Will the EU become strong global player? Valášek doubts, Kukan believes.

Eduard Kukan, Member of the Euroepan Parliament and former Slovak chief of diplomacy believes that the European Union will be a global player. Tomáš Valášek from the Slovak Atlantic Commission says that it won’t, but not because of lack of institutions. “Member states disagree” on foreign policy, he explains.

In the discussion at the ongoing GLOBSEC 2010 Bratislava Security Conference, a key Hungarian expert István Gyarmati from Budapest based International Centre for Democratic Transition argued that we are in a good position, since „we don´t need to deal with institutions for a long time“. Therefore, as he concludes, EU will become much more coherent and stronger player.

Gyarmati also stressed the importance of Visegrad cooperation which is among the Hungarian foreign policy priorities. He mentioned that the Roma issue should be on the Group´s agenda.

The discussion touched also the EU – NATO cooperation which is, according to Tomáš Valášek to be enhanced: “No cooperation would be luxury” in the crisis times, said.

The GLOBSEC 2010 conference, organized by the Slovak Atlantic Commission in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic, the European Commission Representation in Slovakia and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division, will be live-streamed through the conference website www.globsec.org.

In Bratislava on September 13, 2010

Slovak Atlantic Commission

More information on www.globsec.org.