Before leaving for a three-day official visit to the Russian Federation, the Prime Minister, Janez Janša, stressed that it was primarily a business visit, as there is a strong business delegation, with representatives of ninety-six Slovenian companies accompanying the official delegation. According to the PM, the Russian Federation has become in recent years an invaluable business partner of the EU, including Slovenia, mainly due to its economic growth and the high prices of energy products.
FOTO: BOBO
Mr Janša believes a stable economic future and the economic development of the EU will rely heavily on good economic relations with the Russian Federation in the coming years. ''Therefore, it is not coincidental that economic issues will dominate during this visit, which has practically begun already with the meeting of the joint economic commission. There are two principal strategic fields of cooperation. The first relates Slovenia's interest in stable, long-term energy supplies, while the other is the interest of Slovenian enterprises in the Russian market and, of course, the Russian interest in the Slovenian market and the broader region, as Slovenia is a good starting point,'' the PM said.
He added that political relations between the two countries were good and that there were few unresolved issues. Slovenia has aimed at encouraging the further strengthening of relations through various government and non-governmental institutions, and has therefore decided to include representatives of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the official delegation. On this occasion, Mr Janša also announced the forthcoming visit to Slovenia of a Russian delegation, headed by Sergey Mironov, the Speaker of the Federation Council of Russia, which will attend a ceremony at the Russian chapel on Vršič in July.
In response to a journalist's question on whether Slovenia would open the issue of the clearing debt, the PM emphasised that the issue had practically been opened, as this had been one of the topics discussed at the meeting of the joint economic commission. Mr Janša is convinced that this earlier meeting and the official visit will provide some sort of a breakthrough in resolving the issues, as views have already been reconciled to a large extent.
The PM also added that Slovenia was importing natural gas from many countries; however, a cheaper and technically less demanding supply of gas from Russia was its strategic interest. ''Perhaps this could resolve the energy issue that this whole part of Europe is facing in this way. The other way of resolving it is by constructing LNG terminals, which is more expensive and less acceptable. If long-term contracts on supplying natural gas via pipelines were signed, the issue of constructing LNG terminals in the Gulf of Trieste or anywhere in the Adriatic would cause much fewer problems,'' concluded the Prime Minister.
