NEWS
Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek on her visit to Vienna: "Slovenia and Austria have many significant points in common"
Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek is today paying her first visit to neighbouring Austria. During the visit, she has already met the Speaker of the Austrian Parliament, Barbara Prammer, and the Chancellor of Austria, Werner Faymann, with whom she mainly discussed topical international issues and methods of tackling the economic and financial crisis. In a joint statement to the media after the talks, the Prime Minister said that she had chosen Vienna for her first official visit to a neighbouring country because "Slovenia and Austria have many significant points in common: Austria is our largest foreign investor and our third most important trading partner, which makes it our very important strategic partner".
The Prime Minister further stressed that her talks with the Austrian Chancellor focused mainly on economic cooperation and the need for investment for boosting economic growth throughout Europe. A great deal of attention was also paid to the employment of young people, where Austria has made considerable progress. This will also be the subject of the next European Council summit. The Austrian Chancellor agreed with the Slovenian Prime Minister that "more investment should be made to combat youth unemployment, particularly through education". In this respect, the Slovenian Prime Minister commended Austria for "having fewer problems with youth unemployment than the majority of EU Member States, including Slovenia". The Austrian Chancellor presented some concrete experiences of his country in this area. In her statement to the media, the Prime Minister also highlighted the issue of national minorities which "represent an important link between the two countries". In her view, the positive atmosphere after the election of the new provincial government of Carinthia gives rise to expectations that the Republic of Austria will make further steps towards improving its international legal obligations to the Slovenian national minority.
Later on during the visit, the Prime Minister will meet the Governor of the Austrian Central Bank, Ewald Nowotny, and representatives of some Austrian companies. The Prime Minister is accompanied in this visit by the Minister of Economic Development and Technology, Stanko Stepišnik.