Hungary’s Chief of Staff: V4 cooperation reliable in long term

The Visegrád Group cooperation is reliable, non-partisan, and respects the interests of all member states, and has become an important factor in the European Union, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief of staff said on Friday in Budapest.

Gergely Gulyás told a press conference after a meeting of the EU affairs ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia that all V4 states were committed to the EU, and see no alternative to “institutional European cooperation”.

At the same time, Gulyás noted that cohesion, the reduction of development gaps between various EU member states, is enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty as a primary objective of the EU.

The goal of Friday’s meeting, Gulyás said, was to “coordinate and share best practices at a time of intense negotiations with the European Commission” on funding for the 2021-2027 financial cycle.

The Visegrád countries have mostly submitted their planned operative programmes, “and technological and professional talks are proceeding well with the EC”. “If politics doesn’t interfere, we hope to achieve a partnership agreement on the next financial cycle within one or two months,” he said, adding that this was important because most member states tended to pre-finance their projects.

He said the conclusion of the partnership agreement was “not behind schedule”, noting that in the previous funding cycle, the signing of the pact had come a year and a half after the approval of the budget.

Concerning the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund, Gulyás said the reason why member states had agreed to jointly take out a loan was because it was a “one-time solution” which the EU had said was necessary for the economic recovery.

Gulyás also said that there was a “serious distrust” of the EC on the parts of Hungary and Poland because the Commission had yet to approve their recovery plans “for political reasons”. He added, at the same time, that the agreement with the EC could be signed soon, and the projects were being pre-financed.

“If we have to wait for the Hungarian elections for this to happen then so be it,” he said.