COVID-19 needs to be green and digital. It will be our task to start to lead a coherent debate on the climate and energy package fit for 55. That was presented by European Commission recently, I mean yesterday. However, EU's climate goals are not sufficient without cooperation of the largest emitter. So COP26 climate conference in Glasgow will be a turning point in this regard. When it comes to the digital transition, I wish to underline three interrelated areas that deserve particular attention. Regulation of digital services and markets, artificial intelligence and data economy. It is important that we strike the right balance between the competitiveness of our industry and ensuring that this important segment of the economy is regulated in accordance with our basic values. I know how sensitive these issues may be here in Ireland. But these are the topic to be addressed also by conference on the future of Europe, which will be in full swing during our semester as two of plenary session and four of the public panel will take place. In my view, the conference should be about how to make Europe more efficient and effective. I look forward to seeing all citizens stakeholders and think tanks joining the debate on Europe's future priorities and putting forward their proposals. We cannot ignore the need to have an active and visible role of the Union in the international community. Slovenia will devote particular attention to our renewed transatlantic commitment and the situation in our immediate neighborhood here. I would like to highlight the EU Western Balkan Informer Summit, which will be hosted by Slovenia this autumn. The EU's enlargement of course is about implementing reforms and fulfilling political and technical criteria. However, it is also about the strategic role of the EU in its immediate neighborhood. If the EU does not continue with the enlargement process, other global players will take over the leading role in its backcourt. Let me touch at the end also on the subject that is of great importance to Ireland and the whole European Union, the UK relation. They will remain our major occupation for years to come. No one is more aware of this fact than you and Ireland. Presidency, we will spare no effort to ensure full implementation of the trade and cooperation agreement, as well as withdrawal agreement, including in the areas of citizens right, the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland, fisheries and level playing field. Pacta Sun Cervanda, and we shouldn't expect nothing less from our British partners. Since 2016 and throughout the negotiation with the UK, we offered full solidarity with Ireland. This process and stability on the Irish island needed to be protected and protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland is a solid means to this end. Reluctance to fully implement the protocol, not only contribute to instability, but also put at risk the integrity of the single market and the health of our fellow citizens. In this slide, Slovenia closely follows the situation and is ready to work in the best interest of the EU. Our joint efforts will be important to successfully tackle many of the challenges ahead of us, while we prepare ourselves for the end of the pandemic, transforming its impact in the long term in the balance of our economies and societies, building for a new Europe that lies ahead. I will stop here at this point, so we can give to participant an opportunity to comment and as well to ask questions that I shall later on reply. Thank you very much for your attention.