Speech: Remarks by President Barroso following his meeting with the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico

European Commission

[Check Against Delivery]

José Manuel Durão Barroso

President of the European Commission

Remarks by President Barroso following his meeting with the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico

Press point

Bratislava, 28 April 2014

Prime Minister, dear friend, let me begin by thanking you for the warm welcome you have given me, thank you for welcoming me back to Bratislava.

My deep thank is also for the initiative of the government to award me one of the highest decorations of the Slovak Republic and the honour to receive it from President Gašparovič this morning. As I said, this was very significant for me because during these ten years as President of the European Commission I was presiding the Commission that was the first one of this enlarged Europe, with Slovakia and other nine countries which joined the European Union at the same time. Now we are even more, we are 28 countries. So for me this has a very important meaning that a country like Slovakia recognises the contribution that the Commission and myself have been giving to this spirit of a strong Europe, united on common values, where we should respect, exactly at the same level, all members of our Union: big or small member states, richer or poorer, newer or older member states. We are a Union based on the principle of equality and fairness.

With Prime Minister today, we have discussed a range of current issues, including the economic evolution in Slovakia. I have congratulated the Prime Minister for the very courageous reforms and efforts in fiscal consolidation. We have discussed particularly the tense and troubled situation in Ukraine and the very real concerns that we have. We agreed to continue to work closely together to bring about a de-escalation of the situation and ensure that all parties fully implement the Geneva statement that was agreed on April 17.

One of the concrete examples of our joint cooperation has been our efforts to diversify Europe's energy supply.

I warmly congratulate all parties involved on the breakthrough in the negotiations on reverse gas flows from Slovakia to Ukraine. This is an important first step to diversify Ukraine’s sources of gas supply. This contributes to greater energy security in Eastern Europe and the European Union as a whole. It shows the European Union's strong commitment in support of Ukraine's energy sector, which is also reflected in the economic and financial package the European Union has swiftly provided for Ukraine in the past weeks. I would like to thank Energy Commissioner Oettinger and his team, who played a central role in paving the way for today’s agreement. This is an agreement that respects the interests of Ukraine and of course the interests of Slovakia, as Prime Minister Fico just mentioned.

We are meeting today two days before the 10th anniversary of Slovakia's accession to the European Union. This is a great opportunity to take stock of this biggest European enlargement ever and also of the successful Slovakia's membership and the contribution that Slovakia has made to the EU. Ten years on, we can say that is was a great success for Slovakia. You are one of the countries that have better performed in terms of evolutions of the per capita income.

Since joining the European Union, Slovakia was the fastest among the Visegrad countries to catch up with more prosperous economies, with per capita income rising from 57% of the EU average in 2004 to 76% in 2012. So this is a very concrete demonstration of the benefits that the European Union brings. This was possible because of the European solidarity, cohesion policy and structural funds, because a big part of the public investments in Slovakia comes from the European Union - and once again I want to congratulate Slovakia for the very successful negotiation of the new framework, the multiannual financial framework - and this is also possible, and I would say mainly a result of the efforts of the Slovakians. The way they have embraced opportunities; they have seen the measures of the European Union as a context for modernisation and that's why I really want to congratulate not only the authorities, my good friend Robert Fico, all those people and parties involved in these movements, my colleagues at the Commission, Vice-President Šefčovič, but also the Slovakian people.

That's why I expect that by the end of the month of May some of the Slovakian people will take some time for voting in the European elections. I know that there is a broad support for the European Union in this country and that is indeed cross-party support but it would be great if the Slovakian citizens also chose to vote to show also that they are interested in keeping its involvement in the European Union.

So we can say this was a success for the European Union, a success for Slovakia, and overall for the European continent. We are now a much more united continent. Some of these transformations would have been completely unthinkable some years ago. And thanks to a good cooperation with the European institutions and the member states we were now able to make progress.

I'm confident that Slovakia will add other important achievements to the list of already important progress in the years to come.

Prime Minister, you can count on my support, and the support of the European Commission, in your work, for the well-being of the Slovak citizens.

Thank you.