During a working visit to Bratislava, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko met with Vice Prime Minister for the Recovery, Resilience Plan and Use of EU Funds of the Slovak Republic Peter Kmec. During the meeting, the parties discussed the implementation of three large-scale projects in the infrastructure and energy sectors. In particular, the steps needed to accelerate the reconstruction of the Mukacheve - Veľké Kapušany interconnector.
"The interconnector is an opportunity to connect our national power grids to improve interaction in the energy sector. This will make our energy system more resilient, as we will have the ability to respond to problems even more quickly in the event of blackouts," explained Yuliia Svyrydenko.
The parties also raised the issue of creating new border crossings and potential joint efforts to create a railway connection between Kyiv and Košice using the wide-gauge infrastructure from Uzhhorod station through Slovakia.
"Working to improve the logistics and transport infrastructure between Slovakia and Ukraine will contribute to greater mobility of Ukrainians, ease of movement across Europe and, in fact, strengthen our steps towards European integration. Today, we continued a constructive dialogue at the level of deputy prime ministers on deepening practical cooperation in economic and trade sectors, as well as accelerating the implementation of key infrastructure projects," the First Deputy Prime Minister said.
In addition, the parties discussed the issue of humanitarian demining of Ukrainian land.
"We are sincerely grateful for the decision of the Slovak Government to provide funds for the purchase of two Bozhena-4 demining machines for humanitarian demining of the liberated territories of Kherson region. Over the past year, we have managed to bring back into use more than 10% of the territories, or about 18,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian land. To speed up the humanitarian demining process, we are working to attract private capital and investment. We will be grateful to Slovakia for any support in this matter, including participation in donor programmes to clean up the territory of Ukraine," said Yuliia Svyrydenko.
Another topic for bilateral discussion was the return of Ukrainian children who were forcibly taken to russia from the occupied territories. Ukraine is interested in Slovakia's active involvement in this process. In addition, the parties agreed on the importance of the European Commission's Ukraine Facility for the implementation of joint projects.
