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Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, who currently chairs the European Union Council.
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PARIS (EJP)---A delegation from the European Jewish Congress (EJC) will hold high-level discussions with the Slovenian European Union presidency in Ljubljana next week.
The talks, on April 8-9, are aimed at encouraging European responses to the Iranian nuclear threat, combat xenophobia and anti-Semitism and promoting the EU strategic, political and diplomatic relations with Israel, the EJC said.
The delegation, led by the pan-European Jewish group’s president, Moshe Kantor,
will meet with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, who currently chairs the EU Council, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, France Cukjati, President of the Slovenian parliament and President Milan Kucan.
"These meetings are part of an ongoing initiative by the EJC and President Kantor to coordinate an organized effort regarding the Iranian nuclear threat," the EJC said.
Kantor declared ahead of the talks: "If Iran, the center of world terror today, goes nuclear, threats of terrorist attacks in Europe will make peaceful life here unthinkable."
He called on the EU to speed implementation of sanctions against business interests cooperating with Iran’s nuclear program, as "it is only encouraging Iranian disregard of international pressure to cease its nuclear program."
"A nuclear Iran will accelerate the race for nuclear weapons among its neighbors and further destabilize world peace," Kantor said.
The EJC president has recently met with several other EU leaders including Germany’s Chancellor Merkel, Greece’s President Karolos Papoulias and Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pottering, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In their meetings with the EU presidency, the EJC delegation will also emphasize the need for concrete educational efforts to inform the younger generations about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism “as a means to confront the rise of extreme right. “
They will lobby to support specific legislation within the EU to enact and enforce laws specifically confronting crimes motivated by hate.
The European Jewish Congress, which is based in Paris, federates 40 elected leaders of national Jewish communities in Europe.
