Estonian President Pays an Official Visit to Slovakia

Slovak President Ivan Gašparovič held talks with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on 18 April 2013 in Bratislava. At the meeting during the first ever official visit of a president of the Republic of Estonia to Slovakia, Slovak President Ivan Gašparovič appreciated and congratulated his Estonian counterpart on the excellent macroeconomic results and strong economic performance of his country.

Commenting on the ongoing crisis in the EU and the euro area, Ivan Gašparovič noted measures that the EU would have to adopt with respect to the so-called “new” euro area countries.

The two presidents agreed on the opinion that nearly a decade since our joint accession to the EU, the classification to “new” and “old” Member States should finally end and the role of Central and Eastern European countries within the EU organisations and structures should be reinforced. They also agreed it was necessary to establish closer cooperation between such regional platforms as, for example, the Visegrad Group (V4) and the Baltic Three (B3).

In this context, Ivan Gašparovič expressed Slovakia’s full support to Latvia’s membership in the Eurozone, similarly as it had supported Estonia prior to its euro area entry.

At the beginning of his address, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves remarked: “I have been to Bratislava before, as the foreign affairs minister, and I am glad I could come again.” At that time, Estonia, as well as other Central and Eastern European countries, was not a NATO and EU member.

The Estonian head of state drew attention to rather imbalanced positions of the “old” Member States towards the “new” members: “Don’t you think it is bizarre that even after the ten years of membership we are still described as new members?! I do not think it was so in the case of Finland, Sweden and Austria, a group of the so-called neutral countries which joined the EU in 1995; I am sure no one called them newcomers after ten years of membership.” “This must simply end! We must start addressing this issue,” the Estonian President emphasised.

He added our countries were doing very well, obviously considerably better than the Southern European countries. In his opinion, we should promote our views and position “with the voice of a group”, rather than individually. “Therefore, we must join our forces,” President Ilves added.