Earlier today, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met his V4 counterparts for a prime minister’s summit in Košice, Slovakia to discuss future cooperation in key areas between Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
At a joint press conference following the negotiations, PM Orbán said that certain “difficult issues” link the Visegrád countries together that can be solved easier using joint effort, naming the fields of energy security, preventing economic recession, and protecting the external borders of the Schengen Area from illegal migration among the most important questions.
In the prime minister’s view, due to the prolonged war in Ukraine, the number of refugees will increase in the coming period, alongside the growing pressure on our southern borders. “It is fair for the V4 to expect the EU to take over some of this burden,” he said.
Prime Minister Orbán stated that there is agreement on strategic objectives within the V4 regarding Ukraine and Russia, and Hungary will support and fund Ukraine so it can preserve its territorial integrity but will not support the European Union’s joint loan scheme, as it is a solution that “takes the European Union further towards a debt community.”
Regarding another pending security question, the prime minister said that Hungary supports the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden, and the Hungarian Parliament will vote on the matter during the first parliamentary session next year. "The two countries did not lose a single minute because of Hungary," he added.
On the matter of the withheld EU funds, PM Orbán said that, as it was previously agreed upon, a 17-point package with the European Commission was "put into concrete terms and has been implemented,” adding that he expects the Commission to come to a decision at its meeting on November 30. “We have delivered everything we committed to and agreed to,” he said.
Coming to his closing remarks, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called the Visegrád cooperation a “30-year success story,” explaining that the V4 came about because these countries were convinced that they shared common interests and many common positions and as such the “the V4 still has a future.”