Author: Matej Gregorec

The innovation environment in Europe, its obstacles, advantages and opportunities, were discussed at the final panel of Business BSF, entitled Innovative Europe – Opportunities for a New Breakthrough.

“The EU has been challenged, we are becoming more and more aware of the problems, but the solution is in all of us,” Ms Violeta Bulc, European Commissioner for Transport, stressed in opening the debate. She believes innovation is permeating all levels, and above all the EU must have the courage to innovate at the level of structures.

“We have to dare to bring a fresh wind that will address the challenges we have been able to identify to people, politics and institutions.” Pushing through her core message, the commissioner stressed: “Get engaged, don’t stay back, there will be more and more engagement models that you can use, but please create some on your own. We need to feel the power of democracy.”

Meanwhile, panellists, including Medeja Lončar, CEO at Siemens Slovenija, Mr Iskren Krusteff, GEM Bulgaria, and Ms Rumyana Trencheva, Managing Director of SAP South East Europe, identified several points of untapped potential such as thinking that innovation is only for a certain group of people.

Ms Trencheva stressed that potential lies in “the combination of innovation at different age, different ethnicities, different cultures – in these people, these cultures creating something together”.

Ms Lončar, moreover, pointed out that we live in an exciting period of time, when the size does not matter, as small countries can also get their piece of the cake at the global level.

On the other hand, Mr Sandi Češko, CEO of Studio Moderna, and Mr Yuri Sidorovich, Managing Partner and Forensic leader for Deloitte’s Adriatic Region at Deloitte Slovenia, pointed out several obstacles, including Europe’s support for start-ups.

According to Mr Češko, Europe has a good start-up scene, “but we don’t have the environment to scale up those opportunities”. Mr Sidorovich even argued that Europe was not really as innovative as we would like to think, which prompted Mr Češko’s call for stepping out of the old paradigms.

Mr Krusteff, on the other habd, noted that the EU was a fairly new bloc, a start-up when compared to the US. Nevertheless, this does not mean that Europe should be satisfied. It is time for action, “we all need to act”, we need to understand the industrial revolutions 4.0, he said as he presented the manifesto blueprinted by Young BSF over the weekend. The manifesto consists of “ten applicable” policy recommendations in the fields of electronics, environment and economy, including promoting sustainable consumption, technology inclusiveness and an overhaul of education.

Source: Slovenian Press Agency

The EU is facing numerous challenges, including a crisis of trust and identity. The key to the EU’s future lies in convergence, integration, cooperation and attention to people’s needs, heard the Bled Strategic Forum panel entitled The European Union in a Changed World.

Ms Nathalie Loiseau, Minister for European Affairs of the French Republic, said this was a time of increasing instability and unpredictability. This needs to lead to the realisation that the EU is the answer to our questions, she said, highlighting the importance of convergence between member states rather than competition among them.

Ms Loiseau additionally stressed that citizens wanted results, they were not interested in institutional debate. Citizens need to be asked what they want, and the EU must be capable of responding to their needs, something which it has long neglected.

Convergence and cooperation were also highlighted by H.E. Dr Teodor-Viorel Meleşcanu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania, who is convinced that the EU must be based on people-centric values, principles and policies. What people are concerned the most is security, which is why this needs to be a priority. We can create a better Europe by working together, he said.

H.E. Ms Ekaterina Zaharieva, Deputy Prime Minister for Judicial Reform and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria, agreed that the first question that needed to be asked was how changes will affect the people’s everyday lives. She argued that the only possibility when it came to the future of the EU was continued integration.

H.E. Mr Andrei Galbur, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova, stressed that it was necessary to enhance unity and solidarity, and create a strategic vision of the future. Despite its shortcomings, however, the EU remains the best model for ensuring people’s prosperity, one that countries like Moldova are looking up to.

Mr Galbur said this was why the EU had the biggest impact on the transformation of these countries, which needed encouragement when it comes to reforms. He said the message he wanted to send to the EU was that it should not scale back its intentions to spread the European idea.

Ms Violeta Bulc, European Commissioner for Transport, recalled the fundamental principles and purpose of the EU. She is convinced it is necessary to expand the spirit of the EU, which she argued was characterised by integration, partnership, an open society and an open economy.

Ambassador Iztok Mirošič, State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, is convinced that the future of the EU would rely primarily on whether decisions are taken in the framework of economic or political debate, with convergence a part thereof. He opined it would probably be able to form a new social and cohesion system.

Mr Pat Cox, Former President of the European Parliament, said the brutality of the economic crisis had affected trust and created a chasm between northern and southern member states. These challenges need to be faced.

Mr Aleksandar Andrija Pejović, Minister of European Affairs of Montenegro, focused on the perspective of EU aspirants. He argued against package solutions and in favour of individual treatment of candidate countries, but the candidates also need to cooperate and do their reform homework.

Source: Slovenian Press Agency

Digital media have revolutionised diplomacy, agreed participants of a panel on digital diplomacy panel at the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) in Bled on Tuesday. Although requiring quite a lot of skill and sensitivity, the new type of communication also brings many benefits.

H.E. Mr Nikola Dimitrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia, an active user of Twitter, believes digital media did not mean an end to diplomacy, but only changed the method of communicating.

He thinks it is impossible for diplomats to ignore this new reality. According to him, diplomats must be genuine and honest in their statements on the social media, but also mindful of their role as representatives of their country. “I think that’s our challenge.”

Ms Eirliani Abdul Rahman, Member of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, Singapore, explained that Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council often had problems when deciding on the removal of inappropriate tweets, because people’s opinions on what is acceptable and what is not often vary significantly. But she believes that any negative comments targeting a specific person or a group should be considered unacceptable, especially if they are posted by public officials.

Mr Ilan Manor, PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, UK, pointed to collecting user data by Facebook and Google, saying that this practice opened a wide range of questions. Should countries be concerned that so much data on their citizens is accumulated by the social media, he wondered, adding that another question was whom this data belongs to. If data is the new oil, this calls for restrictions in this field, he argued.

He believes the social media have changed diplomacy in three ways. Firstly, they changed the speed of diplomacy, which frequently complicates the situation. Secondly, they increased transparency and thirdly, they created a “loud and volatile public”, which also complicates diplomatic efforts. People are increasingly influencing politicians through social media, he suggested.

Mr Dimitrov sees this as a positive change. “This makes democracy more legitimate,” he said, adding that politicians were no longer tested every four years, but on a daily basis.

Asked whether a tweet can start a war, Mr Manor said that he believed social media “diminish the chances for war”. If people’s attention is dispersed, they will not be able to focus on one issue. What is news one day, may not matter any more the next day, so diplomats and politicians have time to find solutions.

Touching on the issue of hate speech on social media, Mr Manor said that only one type of hate speech was relevant in political discourse and that was the one that is aimed at radicalising people. Another problem is that by keeping hate speech away from social media, one can create the impression that people with negative or extremist opinions do not exist, but they do and their opinions will surface sooner or later, he warned.

Mr Dimitrov believes diplomacy should not be about thinking twice before saying nothing. “We have a responsibility … to be there and have a say,” he said about diplomats’ presence on social media. But he noted that silent diplomacy could still be conducted as well.

Echoing this, Ms Rahman said social media should be one of the tools of diplomats. But one must bear in mind the specifics of every individual country, she warned.

A few years ago, digital diplomacy was about opening as many accounts on different social media as possible, but now it has moved to the second stage, Mr Manor said. Now, the strategic goal of this type of communication is being determined and the type of media carefully picked with respect to countries’ specifics.

Looking into the future, Mr Manor said he expected ministries to accumulate big data to be able to foresee crises or help their citizens. He also expects the increased use of artificial intelligence and the use of virtual reality, especially to promote the national image for tourism purposes.

Source: Slovenian Press Agency

Officials of the Bank Assets Management Company (BAMC), Slovenia’s bad bank, presented investment opportunity in Slovenia at the Bled Strategic Forum panel entitled InvestTalk Slovenia.

Dr Imre Balogh, the CEO and Executive Director of BAMC, presented the BAMC and its operations in general. He recalled how the BAMC was created in the aftermath of a crisis that sharply increased debt, unemployment, the budget deficit and the share of non-performing bank loans, in what Mr Balogh said was a rollercoaster.

After 2013 significant measures were taken, including the establishment of the BAMC, and Slovenia regained momentum to now become one of the best performers in the EU, Mr Balogh said.

Mr Balogh said the BAMC had made a significant contribution to the improvement, as it took over non-performing loans worth 16% of Slovenia’s GDP in 2013; additionally, about 12% of Slovenian GDP was in companies it took over. If the bad bank had done the job badly, it would have a serious negative effect on the economy, he said.

The BAMC’s mission is to cash the assets as fast as possible, repay the debt, and be a catalyst for corporate governance in companies in which it has a stake. In three and a half years since it started operating in earnest, it has already generated 1.5 billion in cash, meaning it is more than halfway through the realization of its mission, Mr Balogh said.

Mr Aleš Koršič, the BAMC’s Executive Director for Corporate Affairs, stressed that the good performance was underpinned by the well-regulated external framework, in particular the law governing the BAMC and the measures taken to firm up bank stability. He also outlined the governance structure.

Mr Koršič also stressed a firm commitment to ethical standards for all employees, and the BAMC being subject to oversight by authorities including the Court of Audit, Office for the Prevention of Money Laundering, Commission for the Prevention of Corruption and the Information Commissioner.

Mr Janez Škrubej, the BAMC’s Executive Director for Asset Management, presented the track record of operations and potential project. Mr Škrubej mentioned several success stories, including brewery Pivovarna Laško, aluminium producer Aha Emmi, plastic packaging producer Aha Plastik, steel company Sistemska tehnika and auto industry supplier Cimos.

He said that in three and a half years the BAMC has already sold 57 loans, of those 18 to foreign buyers, with total value of 301 million euro. It also raised 72 million euro by selling 33 equity stakes.

Attractive investments still in the portfolio include almost 800 million in loans to different companies, as well as equity stakes in the foundry Mariborska livarna Maribor, footwear maker Alpina, meat-processing company Farme Ihan, publisher Mladinska knjiga and several real estate projects.

Source: Slovenian Press Agency

Participants of a panel debate on the Southern Mediterranean at the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) agreed that the EU needed to tackle the challenges and threats coming from the region as a whole while paying attention to the specifics of the individual parts of the region.

H.E. Mr Fathallah Sijilmassi, Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, said that “we collectively are facing these challenges, risks and threats”, which have to be dealt seriously.

He stressed that when facing terrorism, radicalism and illegal migration, “we stand on the same side – there is no north and south side of the Mediterranean”, adding that “we have to enhance our cooperation against these threats”.

Mr Sijilmassi believes that one of the solutions is building on the assets represented by the young people, academics and private sector organisations. The Union for the Mediterranean is taking a pragmatic approach in building on these assets, according to him.

Representing a “country in the middle of the Mediterranean”, H.E. Mr Carmelo Abela, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Promotion of the Republic of Malta, said that the effects of what was happening in the Mediterranean were having an effect on a wider region.

While noting that development is the key, Mr Abela said that “we have to invest more in Africa” and pay attention to countries in the region where things may escalate.

“Challenges are quite a few, but we should be in this together. It is an issue for all of us to tackle, we are far better together rather than divided”, he concluded.

Ms Sarah Rizk, Counsel at Amereller, Germany, discussed the role of civil society in Egypt, saying that it was still able to contribute to changes that lead to building stable social and political order.

According to her, economic stability is the actual goal, and civil society is indispensable for this, as citizens are adopting and being committed to the values of democracy. Civil society mediates between citizens and the government.

Mr Terens Spenser Nikolaos Quick, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic, said that he had to start with Egypt, noting that “it all started with the Arab Spring”, which according to him “failed dramatically”.

He said that the biggest problem in the area was illegal migration and refugees, with Italy and Greece and probably Malta standing against almost all other European countries which are “raising fences” instead of “building bridges” like Canada.

“But hope dies last and I can assure you that we are trying to make the Mediterranean area an area of stability” by using youth, education, women empowerment and tourism as elements for making the area peaceful, he added.

Prof. Dr Masanori Naito, Dean of the Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University, Japan, meanwhile discussed Syria as another crisis area, saying that the government state system was the only solution.

“I don’t want to see any more borders in the Middle East, if another border is created, this means that this disastrous conflict will come again,” he said and noted that the Kurdish forces could expect their independence or an autonomous territory.

Mr Michael Martens, South East Europe/Turkey Correspondent at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany, added that Turkey could not be avoided in this discussion, noting that the EU-Turkey relations were at all-time low.

He warned about “the gradual militarisation of the Turkish foreign policy“ and a shift to a hard approach from the soft approach for which Turkey has been very often been praised, especially in the Balkans.

Dr Hanan Ashrawi, PLO Executive Committee Member and PLC Member, Palestine, warned against Palestine disappearing from the global agenda. It is an “elephant in the room” and the international community cannot ignore the injustices done to Palestinians, she added.

The issues that has “destabilised the entire region” must be resolved on the basis of international law and justice, Ms Ashrawi said, adding that anything that happened in the Middle East was going to reflect on Europe and beyond.

Senator Benedetto Della Vedova, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic, argued that “we need a political commitment to have a single European policy on migrations”.

Mr Della Vedova stressed that the Dublin rules had to be changed because they were set up for different issues, not for this kind of migrant flows, and that the EU needed a single policy in Africa to be more effective in tackling the challenges.

Prof. Dr Marko Pavliha, Vice Dean and Head of the Law Department at the Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transportation, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, pointed to the role of the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) and the International Maritime Law Institute (IMLI).

One of the possible answers is holistic, compassionate, intercultural, human-rights orientated education, knowledge and ethics empowerment, he said, as “we also need to educate our hearts and not only our brains”.

Innovation will always be faster than regulation, but government must follow, was the main thought of the Role of Innovation in New Reality panel at Business BSF.

In the introduction to the panel, the moderator, Mr Marco Steinberg, Founder and CEO of Snowcone & Haystack, Finland, pointed out that new logics defy the inherent logics of the governments. “So, the governments are facing the pressure to innovate themselves to address these new logics.”

Mr Boris Koprivnikar, Minister of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia, outlined the role of the government as writing down regulations for everybody and ensuring common services and infrastructure for everyone. This is a major distinction between companies, which work for profit, and the government, he noted.

His definition of the role of the government was upgraded by Ms Sirpa Kekkonen, Head of Government Strategy Secretariat at the Prime Minister’s Office, Finland, who specified the government as the carrier of the national narrative and that the wise government anticipates “what is behind the next corner” to respond to it and involve it into the national narrative.

Touching on the proverbial sluggishness of the state in responding to change, Mr Koprivnikar acknowledged that the process of overhauling legislation was slow and that governments should respond faster to innovation. However, innovation will always come before legislation.

Mr Gregor Potočar, Managing Director at SAP Slovenija, Slovenia, moreover, noted that the business sector cannot request from the government to regulate artificial intelligence or robotics, “because we’re moving too fast”. That is why, according to him, businesses must start communicating more and establish new standards of business ethics and morals that will later become legislation.

Speaking about practice in Hong Kong, Mr Michael Lau, Senior Wealth Management Manager at AIA International, China, further stressed that the government invested heavily into education and research, “but ironically speaking from the business side, from the private sector, always complain, because the scientific research or innovation in
research doesn’t necessarily help the manufacturers or enterprises solve the problems they currently face”. “The government might have a very good long-term plan for innovation, but the business sector doesn’t necessarily accept it or react positively to it.”

The debate also touched on the world and the change it is experiencing at an ever-faster pace, with Mr Junji Tsuda, Representative Director and Chairman of the Board at Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Japan, stressing that change was exponential.

Mr Ranko Jelača, Member of the Management Board of Telekom Slovenije, Slovenia, noted that people wanting to embrace innovation must be open-minded and that companies also have to adapt to new realities. Mr Robert Trnovec, Director General at Microsoft, Slovenia, moreover noted that corporation needed to have two things to succeed: a clear vision and that vision embedded into their corporate culture.

To conclude, Mr Steinberg stressed that the context we had lived in “is probably changing at a rate that’s hard to predict”. According to him, traditional ways of thinking about things are being revisited: “I actually think that meeting our long-term sustainability is actually in the interest of business.”

Source: Slovenian Press Agency

The many challenges posed by the collaborative economy, most notably tourism’s impact on cities and how to regulate new providers and rentals, were in the focus at the Tourism Panel at the Bled Strategic Forum entitled The Collaborative Economy: Sharing, Cooperation or Simply Business?

The participants acknowledged that the collaborative economy was now anintegral part of the sector and required adjustment by established players. However, they also called for greater clarity in the sector, which should include sharing of data by the big platform providers with the authorities. This would make it easier to track the trends, collect taxes and protect competition.

Some of the proposals made included stricter requirements regarding registration of providers, and mandatory sharing of information for regulatory and tax purposes. However, there were also warnings against a heavy-handed approach given the many benefits of the collaborative approach.

Ms Maja Pak, Director General of the Slovenian Tourist Board, noted that the collaborative economy had redefined the tourism industry and would continue to disrupt the entire sector. The challenge now is to live with these changes, she said in reference to cities overwhelmed by tourism, and make sure the playing field is level for everyone.

Mr Zdravko Počivalšek, Minister of Economic Development and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia, noted that Slovenia expected a record 2017, but this growth was bringing new challenges. He suggested one solution to address people’s concerns about influx of tourists was to disperse tourists geographically.

Mr Počivalšek stressed that each country had to figure out how to deal with the collaborative economy and how to regulate it. Slovenia would like to have a reputation of a hospitable country with high standards of sustainable tourism and it wants to embrace the collaborative economy in a win-win way.

Mr Manolis Psarros, CEO of Toposophy from Greece, said in his keynote address that sharing as an economic model was not new, but what really changed in recent years was the availability of digital tools making it very easy for everyone to share their time or assets in the collaborative economy.

Mr Psarros also stressed that accommodation provider AirBnB, the biggest player in the collaborative economy in tourism, has been outperforming established players growth wise and is on track to becoming the leading player in the industry. It has also been expanding and is now affecting virtually all segments of the rental sector.

Given projections about the growth of the collaborative economy, it is now questionable whether it is still an alternative business model at all or just a way of doing business, Mr Psarros said.

Mr Carlos Villaro Lassen, Secretary-General of the European Holiday Home Association from Denmark, said regulation should not seek to protect hotels, which are doing fine. It is a problem in cities, but in rural areas the collaborative economy is an opportunity to grow local economies.

Mr Klemens Himpele, Head of Municipal Department for Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics at the City of Vienna, noted that AirBnB was not currently a problem in Vienna, but if the listings expend to more than the existing 8,000, it could become a problem.

Mr Christian de Barrin, the CEO of HOTREC – Hotels, Restaurants and Cafés in Europe from Belgium, noted that competition was also an issue as hotel occupancy has been decreasing because of the currently unlevel playing field. He suggested the skewed competition was hampering investments in tourism.

Dr Janja Hojnik, Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Maribor, Slovenia, pointed to some other legal challenges, for example where to litigate and which laws to use in disputes. So, this is about enforcement. Perhaps we should start thinking that we cannot make everyone happy, there are so many different stakeholders.

Ms Daniela Wagner, Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa at PATA – Pacific Asia Travel Association from the UK, said it was about dialogue and cooperation, about finding a middle road. One of the things we have learned is that learning from other people’s mistakes and practices is the best way, she said.

Source: Slovenian Press Agency

The Bled Strategic Forum panel Realistic Hope – How Transformation Happens Faster than One Thinks argued in favour of realism instead of optimism or pessimism. The debate touched on ways of alleviating poverty, on how to create visions, and on how people should engage with the future.

The moderator, Dr Betty Sue Flowers, Poet, Scenario Writer and Former Director of the LBJ Presidential Library, said that without hope, we cannot go into the future. The story we tell about the future creates the present, the possibility of action in the present. Without hope, we cannot have a new reality, she argued.

Ms Claudia Juech, Executive Director of the Cloudera Foundation, focused on poverty reduction. She noted that while a few years ago organisations dealing with poverty were expecting to no longer have anything to do as the future was looking good for poverty alleviation, today there is a new reality marked by slow economic growth, xenophobia, and official development aid had significantly decreased. All this is making the challenge of lifting those who remain in poverty harder.

But despite the persistent challenges, there are tools to alleviate poverty: innovative finance (non-traditional mechanisms such as special bonds and microtaxes to raise additional funds for development), and big data. But these will not solve poverty by themselves. This requires political will, an enabling environment, and collaboration of the private sector to really succeed.

Ms Alenka Smerkolj, Minister without portfolio responsible for Development, Strategic Projects and Cohesion of the Republic of Slovenia, talked about Slovenia’s development strategy. She said it was her firm belief that a society needs a vision to deal with uncertainty. This requires going out, engaging with people, and trying to shape the vision around what people want.

Ms Smerkolj said that creating the vision was a very challenging but very enlightening exercise, but she stressed that the toughest job was starting now: turning the vision into strategy, and then converting both into action.

Meanwhile, Dr Angela Wilkinson, Senior Director of the World Energy Council, stressed that all people were learners learning about the future. This requires a stance of humility and courage. She argued for making learning contagious, which requires having a conversation. To learn about the future, it is necessary to create good spaces for conversation.

Source: Slovenian Press Agency

The Water for Peace and Security panel looked at the growing international recognition of the water-peace nexus in a time when water is becoming scarce. Danilo Türk, Slovenia’s Former President and currently chairman of the global high level panel on water and peace, pointed to the rapid deterioration of respect for international humanitarian law in conflicts. “Increasingly often water resources and water infrastructure are being attacked… and water is being used as a weapon of war”.

Water sources should be outside of military objectives, he stressed, noting this is a new concern that highlighted the water-peace nexus. The second reason is that water cooperation is increasingly recognised as an aspect of international cooperation, one that stabilises peace and is becoming more and more necessary.

Measures proposed by the former Slovenian president and to be presented in Geneva shortly include new water diplomacy efforts, innovative measures for financing, and all-around strengthening of cross-border water cooperation.

Switzerland has been one of the main countries promoting water diplomacy. Pio Wennubst, Assistant Director General and Head of the Global Cooperation Department at Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, said that “we learned many years ago that the only way to build stable societies and nations is by working on what unites us” and not on what divides us. Water can be both, so the issue of shared water was put high on the agenda. He stressed the need to move beyond words and execute financing, to include other actors than only political leaders, including the corporate sector.

While Wennubst also highlighted the financial value of a peaceful agreement in water disputes, an example of best practice, provided by Western Africa, was presented by Kabine Komara, Former Prime Minister and International Consultant at Invesco, Guinea.He pointed out that after gaining independence, countries in the region realised they needed to cooperate. Senegal, Mali, Mauritania Guinea commonly own the water assets.

Efforts are also underway in Central Asia, with Kairat Sarybay, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Slovenia in Vienna, Austria, explaining that Kazakhstan is very dependent on its neighbours water-wise. Progress is being made in terms of cross-border management efforts but Mr Sarybay highlighted the problem of upstream countries seeing water as a commodity much comparable to other resources. “If you are selling us oil, we are in a position to sell you water.” A consortium has been stabilised to bring different stakeholders, he explained, noting the political climate is also improving.

Aaron Wolf, Professor and Department Chair of Geosciences at Oregon State University, US, pointed out that the issue of water and security has become incredibly elevated in recent years. He indicated that historically, counties have resolved water-related conflicts with very stable agreements, with water being something countries can come together about when nothing else is possible. However, while states tend to work together, there is a lot of violence at sub-state level. According to him, the simplest solution at this level “as unsexy as it is, is poverty reduction, simply helping with infrastructure”.

Participants of a debate on the global nuclear governance on the second day of the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) agreed that recent actions by North Korea are not a regional but a a major global security threat. Ms Enna Park, Ambassador for Public Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, said that condemning the nuclear tests was not enough and called for concrete action on the part of the international community.

»South Korea is one of the most concerned parties in the non-proliferation regime,« Ms Park said, adding that North Korean testing was one of the most serious global threats at the moment.

She believes North Korea is abusing the non-proliferation regime. The country acquired the material and equipment in line with international agreements, but now it is conducting nuclear weapons testing, which poses a great threat to the whole world and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime. »No country is safe from these treats,« she stressed.

She called on the international community to remain determined to stop North Korea. »Condemning is not enough. The international community should take concrete action,« she said, warning that North Korea could supply nuclear weapons to terrorists. She believes the ultimate solution is »complete denuclearlisation of North Korea«. Without an effective mechanism to address the violations, others could be encouraged to follow North Korean example, Ms Park warned.

»We have to exercise pressure. Their view is that nuclear weapons will guarantee the survival of the regime. We have to tell them nuclear weapons are a threat to the regime,« she said.

Presenting the history of anti-nuclear efforts, H.E. Dr Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said that today the implementation of the agreements seem to be in a limbo. He believes it is up to the international community to show guidance and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation to help and offer assistance on good nuclear governance and thus contribute to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Mr Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, said that his country had gotten nuclear infrastructure as a legacy from the Soviet Union, but later on the president had decided to give it up and turn Kazakhstan into a non-nuclear country.

»We are leading by example,« he said. After giving up its nuclear weapons, Kazakhstan became much more integrated in the international
community and became a much more prosperous nation, he said. The international community needs a new approach, be much more creative, he said. He noted that 120 nations, almost two-thirds of UN nations were pressing for a world free of nuclear weapons. »We need concrete proposals of countries on how they are going to get rid of nuclear weapons.«

Hon. Rose E. Gottemoeller, Deputy Secretary-General of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), pointed to the efforts of the US and Russia to decrease their nuclear capabilities, saying that both countries honoured international treaties and constraints and that none of them have any intention of increasing them. She also expressed hope that President Donald Trump will encourage Russia to continue on this path.

The US has also strongly condemned the recent nuclear testing conducted by North Korea, she said, but noted that NATO was a nuclear armed alliance in Europe and that this was an important part of the alliance’s capabilities. She also said she saw no value added in the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, arguing that it may even undermine the NPT regime.

H.E. Mr Yukiya Amano, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency stressed, that nuclear tests conducted by North Korea were not a regional but a global threat. He urged caution in the use of nuclear materials by developing countries. This does not cause risk if all precautionary and safety measures are taken. He admitted that
nuclear technology had a wide range of use, for example, in the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease, agriculture, etc.

Presenting the view of the EU on the matter, Ambassador Jacek Bylica, EEAS Principal Adviser and Special Envoy for Non-proliferation and Disarmament, stressed that the EU stood for global governance and the respect for international treaties and institutions. The EU neither promotes nor discourages countries from the use of nuclear energy. It’s a sovereign decision of any state. However, it insists on respect of the strictest security measures.

Source: Slovenian Press Agency