Slovak President Ivan Gašparovič congratulated his guest on the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification. On 2 June 2011, the Slovak head of state is expected to attend the celebrations of this important Italian holiday. “Our cooperation with Italy is running smoothly at all levels – be it political, economic or cultural,” the Slovak President said.
During their talks, the presidents also discussed nuclear security.

As regards cooperation in international institutions, they noted converging views and praised both countries’ joint participation in the EU, NATO, United Nations and other international alliances.
Both officials also touched on the turbulent events in Libya. “The current developments in Libya can be considered as the failure of political analyses. Slovakia supports EU’s effort to stabilise the situation in this north African country,” Mr Gašparovič said. The bottom line of Napolitano’s views in this regard was that “we consider the situation in Africa and the Near East to be alarming, thus requiring our attention. It is true that we underestimated the developments in African countries, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and that we did not notice events that resulted in the suppression of human rights”.

Giorgio Napolitano praised the position of those states, including Slovakia, which chose the principle of humanity as their approach to the situation in Libya and opted against their involvement in military operations. As regards immigration and mass migration, Napolitano thought it was necessary to adopt Europe-wide measures, saying it was not possible to leave the solution up to a single country that happened to be located in the immediate vicinity of the destabilised region.

Ivan Gašparovič advocated the need to make a joint decision and reassess, to a certain degree, the democratic principles to facilitate a solution to this problem, which also encompasses the Roma issue.

Giorgio Napolitano praised Slovakia’s contribution to the salvation of the euro which hit the crisis point due to the collapse of several European economies. The Italian guest also highly appreciated firm pro-European views of the Slovak President.