Slovakia could learn from Ireland on how to draw EU funds and to use them effectively, President, Mr Rudolph Schuster, told the President, Mrs Mary McAleese, yesterday on the first day of her State visit to the Slovak Republic.
Mr Schuster proposed that a conference of experts from Ireland be held to show how the EU funds could be sourced and managed and to aid economic reform.
Mrs McAleese said it would be presumptious of her to tell the Slovaks, who voted last month in favour of membership and will join the union next May, its own business. But she said she would relate Ireland's experience.
She said EU resources helped Ireland invest in much needed physical infrastructure like roads and telecommunications, and crucially, in education.
"Ireland does not have a lot of natural resources but the biggest is the brain power of our people."
This helped generate an entrepreneurial class in small, medium and increasingly global business, she added. Last night the President and Dr Martin McAleese were guests of honour at a state banquet in Bratislava Castle.
"We have both exercised our hard won sovereignty and freedom in joining the European Union, the greatest adventure in democratic partnership between nations ever undertaken by humankind," she said.
Mrs McAleese said the forthcoming enlargement of the EU marked the most historic period in the union's history and Ireland was privileged to hold the presidency of the council for the first half of 2004.