Jansa: Slovenia Wants Net Receiver Position to Improve
Prime Minister Janez Jansa said after Wednesday's talks with the EU presiding Luxembourg PM Jean-Claude Juncker that Slovenia wished its position as EU net receiver to be twice as good as the present one in the next EU financial period.
Jansa told the press after meeting Juncker that he estimated that the latest compromise proposal put forward by the Luxembourg presidency comes "close" to Slovenia's basic standpoint.
This basic goal, to which "Slovenia is fully entitled given its current position and by comparison to other member states", will be included in the government's position to be defended at the upcoming EU summit, Jansa said.
He announced the government would take the negotiating position after the meeting and send it to a relevant parliamentary committee in order to get it approved for the final negotiations on the perspective, due in Brussels on 16 and 17 June.
The Luxembourg presidency is expected to present the final version of its compromise proposal next week, which Jansa expects would "not be worse than the latest one" but would "unfortunately not come close to the proposal of the European Commission".
The Commission's proposal, according to Jansa, is better than the compromise proposals of the Luxembourg presidency since the latter fail to take into full account the EU commitments regarding the Lisbon Strategy, rural development and cohesion.
The prime minister also estimated that the conditions in the EU would not change in the way to become more favourable to the Commission's proposal, therefore Slovenia would like to see an agreement on the financial perspective to be reached before the end of the Luxembourg presidency.
In case the agreement was reached later, Slovenia, currently treated as one region, would no longer rank among countries entitled to the highest possible amount of cohesion funds, and would consequently have to embark on tough negotiations in order to be split into several regions, Jansa said.
"We will therefore make efforts for the agreement to be reached at the summit, while of course defending Slovenia's interests," the prime minister told the press.
He also voiced a belief that the odds for reaching the agreement next week have actually increased following the constitutional crisis prompted by the French and Dutch referendum rejection of the EU constitution.
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