"The EU should play a role beyond economics... should be guarantor of honoring responsibilities."

- Slovenian President Danilo Turk at Columbia

This past Friday, Columbia's World Leaders Forum hosted the president of Slovenia, Danilo Turk in Low Library. The president talked a lot of international relations.

He argued that the world is not unipolar but rather policentric, at the same time saying essentially that the US was the only world superpower while other large powers like China, Russia and Brazil are only local powers that can throw their weight around in their parts of the world. He admits that tensions exist in partnerships between powerful countries, but that we're all enjoying a large level of stability and that to keep that we need partnerships. Some examples he gave were that the US ought to accept some EU policy packages regarding issues like building the nuclear missile shield. During the Q&A section, one audience member asked an interesting question on why Slovenia was the first former USSR country to recognize Kosovo's independence and Danilo Türk replied that recognizing Kosovo's independence was inevitable and they felt it was better to do it earlier rather than later.

Overall this was a very interesting talk and Danilo Türk is certainly very qualified to speak on this not just because he's president of Slovenia but also because he has an extensive background in international law, both practice and academia.