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Brussels – In preparing the long-term budget for 2028 – 2034, Slovakia will advocate for the protection of the interests of farmers and cohesion policy. This was stated by the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic Robert Fico (Smer-SD) after the end of the two-day EU summit in Brussels, reports the TASR correspondent.
Robert Fico reiterated Slovakia’s positions at the European Council meeting, which concern mainly the protection of farmers’ interests and the continuation of cohesion policy, which according to him means obtaining sufficient resources to eliminate regional disparities.
“I want to say that we will have to make huge compromises, we simply have to have understanding for one another,” said the Prime Minister. He added that the planned volume of the long-term budget is 2,000 billion euros, which means that from the net contributors, for example Germany, but also from such a small country as Malta, it is expected that they will significantly increase their contributions to the budget. For some countries, according to him, this is up to a 60 percent increase, for other states it is up to a 100 percent increase.
“The compromise must consist in the fact that if we have some ambitions, then we must talk about where we will get the resources for everything that the European Commission has planned. We are very far from an agreement,” he described the situation. He added that there are efforts for the agreement on the multiannual financial framework (MFF) to be reached by the end of 2026, but he expressed doubts that this will succeed, because he sees a huge number of conflicting opinions. “It is such a serious matter that in the end we will have to reach an agreement, but it will require from us a great degree of compromise and also a great degree of respect for another opinion,” he said.
In the leaders’ discussions on competitiveness, he stated that he shares the same opinion as Slovak entrepreneurs at home, that it is not possible to talk about competitiveness, also taking into account demanding climate goals, if the problem of energy prices is not resolved. “If we do not solve this, we have no chance of being successful. I would like to illustrate this with the example of the company Slovalco from Žiar nad Hronom. Because of nonsensical goals, the company in Slovakia, which employed 500 employees, was closed. A company that is modern and ecological and that was able to produce 17% of aluminum consumption within the EU. And we let it be closed. So not we, the nonsense from the EU let it be closed,” said the Prime Minister.
In this context, he recalled that his government is negotiating with the owners, it is an international group of people, and is looking for solutions to remedy the situation and solutions for the company, which is a “textbook example” of how an ecologically modern company offering a strategic raw material needed within the European Union can be liquidated. “My ambition is for aluminum to continue to be produced in Slovakia. We are looking for some solutions, but I refuse to slam the door like the previous government did,” explained the Prime Minister. (19 December)
“The compromise must consist in the fact that if we have some ambitions, then we must talk about where we will get the resources for everything that the European Commission has planned.” Robert Fico