PM Orbán: V4 countries should become winners of global economic transformation

The Hungarian presidency of the Visegrád Group will promote the member countries’ efforts to become winners of global economic changes, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Katowice on Wednesday.

Orbán told a press conference marking the end of the Polish presidency of the V4 that the Hungarian presidency, to start on July 1, will help the Visegrád Group members (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) restart their economies through boosting investments.

As taxes need to be kept low to attract investments, Hungary does not support international initiatives for tax hikes, he added.

Orbán named security as another important aim, adding that this was tightly connected to migration. Hungary does not support the mandatory distribution of migrants, he said, adding that migration posed an especially great risk in the current health situation.

Further, Hungary advocates the soonest possible European integration of Western Balkans countries, the prime minister said.

Orbán stressed the need of a restart in intellectual terms as well. He said the Visegrád Group countries, both individually and as a group, will participate in the debates about the EU’s future.

Orbán congratulated Poland on its performance as V4 president in what he called the most difficult year of recent decades. Nevertheless, cooperation continued among the four members and none of them were left alone in trouble, he added. The Visegrád Group members cooperated in transporting citizens home when Covid restrictions made travel difficult, distributing equipment, sending doctors to each other and also in access to vaccines, he said.

Orbán said that after the coronavirus pandemic, the global economic and world politics status quo has changed.