In the discussion, State Secretary Štucin gave his first reactions and comments on the key points of this year's State of the Union address. In particular, he stressed the importance of maintaining European competitiveness, which is vital for the EU with regard to the transition to clean technologies. In this context, the issues of maintaining prosperity, solidarity and full employment are important, while also considering the challenges of labour shortages, inflation and the ease of doing business for European companies. He added that it is imperative to strengthen the open strategic autonomy of the European economy, while preserving it open and advocating an ambitious, fair and open EU trade policy. He also stressed the importance of the Green Deal and of addressing climate change, with reference to the recent devastating floods in Slovenia, where European solidarity was particularly evident.

State Secretary Štucin added that the speech of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen clearly underlined the importance of the Union's geopolitical engagement, including in the context of enlargement. Slovenia agrees that enlargement is an important geostrategic tool for the Union and supports all mechanisms and initiatives that would enable the successful integration of new countries into the EU. The assurances of President Ursula von der Leyen that the future of the Western Balkan countries, as well as Ukraine and Moldova, lies in the EU, and that the European perspective is also important for Georgia, have been positively received in Slovenia.

Other participants in the discussion included European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič, Slovenian MEPs Romana Tomc, Milan Brglez and Irena Joveva, and Professor Sabina Lange, an expert on EU affairs.