Prime minister in Brussels for critical talks

Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) left for Brussels on Sunday afternoon in order to attend an extraordinary EU summit, which is expected to conclude the following day, Monday 1 July. The summit of European leaders is aimed at arriving at an agreement on the filling of top EU posts: the presidents of the European Commission and European Council, the EU's chief of diplomacy, and the president of the European Central Bank. The talks are expected to be difficult. At their summit last week, heads of states and national governments failed to hammer out an agreement on any of the three leaders of main European political parties becoming chairman of the European Commission. Although reports in June stated that Pellegrini himself is interested in the post of president of the European Council, the prime minister has denied this, stressing that he wishes to remain involved in Slovak politics.