Slovenian Ambassador to the EU Iztok Jarc gave an update on Tuesday 29 June on his country’s Presidency of the EU Council, which begins on 1 July.
According to him, the Presidency will have about 150 files on the table.
To deal with them, Slovenia’s permanent representation in Brussels has tripled its staff to 220, 19 of whom are coming from EU institutions during the Presidency.
About 2,120 people are expected to participate in the Slovenian Presidency: 1,916 from the civil service, 148 students and 55 external workers, according to a Slovenian source.
Moreover, according to the ambassador, the Slovenian Presidency should result in a return to normal meetings after the Covid-19 pandemic. It expects about 45 ministerial or high-level meetings in Brussels and 1,600 working meetings mainly in Brussels.
18 high-level events are planned in Slovenia, as well as 180 meetings at a lower level than ministers, the vast majority of which will be face-to-face. “In total, we plan to host up to 18,000 people in Slovenia” for these meetings, Mr Jarc explained.
Ljubljana has set aside a budget of 80 million euros for this Presidency.
Slovenia spent 62 million euros for their 2018 Presidency. At that time there were 173 working groups, whereas now there are about 200. 190 people worked at the Permanent Representation in Brussels and 2,775 officials participated in the Presidency, as well as more than 100 external workers and 250 students.
See the Presidency calendar: https://bit.ly/3qA24AT (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)