During its presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2021, Slovenia will "seek compromise proposals" and one of its priorities will be to prepare the European Union for "possible new crises in the future," Croatia's state agency Hina quoted Slovenia's Foreign Minister, Anze Logar, as saying on Tuesday.

In an interview with the N1 Television, Logar said that the role of the country presiding over the Council is to attempt to harmonize and propose compromise solutions for legislative proposals and various topics.

“Each member (country) tries to affirm its perspective within that framework and the duty of the presiding country is to find a compromise proposal for all 27,” said Logar.

Slovenia will dedicate special attention to establishing a Health Union, and to crisis management in the field of cyber security.

Slovenia takes over the six-month presidency of the Council of the EU from Portugal on Thursday and it expects European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to attend the ceremony.

Slovenian media on Tuesday published a letter by five German members of the European Parliament, from left and center parties, to von der Leyen and EU Council President Charles Michel, in which they express concern over the state of the rule of law in Slovenia under the leadership of Prime Minister Janez Janša.

Among other things, they noted in the letter that “European values are under increasing pressure in Slovenia,” and that PM Jansa is “fiercely attacking civil society and media freedoms.” They demanded that the Commission should make sure “as soon as possible” that the Slovenian government stops “obstructing the appointment of Slovenia’s delegated prosecutors in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO)” whose job will be to investigate the abuse of European funds.

The German MEPs call on the EU to withhold any payments to Slovenia from the European budget until the country appoints its delegated prosecutors, the local media reported.