European Affairs State Secretary Janez Lenarcic told the daily Vecer on Saturday that he was "pleased with the positive assessments" Slovenia is getting about its preparations for EU presidency in the first half of next year.
"Even if much has already been done, we are aware that there is still a lot to be done, so we are not afraid they [the positive assessments] might lull us to sleep. Still, the praise is encouraging for our self-confidence," Lenarcic told Vecer.
As for the Western Balkans as one of Slovenian presidency's priorities, Lenarcic said Slovenia will try to achieve two things.
Firstly, it will seek to once again confirm, at the level of the EU's general policy on the Western Balkans, the Thessaloniki agenda, chiefly that all the countries from the region have their place in the EU, with EU membership the final goal.
Secondly, achieving the EU's unity on the status of Kosovo as another issue to be solved in the Balkans will be, according to Lenarcic, a special challenge for the presiding country. He stressed though that the EU is only one of the forums at which this issues is being addressed.
Lenarcic also believes it would be good to resolve open issues between Slovenia and Croatia regardless of Slovenia's EU presidency, but stressed that "bilateral issues will have no impact on the presidency". However, meeting EU standards in areas such as fisheries and nuclear safety is, according to Lenarcic, a must for an EU candidate.
At the moment the estimate of the cost of Slovenia's presidency is EUR 62 million, but no country has yet managed to keep the cost within the planned figures, explained Lenarcic. Once the list of events under Slovenia's presidency is revised, he expects it to include "134 informal sub-ministerial events, of which 122 will take place in Slovenia and 12 in other EU members".
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