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| EU presidency seen as a success |
| Bratislava, 11.01.2017 |
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| Slovakia’s first-ever EU presidency took place in unprecedented and turbulent times. Slovakia managed well, although some programme points remain unfulfilled.
The second half of 2016, eventful as it was for Europe and the US, was also Slovakia’s term at the helm of the Council of the European Union. It was the first time Slovakia held the rotating presidency and its performance is generally evaluated as a success.
“It was successful in all dimensions and this success is not confirmed with our statements, but rather by all the top representatives of the EU, EU member states, and, what is important, there have been very positive responses in the media and even the Slovak opposition stated that it was a standard presidency,” Prime Minister Robert Fico summed up as quoted by the SITA newswire.
Among the major results that the prime minister and his Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák highlighted as they evaluated the presidency are the passed EU budget for 2017, the deal about the Paris Climate Agreement, the launch of the Frontex border guards, the agreement on free trade with Canada, the digital single market, but also the progress in talks about the European prosecutor.
There are several other, less high-profile agendas that the EU Council passed under Slovakia’s watch, like the deal to scrap roaming fees in the EU as of 2017, the deal on 5G mobile internet, and the deal on removing unjustified geographic blocking, for instance on e-shops, all part of the digital market, said Dušan Chrenek, head of the EC Representation in Slovakia.
Focusing on day-to-day agenda
Radovan Geist, publisher of the Euractiv.sk news portal, agrees that all in all, the presidency may be called successful.
“It certainly helped that during our presidency no serious crisis burst out that we would have had to - and would have been unable to - react to,” Geist told The Slovak Spectator. The situation in the eurozone was relatively calm and the pressure from migration was far from the levels seen in 2015, he noted.
Slovakia’s presidency did not need to deal with any major unexpected problem and was thus able to focus on the working agenda, which led to several successful outcomes, said Vladimír Bilčík, analyst with the non-governmental Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA).
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