Good. Perfect. Distinguished Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United States of America, dear Marco Rubio, allow me to welcome you once again, together with your delegation, to Bratislava at the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic.
Ladies and gentlemen, together with the Minister, we first held a short meeting, and then we negotiated in delegations, where we discussed in greater detail the topics that are the essence of our entire meeting today.
I will try to very briefly summarize the conclusions of our talks, whether they were held one-on-one or in delegations.
First of all, I greatly appreciate that this visit comes shortly after our meeting in Florida, where I had the opportunity to speak with the President of the United States of America, Mr. Trump, in the presence of Mr. Rubio. Therefore, this is an excellent follow-up, it is a wonderful continuation, and shortly after we saw each other in Florida, we were able to tell each other where we had gotten in the topics we had discussed together.
I consider the most essential thing from today's meeting, distinguished Minister, to be that we respect each other.
I emphasized that I am a representative of a government that wants to conduct a sovereign Slovak foreign policy oriented toward all four corners of the world.
I emphasized that my basic priority is not to protect the national and nation-state interests of others, but that my basic duty is to protect the national and nation-state interests of the Slovak Republic.
And I think it is the right understanding that wherever our interests converge, we act as allies. Where we have different opinions, that forces us to negotiate, to bargain, and to find appropriate solutions.
I think I am among the politicians who are always very open in their talks, and I do everything so that what I say in private meetings I also say publicly. Therefore, allow me now to present a few conclusions exactly as they were formulated, as we exchanged them with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Slovakia cares about cooperation with the United States in the field of nuclear energy. On February 13, an intergovernmental agreement between the United States and Slovakia on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy entered into force. I informed the Minister of Foreign Affairs where we stand.
We have a huge interest, under the auspices of an American partner, to create a transnational consortium that would guarantee that Slovakia could build another nuclear block with an output of 1,200 MW by 2040.
And we are pleased if we manage to sign concrete agreements with the company Westinghouse during the coming year.
I also asked our American partners, of course, for cooperation already in these stages of preparing this project, because it is a project that goes beyond the framework of Slovakia. It also concerns the entire European Union. Therefore, intensive talks with our European partners will be necessary, and in this we will also need the cooperation of American partners.
Since we are on the subject of energy, I informed the Minister of Foreign Affairs about what is happening in this region regarding gas and oil. I will not go too far into details. I can only say that Slovakia, as a country that was always at the beginning of various pipelines, whether it was oil or gas, has ended up at the end of these pipelines.
We are in an unenviable position because of the ideological and harmful decisions of the European Union. I am speaking in particular about the REPowerEU decision, which stops, for example, the flows of any gas from the east into Europe, starting in our case on November 1, 2027.
We have been looking for various alternatives together, and I truly believe that tomorrow's meeting with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, may bring some progress regarding the crisis situation that is currently arising in the area of oil supplies to Europe and to the refineries controlled by the Hungarian MOL.
The third topic was, of course, the war in Ukraine. Slovakia has its original, unique positions here, which do not always coincide with the positions of our partners in the European Union, but that is our openness, that is our directness, and that is the implementation of a sovereign policy toward all four corners of the world.
I clearly told the Minister of Foreign Affairs how we see the war conflict. We believe that it will continue for quite some time yet. We do not see a way out toward a peaceful ending in the short term, and I offered Slovakia as a country that understands the language both in Ukraine and in the Russian Federation, as a country that has good intelligence services, as a country that is a neighboring country of Ukraine, for a good exchange of views on this topic.
And Minister, I want to appreciate the approach of your president, because it is the approach of a person who is very pragmatic and rational and wants to end this war as quickly as possible. We also consider it senseless. Therefore, if Slovakia can be helpful in any peace initiatives that will lead to the ending of this war, we are fully prepared.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to inform you that starting July 1, 2026, Slovakia takes over the chairmanship of an exceptional structure of regional cooperation, and that is the V4, the Visegrád Group.
I would like to confirm the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs that this format should be used not only for the given regional cooperation, but we should also consider gradually inviting partners to topics that will be very current at a given moment. Therefore, and we talked about this briefly, if after July 1, 2026 a topic arises where it would be useful to speak in the V4 format with the United States of America, and the partners in the V4 of course agree with that, we will be ready to organize such meetings.
On behalf of Slovakia, I say that we are interested in such a V4+ United States format on fundamental questions of foreign and energy cooperation.
Of course, we also exchanged views on a number of other topics.
I would also like to add that we are a member state of NATO. We are partners in the North Atlantic Alliance. We understand the position of the United States that Europe must take more care of its own security.
I think it is very clear and evident that in Europe we are talking about increasing spending on our own security. That is a natural development that has occurred. Therefore, we also talked about the topic of how to proceed with budgets in the coming years. We must take into account our possibilities and capabilities. But we equally realize that Slovakia, if it wants to be part of collective security in Europe and in NATO, will also have to participate in gradually strengthening our capacities.
I would also like to ask for understanding in the fact that we are interested in using budgets designated for military purposes to also build dual-use projects, with the huge military hospital being a good example, which is being built near the Ukrainian border in the eastern part of the Slovak Republic.
Military cooperation will continue. You know that we procured F-16 aircraft from the United States. There is an interest in increasing this number to 18 units. So we are discussing how to get another four aircraft into the Slovak army, because it is not a very good sign of sovereignty if our airspace is protected today by fighter jets of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
We got into this unenviable situation because military equipment was donated to Ukraine in the years 2020 to 2023. There are many other aspects of military cooperation, because we are together in NATO. This was also discussed by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Róbert Kaliňák, together with the Minister.
Other members of the Slovak delegation also took part in the discussion. There was the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Environment, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy, who is responsible for cooperation in the field of energy, and of course the partner of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic, Mr. Blanár.
Minister, once again, welcome to Slovakia. The conversation was open. I think that none of us hid anything, and again you have probably heard in Slovakia opinions that you do not normally hear, especially regarding the war in Ukraine. But that is what we are here for. We are not here to lie to our partners or to mislead them with information that does not come from objectivity. Thank you for coming, and we look forward to further cooperation.
Thank you very much. Mr. Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United States of America. First of all, thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, for welcoming us. This is a follow-up, as you said, to a meeting we had not too long ago in Florida, in my home state, with the President of the United States, and the aftermath of that meeting. We discussed some things during that meeting regarding a specific purchase of airplanes. There were some impediments to it. We were able to resolve those, and we are happy that that was resolved, because it is an example of how this direct engagement could lead to more things we can achieve together.
In fact, that meeting happened the day after a deal was signed with Westinghouse with our Secretary of Energy, Chris. The groundwork for this energy opportunity is incredible. Just to illustrate an engagement, we both have excellent teams and people that work very hard and communicate all the time, but there is no substitute for that direct level of engagement. And engagement in Central Europe is what you can expect to see more of from the United States of America, Prime Minister.
The V4 are for a cooperation. You mentioned something else. I don't know why it ever became controversial, but everybody is with President Trump of the United States. President Trump of the United States, President Trump, in our foreign policy, national unity, national interests of Slovaks. It is controversial, at least, to some, but we believe with our president we can do many things together that are good for your country, good for our country, frankly good for Europe, and good for the world also.
I also appreciate your input with regards to the war in Ukraine. It is important that we take as many viewpoints as possible. The view that you have both given to me and publicly as well is one shaped by both geography and history, and it is a very important point of view to take into account in the broader context. As I said yesterday in response to some questions in Munich, we view the United States' role as one of trying to facilitate an end to a very deadly, very bloody, very, very costly war, with horrible suffering happening.
On energy, the President has sent high-level envoys to try to end this terrible war. We care about you, you are next door to it, on the border, right? And we appreciate your input in that. We talked about a lot of things. We have an opportunity to work together on energy is one of them. I think you have an opportunity as a nation, not because you can generate energy, to also be in a very advantageous role when it comes to new technologies like artificial intelligence. An example of an opportunity there, a very energy-dependent industry, and something we can work on together.
As well, that we can work together, because one key component of any country's national interest is to protect their people. There is no more important obligation of any government than the ability to protect your own people and your own nation. This is why, by the way, we talk about our partners having capabilities, making stronger all of our alliances. We have a role that we are doing many good things in that space, and we thank you and continue to work with you on that. So there are many things that we have an opportunity to work together on. Thank you for having me here today.
I thank you for the space you gave us on day one, because we are going to show, and we are going to show in the weeks and months and years to come, that under the President Trump administration, it is going to make not only Slovakia but Central Europe a key component of how we engage the continent and the world, and that we are not going to engage in meetings and pleasantries only. The country is very excited about the President. When we met, it was long ago, a few weeks ago, a few weeks ago, and here we are. We will be back, sending others back. I think some members of your team are coming to Washington this week to have a conversation, so we are going to get going.
