Paris - PM Robert Golob and French President Emmanuel Macron focussed on electricity prices during Thursday's meeting in Paris. They urged structural reform of the electricity market before heading into a meeting, after which Golob said Slovenia and France would jointly prepare an initiative to act at EU level, which must be done before winter.

"I think we agree on the need to quickly prepare a structural reform to better control energy prices in a market that has become totally unbalanced and to better protect our industry and our citizens," Macron said before the pair's first bilateral meeting, and described Golob as an expert in this field.

Golob agreed with Macron's assessment that structural changes were needed. "It has become clear that the common European market, especially for electricity, does not work properly," he said before the meeting.

Coming out of the meeting, Golob said that changes to the EU energy market were needed before this winter.

Slovenia and France will thus prepare an initiative for EU energy ministers to discuss next week, so that EU leaders could decide on concrete reforms at the October summit, he said.

"Our intention is to intervene in the energy market in Europe before this winter to stabilise prices. There is no doubt about this," Golob said. This is also important for securing enough gas, as it is important that there are no energy shortages for electricity production, he added.

The two countries will further discuss ways of individual measures following each other and exchange the proposals discussed today in written, he explained.

He said that energy was the main topic of talks with several proposals on the table, primarily the need to reform the European energy market, both the electricity and gas markets. Another proposal is to restrict wholesale prices.

Before the meeting, Golob thanked Macron for having been "the first European president in a long time to understand the importance of the Western Balkans" during the French EU presidency.

"He understood that the Western Balkans and enlargement to it is indeed an extremely important strategic issue for Europe and that it should not be neglected."

Golob also noted that under Macron's sponsorship, a major step was taken in de-blocking North Macedonia's EU integration so that it started accession in July.

The prime minister moreover mentioned Slovenia's initiative to award Bosnia-Herzegovina EU candidate status, saying this was similarly strategically important.

Asked about France's stance on awarding Bosnia this status, Macron said he was willing to discuss it.

Golob and Macron also discussed cooperation in nuclear energy, the war in Ukraine, and Macron's proposal for a European political community which would bring together EU member states and countries in the bloc's neighbourhood.

Commenting on the talks on cooperation in nuclear energy, Golob said "we're very interested in finding a good alliance of nuclear countries at the EU level that would prepare a kind of European nuclear solution, including in technology".

France is in an ideal position to spearhead development in this field and Slovenia would like to join the process, the PM said, adding this was the only way to get an answer in a few years to the question of whether Slovenia can build a new unit of the N-plant within any set deadline and budget.