“Ukraine counts on the support of Slovenia in the process of integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic structures,” President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine said after negotiations with his Slovene counterpart Milan Kucan. The president of Slovenia said in turn that “there is no sense for European countries to integrate without Ukraine.” Slovenia, which President Kucan said is a few steps ahead in joining the European Union and NATO, is prepared to share its experience with Ukraine. “Ukraine is a very powerful country in terms of cultural, economic, and technological development,” Mr. Kucan added. According to Mr. Kuchma, Ukraine has already received the support of Slovenia in the problem of World Trade Organization membership. In addition to producing rhetoric on supporting Ukraine on its European path, the two sides also discussed some concrete things: as Mr. Kuchma announced, they agreed to make joint efforts to establish the fifth transportation corridor of Lisbon—Ljubljana—Lviv— Kyiv—Moscow.
Incidentally, shortly before, the Slovene president had been saluted in Romania with the anthem of... Slovakia, RIA Novosti reports. There was no such gaffe in Ukraine.
Arriving in Kyiv, President Milan Kucan of Slovenia very clearly outlined the purpose of his visit to Ukraine, “Ukraine is a large state in a vast economic space.” The talks with the Slovenian delegation comprising numerous businesspeople mainly focused on investment opportunities. The Ukrainian and Slovenian presidents visited a business forum in Kyiv. Slovenian business has in fact long been watching Ukraine. Yet, this partnership has not been always successful.
One and a half months ago Slovenia hosted an informal summit of Eastern and Central European countries, which showed that Ukraine had at least not finally quit this company, practically all members of which aspire to join the European Union. President Kucan noted in his first Kyiv statement that the participants in the Slovene summit had agreed to help each other to come faster to the European Union and “turn Europe into a center of peace and prosperity.” Slovenia, with a population of about two million, looks exactly like a center of this kind. Incidentally, the Slovenes are very loath to recall that their country was recently part of federal Yugoslavia. Yet, Marshal Tito is still a popular figure among the older generation, with the Central European summit being held in one of his former residencies.
Here are the lessons Slovenia could teach not only Ukraine. In the years of independence, Slovenia has managed to divert its trade toward the West (still considering Russia one of its most important markets). The trademarks Lek, KRKA, and Gorenje are well known all over Europe. A country that would at first dismiss foreign investors is today fully involved in the European investment whirlpool. One of the factors that made this possible was activity of the Slovene diaspora in Austria. Slovenia is expected to enter the European Union in 2004 and be invited to join NATO during the Prague summit in November this year (oddly enough, NATO leaders claim there are a bit more problems here). Throughout the years of independence, the country has been led by President Milan Kucan, a former high-ranking Yugoslav Communist Party functionary who still managed to display the ability to think in modern terms. You cannot imagine in today’s Slovenia that a war was raging near its borders only recently. Naturally, one must always take into account different starting points. Perhaps Slovenia managed to achieve success because it was never rocked by disputes over the language, political self-determination, and the need to develop in the Euro-Atlantic direction.
