Foreign Policies

CoFoE: Vetrak Sees No Political Grounds for EP Elections' Transnational Slates

Bratislava, April 4 (TASR) – MP Milan Vetrak sees no real political grounds for introduction of transnational slates for elections to the European Parliament (EP). According to him, transnational slates would not be beneficial for smaller member states, including Slovakia.

Italian MEP Sandro Gozi, who is at the same time the leader of the Union of European Federalists, recently spoke about the introduction of transnational slates at the Conference on the Future of Europe’s (CoFoE) plenary in Strasbourg, referring to expectations of EU citizens.

Vetrak views it an interesting idea, however, he pointed to the fact that the European Union isn’t a federation. “Outside the Brussels bubble, the idea of the EU’s federative arrangement is currently a minority view. EU member states are still ‘masters’ of treaties and national slates, on which MEP candidates are representatives of individual member states, also correspond to this concept,” Vetrak has told TASR.

He believes that transnational slates wouldn’t be beneficial for smaller member states. “It could easily happen that these transnational slates would be dominated by leaderships of European parties, which are controlled by representatives of bigger member states, whose inhabitants are often unable to distinguish Slovakia from Slovenia,” stated Vetrak.

According to Vetrak, Slovaks would be almost non-electable on such slates, or candidates not representing majority opinions of the Slovak population might get to the EP. “I believe that it is national slates that can guarantee that MEPs do represent Slovakia’s majority opinion on pan-European issues,” he said.

SPPK: If Farmers Aren't Taken Seriously, They Will Be Seen in Streets More Often

If farmers' demands are not taken seriously, they will be seen in the streets more often, Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber chairman Emil Macho told a news conference held in front of the Parliament's building on Thursday.

PM: Slovakia to Organise Repeated Mass Testing, Two Dozen Districts Exempt

Bratislava, November 2 (TASR) – Slovakia will organise a repeated mass testing for the coronavirus, but districts with positivity rates below 0.7 percent in the testing this past weekend will be exempt from the second round, Prime Minister Igor Matovic (OLaNO) announced after a meeting of the Central Crisis Management

Fico: Slovakia to Receive €1 bn of €10-bn Package of EU Funds for Floods

Slovakia will receive €1 billion of the €10-billion package from EU cohesion funds to deal with the consequences of the recent floods, Premier Robert Fico, who attended on Thursday a meeting of premiers and the European Commission on floods in Wroclaw, Poland, told a press conference on Friday.

Read next