(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 3 - Slovenia - still high support for EU.
    By joining the EU, Slovenia has fulfilled one of the key strategic foreign policy objectives it set after independence.
    Support for the EU among Slovenians remains high and above average compared to other EU members, and there are no parliamentary parties that are considered eurosceptic. Yet some insiders believe that in recent years there has been too little systematic investment in European policy and the main drivers of economic growth to make Slovenia one of the more successful and visible members of the union.
    Among the new member states, Slovenia has also grown economically, but much slower than the other countries that joined the EU at the same time or even later. At the time of EU accession, Slovenia was at 88 percent of the EU average, measured in terms of GDP per capita; now it is at 91 percent.
    Over the 20 years of membership, Slovenia has received a total of 13.5 billion euros from the EU budget and paid in 8.7 billion euros, leaving a surplus of 4.8 billion euros in EU funds over that period. But it has made good use of the benefits of the internal market, which has boosted trade in goods and services.
    Successful European integration - with unresolved issues.
    On Tuesday, Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová described the integration into the Union and NATO as one of the most important and successful moments of Slovakia in its modern history. "It was a success of the whole country, of all its citizens," the head of state stressed. She recalled that the importance of membership was reflected in the country's everyday life.
    "Through the development of infrastructure, job opportunities, but also a safer Slovakia," she added.
    Čaputová also stated that although the EU and NATO have undergone changes over two decades, the same rules that applied when Slovakia joined still apply in both groupings. "Each member country must remain a functioning democracy," she reminded.
    Von der Leyen: States like Czechia teach EU lot about Russia's behaviour.
    In an interview end of April with several news agencies, among them the Czech News Agency CTK, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that "thanks to the bitter experience that countries in Central and Eastern Europe had with the Soviet Union, the EU has learned a lot about the patterns of behaviour of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin and has become more vigilant".
    Von der Leyen added that the European Union is not perfect, "but the benefits of EU membership are enormous". The enlargement also changed the status of the EU itself. It gained much more weight and importance. "Of course we are much stronger by 27 than we were with 15 [of us] at that time," von der Leyen said.
    Von der Leyen stressed that the living standards of EU residents increased, people stayed in Poland instead of migrating to the western countries. The enlargement of the EU by ten countries has also had huge economic benefits. The EU market has become one of the largest internal markets in the world and trade within the EU has increased by 40 percent compared to 2004. "In the ten new member states, six million new jobs have been created in those 20 years, and unemployment has halved," von der Leyen said.
    (The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case BTA, CTK, dpa, EFE, FENA, Lusa, MIA, PAP, Ritzau, STA, Tanjug, TASR). (ANSA).