Korcok: Juncker's State of EU in Line with Slovak Presidency Priorities

Korcok: Juncker's State of EU in Line with Slovak Presidency Priorities

Strasbourg, September 14 (TASR correspondent) – A report on the state of the EU delivered by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at the European Parliament (EP) on Wednesday confirms the soundness of the priorities of the Slovak Presidency of the EU Council.

This was the message from Foreign and European Affairs Ministry State Secretary Ivan Korcok, who is also Government Proxy for Slovakia’s Presidency of the Council of the EU. Korcok spoke shortly after Juncker’s report was released in Strasbourg.

Korcok said that he has witnessed a wide debate on the state of the Union while its its main message is that nobody is trying to see things through rose-coloured glasses.

“We all know where we find ourselves after the referendum on Brexit, but we have a bigger problem and that is the loss of confidence from part of the public,” said Korcok.

He appreciated that the importance of the informal EU summit in Bratislava has been reflected not only in Juncker’s report but also in the speeches of MEPs indicating their great expectations from Friday’s event.

“It’s good that we got into the centre of Europe’s interest,” said Korcok, who added that he also stressed at the EP plenary that the Bratislava summit won’t be able to bring a complete and sophisticated recipe on how to resolve the issues that have accumulated in the EU over the past decade.

Korcok also pointed out that Slovakia at the summit wants to focus on the issues that bother people the most, such as migration, internal security and economic issues. All these themes formed part of Juncker’s report, which dealt with which legislative proposals and initiatives Brussels wants to pursue in the future.

“The positive news is that what we have set out for our Presidency, be it in the financial field or in the budget, energy, the digital economy and climate targets … I can feel it everywhere that we have set our priorities well,” he said.

Meanwhile, Juncker in his speech called on Slovakia, as the presiding country, to overcome the differences among member states in terms of migration. Korcok responded that although in the issues of mandatory quotas and relocation the views aren’t unified, Slovakia accepts Juncker’s message, but “it will be difficult to overcome these differences.”