PRESIDENTS TRAJKOVSKI AND KUCAN MEET AT BRDO PRI KRANJU
At the 9th Meeting of Presidents of Central European States

Brdo, 1 June 2002


As part of the Meeting of Presidents of Central European States President Kucan met separately with Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski. By way of introduction President Trajkovski thanked his host for the outstanding hospitality and for the successful organisation of the meeting, expressing his particular thanks for the invitation to attend the meeting for the first time, thus enabling the President to present Macedonia's views on European integration processes and the future of Europe.

President Trajkovski invited President Kucan to Macedonia, emphasising such a visit would constitute an important expression of support to Macedonia and its rapprochement to the EU and NATO, and an opportunity for Macedonia to familiarise itself with Slovenia's experience with integration in both associations.

President Kucan stated that Slovenia is ready to share its experience with EU negotiations with Macedonia, estimating that the three final negotiation chapters would be the most difficult ones since they mainly concern financial and material issues. The Presidents also discussed the great imbalance in trade between the countries, which is already growing into an obstacle to the faster development of economic relations. President Kucan believed that the only way of overcoming the said problem was to develop more advanced forms of economic cooperation such as joint ventures.