Prime Minister Orešković participated in EU Summit in Bratislava.
Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković on Friday attended the summit of the European Union in Bratislava. After the summit ended, he said that messages heard at the meeting were positive and that it might mark “a new beginning” for the EU, reports Večernji List on September 17, 2016.
“We heard from 27 members of the EU, without Britain. Comments and messages were very positive. We know that we have challenges, but today might be a new beginning where we have defined a framework for the next six months until a meeting in Rome where we will celebrate 60 years of the EU”, said Orešković. He reiterated that the main topics of the summit were the security of the European Union and the migrant crisis, and added that a decision had been taken to assist Bulgaria in strengthening its borders.
Orešković said that he would participate in a meeting in Vienna on 24 September, when a mini-summit on the migrant crisis would be held. “We hope to further expand the discussion to see how we can better control refugees on the Balkan route”, said Orešković.
The meeting In Vienna will be attended by “ten countries which are the most involved in the migration crisis. It is necessary, after the European summit in Bratislava, to continue discussions on important issues for the future of the EU, especially migrants”, said a spokeswoman for the Austrian government. In addition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the meeting will include prime ministers of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia. “Serbia has 5,000 refugees, we know the situation on the Greek border, Turkey has 3 million refugees – we should be ready for any option”, said Orešković.
Orešković added that they had also discussed the economy, young people and digitization, and the final topic was terrorism and how to better share information. Regarding the European defence issue, which was also one of the topics, the Prime Minister said there were “a lot of the unanswered questions” about possible formation of a new European army. “It is too early to make decisions in this regard”, concluded Orešković.
