Secretary-General of the European Olympic Committees Rafael Pagnozzi. Organising Committee On 12 May 2017, the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree on the Foundation of the Directorate of the II European Games 2019. The founders of the foundation are the National Olympic Committee, the Minsk City Executive Committee and the Ministry of Sports and Tourism. Georgy Katulin, General Secretary of the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus, was appointed the CEO of the foundation in August 2017. In November 2017, the management launched the official website of the games. In April 2019, Lukashenko announced that the Games were on budget and on time and that "everything should meet the highest standards". Sergei Rumas, Belarus's prime minister and the head of the Organising Committee also said that all the facilities would be finished by 15 May and that "95 per cent of the equipment has already been installed". On 20 May 2019, Lukashenko signed Decree No.191, entitled "On security measures during the 2nd European Games in Belarus". It gave the Ministry of Defence the power to restrict access to certain areas and placed a ban on drones, unmanned aerial vehicles and model aeroplanes at competition venues. Drones and planes violating the decree will be seized until 2 July, when the Games end. Volunteers The start of the volunteer selection began in September 2017 during the "Dobrofest" and registration ended on 1 April 2019. In April 2019, the head of the volunteer network for the Games, Nadezhda Anisovets, said that the appeal resulted in 24,000 applications, much larger than the 8,000 needed for the Games. Most of them are students of Belarusian universities. Applications were also received from 52 other countries including Russia, Australia, the USA, Mexico, and Egypt. The basic requirements for the candidate are communication skills and high English-language proficiency. The selected volunteers will be involved in over 34 functional areas. Each volunteer will be given a special uniform, badges and souvenirs. Opening ceremony The Opening ceremony was held at National Olympic Stadium Dinamo and ran from 22:10 to 00:45 FET. It was produced by Russian company Art City 5, and was directed by Alexander Vavilov (Belarus) and Alexei Sechenov (Russia). Augmented reality imagery was used during the ceremony. The main musical performers were Anna Netrebko, Ilya Silchukov with Elena Salo and Dimash Kudaibergen. During the parade of nations, Greece entered the stadium first. The host