President of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) Eiki Nestor will go to Bratislava to attend the meeting of the Speakers of the parliaments of the European Union and participate in a press conference, where he will speak about the Estonian presidency.

At the meeting of speakers, which starts tomorrow morning, the future of the European Union after Brexit and the role of national parliaments in increasing the cohesion of the EU will be discussed.

Nestor said that the referendum in the United Kingdom was like an alarm bell. “It is clear that the leaders of all Member States should actively explain their citizens how the EU influences us all and why we need the EU,” he admitted. “At the same time the Member States should preserve their unity and find solutions to the security and migration challenges together, because it would help increase the faith of the citizens in the EU.”

Nestor noted that one of the greatest concerns of the European Union is that its citizens have low trust in the European institutions. “The European Union has to be more transparent and more comprehensible to the citizens; national parliaments also have to think how to promote greater public discussion of the documents and legislation of the European Union,” he added.

Tomorrow Nestor will participate in a press conference together with the speakers of the current presiding country Slovakia and next presiding country Malta. The President of the Riigikogu will speak about and reply to the questions of journalists on the readiness of Estonia for earlier presidency and the aims of Estonia’s presidency.

Riigikogu Press Service
Urmas Seaver
Phone: +372 631 6352; +372 50 39 907
[email protected]
Questions: [email protected]