Mr. Mladen Draga?evi:

Conflicts were mentioned a couple of times. Nobody understands better than we do the consequences of the bloodshed of the 1990s in the Balkans. Montenegro was the only country which did not have armed conflict on its own territory but we felt the effects of them and the marks are still there. In some countries in the western Balkans we still feel that reconciliation is still necessary. I remind people, however, that the origins of the European Union were in the wake of the biggest conflict in the history of mankind. The idea of the European Union was born after the Second World War and the idea of enlargement and the unification of the European Union with the western Balkans will assist these countries to become better partners and friends in the near future. Even now, as potential candidate countries for membership of the EU, they are being brought together and many programmes and projects are being implemented, financed and assisted by the EU to help us to overcome the problems of the 1990s and bring us closer together.

As regards the economy, there is always a clash between spending and saving and raising GDP expenditure is directly connected with lowering unemployment, as is the case in all economies. As Deputy Durkan said, London is not such a great environment to speak about EU enlargement at the moment because most of the political actors there are looking in the opposite direction. We do not have many embassies throughout the world and we are trying to have a presence here in Dublin using our embassy in London. We hope that this visit and future visits will benefit co-operation between our countries. Small countries such as Montenegro need to be able to look up to positive examples among our partners in the European Union and to expand our co-operation, especially in areas where countries such as Ireland have expertise, such as education, agriculture and the dairy sector.