Excellencies, spouses, partners, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honour to welcome you all here at the Prague Castle as we love to say in the very heart of Europe. It is the first opportunity for me to meet you in my new role, but I can assure you not the last one.

As we all know, diplomacy is one of the oldest professions in the world and its role is irreplaceable in these difficult and challenging conditions. As Madeleine Albright once put it: The thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference. Wherever we communicate, wherever we listen to each other we may come to an understanding. The problem occurs when we stop listening, when we stop communicating. The role of diplomats is to communicate as much as possible, to listen to each other to present your countries and cultures to us and convey messages to your capitals.

There are many different forms of diplomacy, economic, cultural diplomacy, even sports diplomacy. My own experience comes from military diplomacy which I did for number of years, and I was always very proud representing my country abroad, I am sure you are as proud as I was to represent your respective countries.

I will very much look forward seeing you in future events, there will be many, and to learn about your countries as much as possible. I would like to welcome you once again in Prague, in the Prague Castle and wish you all the best.

I would also like to introduce Mr Jaroslav Zajíček, who heads the Foreign Affairs Department. He is for many known one of the faces and brains of Czech Presidency so whatever you will want in area of diplomacy and foreign policy, Jaroslav Zajíček is your man.