Slovakia’s EU Presidency to cost Parliament office more than €500,000

Slovakia's presidency of the Council of the European Union in the latter half of next year will set Parliament's Office back more than around €543,000, TASR learnt from the office's head Daniel Guspan - speaking at a session of Parliament's European Affairs Committee on Tuesday. The office is expected to receive €82,000 from the Foreign and European Affairs Ministry, with the remainder - some €460,000 - being the subject of talks with the Finance Ministry. A number of events are scheduled to take place during the presidency, including meetings of the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC) 1 and 2, sessions of chairs of EU parliamentary foreign affairs committees, an inter-parliamentary conference on common foreign and security policy and others. The session of Parliament's European affairs Committee on Tuesday also saw a discussion on issues that Slovakia would like to broach while at the helm of the EU. Committee chairman Ľuboš Blaha (Smer-SD) expects the topics to include most prominently the migrant crisis and the situation in Ukraine.