Korcok: My Aim Is to Make CoFoE Resonate Much More Strongly in Slovakia
Bratislava, January 27 (TASR) – The aim of the Foreign Affairs Ministry is to make the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) resonate much more strongly in the Slovak political space and to add a strong Slovak impulse to the debate on what kind of EU we want in the future, Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Korcok (an SaS nominee) stated on Thursday at the ‘Civic Europe – Mid-term Review of the CoFoE’ event in Bratislava.
“What has to be said, however, is that the CoFoE doesn’t attract as much attention as, for example, the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) with the USA. But Slovakia isn’t the only country where the conference doesn’t resonate. This is the case across the European Union,” noted Korcok.
“However, we shouldn’t miss the opportunity to discuss the future of the EU actively,” the minister remarked, listing the topics that are being discussed in EU-member countries. These include the labour market, freedom of movement, the single market, the single currency, the fight against the pandemic, the environment, transport, education, the independence of the media, the protection of journalists and the protection of personal data.
“Personally, I’m curious about the discussions on the EU’s place in the world,” he stated, adding that he can feel people’s frustration with the disunity of the EU as well his own. “I’m confronted with the fact that the EU has repeatedly declared that it wants to be more influential … but on the other hand we aren’t the global player we’d like to be,” the minister explained.
At the same time, Korcok expressed his appreciation for the fact that the EU is “absolutely united” when it comes to the crisis on Ukraine’s border, which threatens “the entire security architecture of the Union”.
According to Korcok, migration is a topic on which there are broad disagreements both in the EU and in Slovakia, but this is exactly what the CoFoE is about, he said – “the ability to reconcile big plans and expectations with the reality of resources and the ability to find a compromise”.
