President Says Slovakia Ready for EU Talks

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovak President Rudolf Schuster said he believed his country was ready to rejoin fast track talks for European Union accession at the EU‘s Helsinki summit in December. Slovakia was excluded from the first group of EU candidate countries in 1997, amid criticism that former premier Vladimir Meciar‘s government was compromising democratic reforms. „We think that we have repented for the yellow card we got (in 1997) and it is time to rejoin our neighbours now,“ Schuster told reporters in the presence of German President Johannes Rau. Elections late last year brought to power a pro-Western coalition government which has been praised by EU member governments for implementing a series of reforms including a new language law to pacify the country‘s 500,000 ethnic Hungarians. Diplomats privately say that Slovakia is almost certain to be brought back along side the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, long seen as eastern Europe‘s front runners for EU membership. „In our view, the Slovak Republic has met all political criteria to be able to return to the first group of countries joining the European Union at the summit in Helsinki,“ said Schuster.