President of the Slovak Republic Talked to President of the Republic of Finland

By an official ceremony of welcome at the court of the Presidential Palace in Bratislava, a visit to Slovakia by Finnish President Mrs. Tarja Halonen started today. Following the end of talks, President Ivan Gašparovič underlined a smooth and pleasant atmosphere of discussions, as President of the Slovak Republic Mr. Ivan Gašparovič and President of the Republic of Finland Mrs. Tarja Halonen have known each other for several years, since the time when Mrs. Halonen was still a European parliamentarian responsible for monitoring the compliance of the Slovak Republic with the principles of democracy in the process of Slovakia’s accession to the Council of Europe. In this connection, President of the Slovak Republic also mentioned the highly positive evaluation of the Slovak Republic by Tarja Halonen, regarding the position of ethnic minorities, on which the monitoring had mainly been focused. The topics of talks included also activities of Slovakia and Finland within the European Union. They also touched on the subject of globalization and problems of Romanies in Slovakia and in European contexts. The Presidents of Finland and Slovakia also talked about the necessity to adopt the European Constitutional Treaty and other issues related to the need of future amendments to the Constitutional Treaty.