ECR President Marshal Władysław Ortyl focused his address to Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša on two important, related topics – investments in transport infrastructure and the Recovery Fund in the context of Slovenia currently holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU.

As European Committee of the Regions' (CoR) rapporteur on the opinion on the future of regional airports, Mr Ortyl is no stranger to the topic of transport infrastructure and called on Prime Minister Janša for more "investments in all types of infrastructure including aviation and road". For the Marshal of the Podkarpackie region, investments in transport infrastrucure would not only reap benefits for local economies by providing employment but it would also "improve traffic safety and connectivity between regions and ultimately contribute to reducing the negative effect of transport on the environment".

The ECR President also expressed concern at delays by the European Commission in approving national recovery and resilience plans and appealed to the Slovenian Prime Minister to dialogue with the Commission to ensure that all plans are "treated with the same criteria and according to the planned schedule".

Mr Ortyl specifically referred to Poland where national recovery and resilience plans have not yet been approved and this has left the Marshal feeling perplexed. "It will have dire consequences for the development of our regions", he highlighted. Along these lines, Mr Ortyl suggested returning to the previous set-up whereby heads of regions and other regional authorities had the opportunity to engage in dialogue with the European Commission during the management and processing of EU funds – "as soon as a problem arose, we worked together to find a solution". 

This debate on the priorities of the Slovenian Presidency took part in the context of the CoR plenary which took place in hybrid format from 11 to 14 October.