The joint meeting of the President of the Slovak Republic, Peter Pellegrini, the President of the Czech Republic, Peter Paul, and the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, took place symbolically at the Slavkov Castle near Brno on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Slavkov Declaration. The summit also marks a significant milestone in the cooperation of the S3 countries, as it was the first ever meeting at presidential level in this format. At the same time, the President of the Slovak Republic promised that when Slovakia takes over our leadership of the S3 in the middle of this year, he will also strive to make the meeting of the S3 Presidents an annual tradition.
The heads of state discussed mainly current foreign policy issues, including security issues. During the meeting, the Slovak President said that the most important thing for individual countries at the moment is to ensure their own security. "During today's discussion, we agreed that in the face of today's turbulent world, we are increasingly aware that the priority of every nation, every country, is to ensure security. We are also aware of the need to enhance Europe's defence capability as a European pillar within the North Atlantic Alliance," said the President of the Slovak Republic. He added that the current state of the individual armies of the European NATO members cannot guarantee 100% security without constructive relations with the United States of America. It is therefore necessary to maintain constructive and correct relations with the new US administration and not to react impulsively when taking decisions.
The presidents also said that Europe must find a common recipe to tackle all the challenges it faces. In their view, it is not only a question of stopping the fighting or finding sustainable peaceful solutions for Ukraine, but at the same time the EU's competitiveness and its economic position must be intensively discussed. "We have to stop falling behind so that other parts of the world don't overtake us," said Peter Pellegrini. They also expressed their unequivocal support for further deepening cross-border cooperation and discussed specific cooperation projects between the three countries, including at the regional level. "I am very pleased that our intensive cooperation between the regions is bringing people a better quality of life, greater mobility, more opportunities to find work and simply to live a good and quality life," said the President of the Slovak Republic. Examples of this cooperation include interstate agreements on medical emergency services in the border area, the modernisation of railway lines as the basis for a major project to link our European capitals by high-speed rail and road motorway connections.
The Presidents of Slovakia and the Czech Republic also used the meeting in Slavkov to hold a dialogue on Slovak-Czech relations. Peter Pellegrini highlighted the lasting and friendly relations between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. "I would like to ask the people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic not to be influenced by political events, because any government, whether in the Czech Republic or Slovakia, is only a brief episode in the life of our nations. Therefore, together with the Czech President, we would like to call on the citizens of our countries to cultivate the good friendly relations, family relations and working relations that exist between our nations and to be influenced as little as possible by the political situation. I firmly believe that we will be able to return to that respect, to those good relations that are really good for our two countries," Pellegrini said. The Slovak President therefore asked President Pavol to be an ambassador of good relations between the two brotherly nations on the Czech side and to refuse to endanger them because of differences of opinion or short-term political gains.
The second part of the summit was devoted to the topics of strengthening regional competitiveness and promoting innovation. Therefore, young talents from Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria were also invited to participate in this panel. All three countries were given the opportunity to present exceptional student projects that address different areas of innovation in technology, education or entrepreneurship. "Educated and well-prepared for life young people are our wealth, so I'm glad that today we could see student projects related to modern technologies, space technologies, robotics, new management and production processes, as well as education," said the President of the Slovak Republic.
In particular, the aim was to encourage the collaboration of young talents whose projects reflect current trends in artificial intelligence, space technology, robotics or production process control. Slovakia was represented at the summit today by students Michal Lajčiak with a project on controlling a robotic swarm for the modification of production lines, Matej Gregor with an application of artificial intelligence for interactive support for the study of school subjects and Timea Klopčeková together with Šimon Andrejčák, who presented to the presidents a platform using artificial intelligence for generating reports resulting from European regulations on non-financial reporting.
president.sk/ gnews.cz - RoZ
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