President: SAV's Vision 2040 Document Contains No Trace of Political Ideology

Bratislava, 16 June (TASR) - President Peter Pellegrini has familiarised himself with the third working version of the Vision 2040 document, with Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) head Martin Venhart confirming that it will be ready by the end of June, TASR learnt at a press conference following their joint session. Pellegrini said that he's pleased SAV managed to keep the document away from any political influence, as also guaranteed to him by Venhart. "This means that the document is purely professional and doesn't contain even the slightest trace of any political ideology or political beliefs of individual authors," stated Pellegrini. "We took great care to exclude the influence of individual ministries," stated Venhart, describing the document as highly cross-sectoral while also stating that it's not intended to address the ministries' specific tasks. According to Pellegrini, it's crucial to convince political parties and people that long-term planning must be part of meeting the country's goals and strategies. "If we fail to cut short this cycle of constantly changing priorities and goals that shift with every election, we'll face a major problem in the future," he warned. He recalled that the document won't tell political parties exactly what they should do, as it will be followed by another document, the Strategy of the Slovak Republic, which will be even more important. Venhart described the process of creating the Vision 2040 document as a very broad participatory procedure involving more than 350 experts from various areas and incorporating more than 2,000 comments into the working versions of the document. The final version is to be submitted by the end of June for expert review before it can be approved by the government at the end of the summer. jrg/df