Slovenian President on further enlargement and the immediate EU neighbourhood

Brussels, 11.5.2010  |  press release

At the World Economic Forum on Europe held in Brussels, President Dr Danilo Türk attended the interactive sessions entitled "A Reflection on the EU Strategic Plan" and "A Reflection on EU Enlargement and the Immediate Neighbourhood".

During his appearance at the session on EU enlargement and the immediate neighbourhood, the Slovenian President emphasised that the EU neighbourhood policy is by far the most important priority of EU foreign policy. Within this area, the EU should launch new initiatives, said Dr Türk and called for the extension of visa liberalisation. He explained that the success of last year's visa liberalisation for certain Balkan countries had demonstrated great political implications and a significant contribution of this measure to human relations and the building of a new Europe. Moreover, he pointed out that the EU should make further efforts and through visa liberalisation enable young people to have many more opportunities than they have today.

In his statement to the press, President Türk said that the discussion during the session had shown that the EU has gotten no further than to the process of forming its institutions and foreign policy priorities, and expressed concern over this fact. According to the participants in the discussion, the EU also has a credibility problem: on the one hand, certain legal assurances have been given regarding enlargement, whereas on the other, one can observe great political hesitation. In addition, the discussion indicated that the question of enlargement and the attitude towards the immediate neighbourhood should be looked at through the prism of relations between the EU and Russia, an important and friendly strategic partner that, however, also has its doubts, while being used to cooperation with individual, economically strong EU Member States.