Slovak MFA Dzurinda on Visit to Montenegro

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BRATISLAVA, November 15, (WEBNOVINY) –On visit to Montenegro Slovak Foreign Minister Mikulas Dzurinda praised good, kind and joyful atmosphere at meetings with local politicians. “One of the reasons was that I was the first Foreign Minister of a EU country to visit Montenegro only five days after the European Commission has approved the granting of EU candidate country status to Montenegro”, said Dzurinda for the SITA newswire. He is ready to lobby for Montenegro at the EU Council meeting in December to become a candidate country.

Minister Dzurinda feels the determination of Montenegrin leaders to fulfill their homework so that their country could join the EU. He also felt their trust and inspiration by Slovakia. The minister considers this to be a proof that even such a small country like Slovakia can be a model for the others. The Montenegrins expect Slovakia to hand them over all its experience, including those negative ones, so that they can learn from it.

Dzurinda opened a series of public discussions (a speaking tour) in ten Montenegrin cities with a lecture addressing Euro-Atlantic security and the future of Montenegro at the Political Sciences Faculty in Podgorica. The lecture is a part of the Transfer of the Slovak Experience with Accession Processes project within the program of the Foreign Ministry’s Center of Experience from Integration Processes and Reforms. Slovak Foreign Ministry’s experts on European and Euro-Atlantic integration will participate in the discussions, which will also feature representatives of the Montenegrin Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense and further experts and diplomats.

“I do feel great satisfaction,” Dzurinda commented on his visit. As he explained, if his cabinet had not open Slovakia’s airspace to NATO airplanes with troops aboard in the spring of 1999, Montenegro would not have existed today. He also said that a special interest in Montenegro originates in Slovak participation in the rise of the country in 2006. Miroslav Lajcak was EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana’s personal envoy at that time and the head of the independence referendum committee was Frantisek Lipka, the incumbent Slovak ambassador to Montenegro. It was this plebiscite where the Montenegrins decided upon establishment of their own independent state. “The more stable the Balkans will be, the safer we will be able to feel,” Dzurinda noted.

SITA

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Viac k osobe Mikuláš DzurindaMiroslav Lajčák