Delo: Slovenia Not Invited to Cannes

Ljubljana, 21 June - Daily Delo's correspondent from Paris Božo Mašanovič writes under the title Slovenia Not Invited to Cannes that during his conversation at Quai d'Orsay on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Zoran Thaler did not succeed to convince French Minister for European Affairs Michel Barnier that France as the presiding nation in the European Union invite Slovenia to the EU summit in Cannes (26 and 27 June). Other Central and East European countries are invited to this summit. Michel Barnier said that EU summits can only be attended by those candidates for EU membership who have already signed an association agreement, i.e. Bulgaria, Rumania and three Baltic states. Prior to this, Thaler restated Slovenia's wish to attend the European Council meeting, justifying this by a recently initialed European agreement. He also stressed that an invitation for Slovenia to come to Cannes would be important from the point of foreign and internal policy since Euroscepticism is gaining ground also in Slovenia.