Pellegrini: EU Funds Main Investment Tool in Reducing Disparity
Bratislava, February 15 (TASR) – Almost 85 percent of every euro invested in new EU-member states returns to the old members, Vice-premier for Investments and Informatisation Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) told ambassadors of EU states at a working breakfast, TASR learnt from Vice-premier for Investment and Informatisation’s Office press department on Thursday.
Pellegrini conveyed Slovakia’s position to the ambassadors, specifically that European Funds as the principal EU investment tool for reducing disparity between countries and regions must continue. “Our goal must be to ensure that every EU citizen enjoys the same living standards,” he stated, adding that cohesion policy is important.
Pellegrini also underlined the priorities on which Slovakia concurs with the other countries of the Visegrad Four+ [the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia], namely – a strong joint European vision and strategy, flexibility in selecting issue-specific support and a fundamental facilitation of the system, which must be result-oriented.
Meanwhile, the EU budget will no longer be as generous in the post-Brexit era, and Slovakia is prepared to boost its contributions to it. “However, if we are to receive less money, we need to be able to work with it in a more flexible fashion; it needs to be as simple as possible,” claimed Pellegrini.
The working meeting was convened on the initiative of the Bulgarian Council of the EU Presidency and revolved around the future of the EU and eurozone, security and migration.
