The Slovenian told insidethegames that comparisons between the two events were natural and the EOC were not interesting in "fighting" with the European Championships, considered a rival to the European Games and which made its debut in Berlin and Glasgow earlier this year.

"We work together,” Kocijančič said.

"The basic principle in sport is autonomy.

"The European nations in sport make their own decision, they are looking at the money they get from their championships.

"We decided absolutely not to fight against the other European Championships.

"They are not the same, they are doing different things,

"They are not Olympic qualifiers.

"They are not multi-sport events - from Berlin to Glasgow, it’s not a walking or even a swimming distance - and they do not have such support as we do.

"We have 50 National Olympic Committees behind us.

"We have 15 sports in Minsk, with nine or 10 due to be Olympic qualifiers, and six European championships.

"We will have an Olympic-style village with an atmosphere that will be completely different.”

Kocijančič, who oversaw an EOC Executive Committee meeting in Stockholm last week which officially opened the hosting of the 2023 European Games for tender, was emphatic that the EOC’s competition, which made its debut in Baku four years ago, had to be of the highest possible standard.

"I was at the Asian Games this month and it was much larger than the European Games," he said.

"At the moment we do not have the intention of making such a large Games.

"But we would like to bring up the quality.

"We want to be second only to the Olympic Games – which is a very demanding ambition.

"In Baku, in two major sports, we missed the target. 

“We had the third league of European Athletics because we took into account the position of the Azerbaijan athletes.

"And the aquatics were the junior European Championships, which brought a lot of competitors but not the top quality.

"This time already Minsk has decided to go with top quality.

"We didn’t put aquatics into the programme at all.

"It might be that we will put the aquatics in the programme, but under one condition – that it is the top quality, the best swimmers, the best divers of the continent.

“We will have as many qualifiers as possible for the next Olympic Games, and I am quite sure that that will increase the value of the Games.”

Kocijančič also expressed the hope that the new format of athletics for Minsk 2019 - which will be trialled there later this month by home athletes - will be significant and ground-breaking.

Last month’s announcement of the planned Dynamic New Athletics (DNA) aroused much scepticism within the sport, with several athletes expressing particular alarm at the opening event, of the “Track’athlon”.

This comprises an athletics assault course that features a sled run, shot put toss, standing long jump, water jump and a medicine ball run for men in lap one and the same minus the medicine ball run - but including a parachute run - for women on lap two.

The DNA model has been billed as an “action-packed new mixed-gender team event built on tactics, competitiveness and grit”.

"We will be showing a new format of athletics," said Kocijančič.

"This is a very attractive sport, but the sometimes conservative structure of competition, which sometimes has five or six things happening, makes it very hard to follow.

"Now we create a competition out of the strongest European nations and it will be a knockout system lasting two hours only, and featuring only one event at a specific time, which will be attractive to the public.

"It might be that some elements will not hit the target, but the final result is it could increase the value of this sport. “

Asked if he was confident the best athletes would turn up for the event, Kocijančič - who is said to get on well with European Athletics President Svein Arne Hansen - added: "We have guarantees from our friends at the European Athletics.

"If the best of several countries will come I hardly imagine that someone else will come with a second team.

"Because for the strongest athletic nations in the continent it is very hard to be heavily defeated."