Rupel: Slovenia Part of Euroregion with a View

St. Poelten, 18 April

Speaking at a conference on subsidiarity on Tuesday, Slovenian FM Dimitrij Rupel highlighted the importance of regional cooperation in overcoming the disagreements that plagued the region of the Alps and the Adriatic in the past.

The conference, at which leading representatives of EU member states and institutions were discussing the role of regions, local communities and national parliaments in European politics, began with an address by Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, who pointed out that the subsidiarity debate is part of a wider debate about the EU's future.
Schuessel stressed that the increasing centralisation of the EU needs to be balanced by a stronger role of European regions and local communities. He also found it important for the EU to face the concerns of its citizens and make the debate on the future more concrete.
Rupel, on the other hand, said that subsidiarity was very likely to be one of the issues forming the agenda of Slovenia's EU presidency at the beginning of 2008. According to Rupel, the subsidiarity debate is foremostly about adequate authority and competences, with the keywords being "balance", "task division" and "increased efficiency in realising goals".
Rupel added that the debate should be divided into one dealing with the concepts of unity vs. diversity and intergovernmental vs. supranational and another dealing with the cooperation between Europe's regions.
In his view, closer cooperation between neighbouring regions, which were adversaries in the past, could ease ethnic tensions and create new opportunities. The Euro region Alps-Adria is a good example - it is "a Euroregion with a view", according to Rupel.
Rupel also pointed out that the EU had always been and still is an important tool for promoting reconciliation. It will be a stronger player on the world stage if it stands united, he stressed.

Rupel: Slovenia Part of Euroregion with a View

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