Launch of the Australia Leadership Forum - Remarks by HR/VP
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Julie [Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia], it is a pleasure to welcome you again here in Brussels, this time with the sun! Looking at us [High Representative/Vice-President, Federica Mogherini, Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop and EEAS Secretary General, Helga Schmid], maybe we have some gender balance problems! Maybe Herman [Van Rompuy, former President of the European Council] can help us in balancing a bit, and I would like to thank him very much for his presence here.
Julie, it is really a pleasure for me not only to welcome you here - we had, as always, a very good bilateral, and even calling it bilateral does not really serve the purpose because we actually have an exchange on all the issues on which we work together - but especially, to welcome you on the occasion of the launch of this Leadership Forum. We were just saying that we could not find a better time to launch this Leadership Forum because our Europe and Australia are geographically very far away, but we are working daily on so many issues as completely like-minded partners, really as friends, with the same vision of the way in which the many crises of our time need to be resolved but also on the many opportunities that our relationship brings with it.
From the people-to-people contacts, as we call them, in all fields, to the cooperation on security - and we just talked about that especially on security in the areas of Asia and the Pacific and the Middle East - we work together on Syria on a very frequent basis - but also on economic relationships and trade. So, specifically at this time when our Australian friends will need to see the Europeans as determined and committed to our friendship more than ever, and also on the European public opinion's side to strengthen this friendship in a practical way, I think that this Leadership Forum will offer us the opportunity to do so.
Let me conclude on a personal note. I, myself, took part in an exchange programme, exactly ten years ago, that was in the United States, and I still keep many of the friendships and also working relationships with many of the people I met during that exchange. And even in these times when social media connects us so quickly across the world, I believe that nothing can substitute the personal experience of living together or exchanging, in person, experiences and views and that, on that basis, we can build the future of our strong friendship, even if we are geographically so far away but culturally and socially so close to each other. So I really think that this instrument will give us good opportunities that are extremely timely.
I would like to really finish now by thanking Julie very much for her visit here today because especially after the results of the UK referendum, it is very important for us and for our friends in the world to re-state, re-commit, even re-launch, refresh our ties, our common work. We will never, never say that nothing has changed. Something will change. But what will not and will never change is the European commitment to have partners and friends in the world and this is particularly true for our relations with Australia, with its institutions and with its people. So that is why I am particularly glad to welcome you here today, Julie. Thank you very much for joining me.