Cerar hosts Slovenia-Benelux summit
Cerar will host a dinner for Luxembourgian Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders at Ljubljana Castle tonight before they are joined by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for a working session at Podrožnik Villa on Tuesday.
After lunch all four will go for a walk through Ljubljana. They will wrap up their meeting with a dinner at Strmol Mansion north of the capital.
One of the topics under discussion is likely to be the implementation of the border arbitration award after Benelux prime ministers urged Slovenia and Croatia in July last year to respect the award in a constructive spirit.
Rutte touched on the issue again when visiting his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz early in January when they both expressed concern about the dispute and their willingness to contribute to its solution.
Slovenia has very good relations with the Benelux countries, something that was noted when Cerar hosted his Belgian counterpart Charles Michel for a meeting in Ljubljana in May last year.
The countries have similar views on the EU's future. Both Slovenia and Belgium were at the time said to be advocating a strong, forward-looking and development-oriented EU.
Cerar at the time commented that it would be useful for Slovenia to build stronger ties with the Benelux countries, considering it was sharing values and policies with them.