Today, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia attended the traditional December meeting of the European Council in Brussels, which focused on the Kosovo question, the global challenges facing Europe and its international role.
After the meeting the PM said that the European Council was still dominated by the spirit of the successful signing of the Treaty of Lisbon the day before. At the very beginning of the meeting, the European leaders focused on the coming year, when the Treaty is to be ratified in all member states and when its implementation has to be prepared. "On our proposal a decision has been made that the European Council will manage the preparation procedure for the implementation of the Treaty. This is particularly important, as some procedures which need to be sorted out for the treaty to be enforced on 1 January 2009 are delicate," said the PM.
The proposal by Slovenia and the next presiding country, France, for the preparations for the implementation of the treaty to be discreet, was backed by other member states. The work will begin with less sensitive issues, where Slovenia and France will carefully coordinate among themselves. "My discussion with the French President on Monday will focus on this agreement. There is one year, two presidencies and one common task: to prepare what is necessary for the Treaty to be ratified smoothly, while we prepare for its implementation," said PM Janez Jansa.
Only a day after signing the Treaty of Lisbon, the EU faced its biggest current foreign policy challenge: the future status of Kosovo. According to the PM, the decisions taken by the European Council in this respect provide the basis for the building of a common and unified European policy on the issue and the region in general in the coming months.
"The European Council has established, in unanimity and unison, that the current situation in Kosovo is unsustainable, that maintaining this situation will lead to a destabilisation of the region. The Council has also established that resolving the pending status of Kosovo constituted a sui generis case, which cannot be compared with any other situation in the world," said the PM, adding that the European leaders also agreed that all conditions had been met for the EU's direct engagement in Kosovo through missions.
Answering a journalist's question about the recognition of Kosovo by the international community, the PM explained that the European Council had not discussed concrete operational steps, but had taken a political decision enabling those concrete steps which have to be take in the future to be adapted to the situation. "The basis adopted today is wide and flexible enough to give European institutions the mandate to act as necessary," said the PM.
Against the backdrop of the European Council meeting, PM Jansa met his Spanish counterpart, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to present the priorities of Slovenia's Presidency. They also discussed issues of special significance to Spain, particularly migration and preparations for the EU-LAC Summit in Peru in May 2008.
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