The Visegrád cooperation “is alive and well” and has a long future ahead, the Hungarian president said at a press conference after attending a summit of the V4 countries’ heads of state in Prague on Wednesday.
The cooperation among the Visegrád countries has a history of 700 years, and Czechia, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia aim to keep that cooperation and “add new content to it”, Katalin Novák said.
The issue in focus of the meeting was security, said Novák, adding that the Visegrád Group “form a safe island in the heart of Europe” in that respect and they view this “as a treasure” which they want to safeguard in the long term.
Novák said the Visegrád countries’ presidents deemed highly important the protection of EU and its external Schengen borders, effective measures against mass illegal migration and protection against terrorist acts.
Russia, Israel, Ukraine, energy
Concerning the war in Ukraine, Novák said that the common position of the V4 was that Russia must not win the war. “We stand behind Ukraine and we are trying to provide maximum assistance for it to have the opportunity to protect its country and its people in the war,” she said. Novák said the situation of minorities in Ukraine could not be “subject to negotiation”, and asked her counterparts to pay increased attention to the issue.
Commenting on the “brutal terrorist attack” against Israel, Novák said the four presidents were in agreement on the need to pre-empt an escalation of the conflict and minimise the civilian death toll. She repeated the call to Hamas to release the hostages and welcomed the agreement on a ceasefire and the freeing of hostages. Novák underscored Hungary’s univocal support for ensuring the security of the members of its Jewish community, vowing that the country would continue to guarantee that in the future.
The Hungarian president said they had also discussed ways to speed up transport among the four countries, cut dependence on Russian energy supplies and switch to the use of green-energy. The V4 presidents were in agreement that nuclear energy should be maintained as “a clean energy resource” in future.
Speaking about Europe’s competitiveness, Novák said that without turning around “the negative demographic trends” the chance to maintain and bolster competitiveness was slim.
Poland & Hungary “serious allies”?
The president said she had proposed doubling the Visegrád Fund’s annual budget of 10 million euros which would allow providing increased support to programmes aimed at strengthening cooperation among the Visegrád countries and potentially supporting countries outside the group.
Novák noted Hungary’s upcoming EU presidency in the second half of 2024 and Poland’s V4 presidency starting also in next July, expressing hope for the two countries to be “serious allies” during that period.
Asked about funding withheld by Brussels, Novák said it would give cause for concern if unfreezing the funding was “merely a matter of politics” and depended solely on whether “the government of the country in question was liked or not by Brussels”. She insisted that although Hungary had met all the criteria set by the European Commission for releasing the funds, it had not received funds it is entitled to.
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“This undermines the trust of citizens in the European Union, not only in Hungary, but also in many other EU member states.”
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6 Comments
I live in Poland and Hungary is not regarded as an ally anymore by very many people because of its pro-russian stance in Ukraine.
I would like Mr. Orbán or Mr. Szijjártó to echo Mrs. Novák’s “We stand behind Ukraine, and we are trying to provide maximum assistance for it to have the opportunity to protect its country and its people in the war,”
Novak’s comment about Hungary “providing maximum assistance” to Ukraine to protect its’ country and people is an insulting lie to all Ukrainians. Hungary has continuously acted to obstruct military assistance and general funding to Ukraine. Hungary has gone so far as to ban transport of weapons through Hungary to Ukraine. Don’t believe anything Fidesz politicians will tell you. Orban has never gone Kyiv to meet with Zelensky yet he meets with Putin and shakes his hand. Novak stop your lies.
Humanitarian assistance is not valued according to commentators, so stop wasting money. It is a wonder why would the commentators wish for Hungarian supplied weapons to kill Hungarians living in Ukraine?
Over the centuries, countries invaded one another. Eventually, the warring countries stopped killing each other. Does the EU need another 100-year war?
Just think, if peace was established between the warring countries. let us say 1 year ago, Ukraine would not have suffered the same destruction, millions would not have left the country, the death toll of citizens and soldiers would have been minimal. Both sides already lost
Everyone is so concerned about border integrity. This is a joke since the EU borders are open to every Tom, Dick and Harry. Borders have been changed over the years. Part of France was ruled by the British, Hungary was defeated and ruled by Habsburgs, in each of these cases the borders were ignored. History keeps repeating itself and not one leader has learned anything.
“the warring countries”
Not “warring counties”. russia engaged in a totally unprovoked invasion of a peaceful neighbor which is defending itself. And russia is a far bigger threat to Hungarians in Ukraine than Ukrainians are.
How many times has Orban told Ukraine to surrender and how many times has he told russia to withdraw from _all_ occupied territories?
Is Russia actively bombing the Hungarian settlement, not proven. Did the Ukrainians grabbed ethnic Hungarians, enrolled them in the army and placed them right to the front, in maximum danger, the answer is yes.
Yes, Russia and Ukraine are warring nations. By some mischance, lands that belonged to Russia since 1774 were attached to Ukraine. Furthermore, ethnic Russians must have been poorly treated since the ethnic Russians would not have started a civil war. Through history, big and more populous countries attacked smaller and weaker countries; there was the Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire and even an Empire controlled by Attila the Hun. Strong has always attacked and controlled a weaker, this is also evident in the animal kingdom.
Borders have changed. Lands occupied by ethnic Serbs were attached to ethnic Muslims occupied lands in Kosovo. Gues what, members of the two groups hate each other.