European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs in Slovakia

Andris Piebalgs, the European Commissioner for Development visited Slovakia on 8th February 2011. He met the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic, Mikuláš Dzurinda, as well as the Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radičová and the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for European Affairs Ivan Štefanec. The Commissioner expressed the need to keep our pledges concerning the ODA contribution and arrive to the target 0.33% GNI in 2015. During the meeting with the State Secretary, responsible for development aid, Milan Ježovica, they agreed on deepening and greater efficiency of cooperation that would more considerably engage Slovak organisations in implementation of specific EU development activities, namely in the target countries of the Slovak development aid such as Kenya and Sudan. ´

The Chairwoman of the Slovak NGDO Platform, Nora Beňáková, participated in a working lunch with the Commissioner. They had a talk on “positive discrimination” of the EU New Member States concerning applications for the EU call for proposals (for the projects in Africa and Asia) and on the possibilities of creating a new financial instrument for the provision of transition experience of NMS to the countries of West Balkan, Eastern neighbourhood and Central Asia. The Commissioner expressed his support for the New Member States. In the afternoon there was an informal meeting with the NGDOs members.

Information provided by Lenka Nemcová, Platforma MVRO