Erjavec informed Mogherini that he would travel to Moscow on Friday for a meeting of the Slovenian-Russian standing committee on economic cooperation, as part of which he would meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The crisis in Ukraine would be a topic of the talks with Lavrov, said Erjavec, who told the STA that Mogherini backed efforts for dialogue with Russia on the crisis.

The foreign ministers met as part of a joint session of Slovenian and Italian ministers for economy, agriculture and environment, transport, infrastructure, and higher education and science.

The meeting also touched on the Western Balkans, with the pair agreeing that a programme must be set up to provide help to Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina that have been hit by devastating floods last week.

Touching on other areas, Erjavec said that the meeting agreed that the EU will have to adopt food safety measures, as the people do not accept genetically modified organisms.

Erjavec pointed out that Italy was the third-biggest investor in Slovenia and said that the Slovenian delegation thanked Italy for offering a good exhibition location for Expo 2015 in Milan.

He added that today's talks broached cooperation among sea ports in the North Adriatic aimed at "achieving synergies and making them more competitive" against ports in Northern Europe.