Klus: Dialogue with European Citizens Must Continue Even After CoFoE Ends

Brussels, November 24 (TASR-correspondent) – The Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) should continue in the form of a direct dialogue with the public even after its formal conclusion and assessment, Foreign Affairs Ministry State Secretary Martin Klus has said in an interview for TASR.

Klus took part in a meeting of the EU General Affairs Council in Brussels on Tuesday (November 23), which is preparing a working agenda for talks held by prime ministers and presidents at an EU summit.

Klus voiced his satisfaction with the course that the CoFoE has taken in Slovakia so far. He considers a summer tour of Slovakia as part of the “We are the European Union” project to have been a success. He also appreciated the fact that, whenever the pandemic situation has allowed, Slovak diplomats have visited schools, explaining the importance of the debate on the future of Europe to current pupils and students as part of the ‘Back to School’ project.

“Thanks to the national convention, which is taking place in the current weeks and months, we’ve managed to achieve in two lines what we wanted to achieve this year,” explained Klus, who is in charge of the CoFoE agenda on behalf of the ministry. At the same time, he expressed the hope that it will be possible to transfer the experience gained from the national level to the European one.

“This means that I want to share this experience as early as December in Strasbourg with colleagues in the committees I’ve been working in. And I hope that based on this we’ll move forward and know how to set the conference for the next trimester, i.e. for the beginning of 2022,” stated Klus.

When asked by TASR what he thinks about proposals for European politicians to maintain some form of personal dialogue and contact with ordinary citizens even after the CoFoE ends, Klus said that the conference should be “continuous”.