Brdo, Slovenia - Economic competitiveness, climate change and the future of the Western Balkans will top the priorities of Slovenia's six-month presidency of the European Union, which began on January 1 and ends on June 30, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa said Tuesday. Speaking during a meeting with top EU officials in the estate of Brdo, near the capital Ljubljana, Jansa also said his government would do "everything within our power" to ensure that the Lisbon Treaty - the bloc's latest accord on institutional reform - is ratified by all 27 member states and put into force by January 1, 2009.
Ambitious plans on energy and the environment, set to be unveiled by the EU executive later this month, would also be strongly backed by Slovenia, Jansa said.
But Commission Vice-President Margot Wallstrom, who was attending the talks in Slovenia while Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso recovered from a bout of flu, conceded that the EU's Energy and Climate Change package was not likely to be approved by government leaders before the end of the year.
Jansa said his presidency would also seek to boost the EU's economic competitiveness by stimulating innovation and helping small- and medium-sized businesses - part of the EU's so-called "Lisbon Strategy" to turn the bloc into the world's most competitive economy by 2010.
Slovenia's strong geographical and historical ties with the other countries with which it once formed Yugoslavia were also expected to shape the presidency.
Slovenian officials are keen to see Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other Western Balkan states join the EU and hope that membership talks will not be slowed down over the coming months.
"We need to find solutions that will stabilise the region in the long term," Jansa said Tuesday.
And dismissing objections from some quarters, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said Serbia should be allowed to sign a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) - a precursor of accession negotiations proper - with the EU "as soon as possible, possibly by the end of this month."
The Netherlands is among several EU member states which argue that Serbia should first prove its full cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague by arresting Ratko Mladic and other wanted fugitives.
But Rupel said Tuesday that it should be up to the EU to judge whether such "full cooperation" was taking place or not.
Meanwhile, pundits were expecting the potentially explosive situation in Kosovo, Serbia's breakaway province, to keep Slovenian officials busy over the coming weeks.
On Monday, the two largest political parties in the predominantly ethnic-Albanian province agreed to form a coalition government tasked with declaring independence from Belgrade.
The EU is later this month due to decide on sending a law- enforcing mission to replace a UN administered system which has governed Kosovo since 1999, in spite of objections from Serbia and Russia.
Slovenia is the first former communist country from Eastern Europe, as well as the first new EU member state, to assume the rotating presidency of the bloc.
With a population of just 2 million people, the country is having to rely on the help of France, the next EU presidency holder.
And observers in Brussels say it risks being overshadowed by its much larger and more influential successor, which has already started publicising its own agenda for the EU.
In a telling sign, French President Nicolas Sarkozy laid out his projects for the French presidency on Tuesday, just as Slovenian and EU officials were meeting in Brdo.
"When our presidency is over, I want Europe to have an immigration policy, an energy policy, an environment policy and a defence policy," Sarkozy said in his in his first major press conference since taking office last May.
