Hungary’s place is at the centre of a reunited Europe, Edmund Stoiber, the former Bavarian state premier, said in an interview to German daily Die Welt.
“Hungary from the very start had a place at the centre of a reunited Europe,” he said.
Stoiber, who is also honorary president of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), said Markus Soder, Bavaria’s current state premier, and Manfred Weber, the CSU leader and head of the European People’s Party (EPP) EP group, had expressed their approval of the Hungarian high state honour that Stoiber received recently.
Bavaria and Hungary, he noted in the interview published online on Monday, have traditionally enjoyed close economic and cultural ties.
On the topic of the ruling Fidesz party and its place in the EPP — including Weber’s EPP quest to become European Commission president that was not backed by Fidesz — Stoiber said there had been tensions and damage done, “but you can’t get stuck; life goes on.”
Asked whether presenting Soder’s greetings to Orbán during his visit to Budapest heralded a new beginning, he said further discussions would take place between the Bavarian and Hungarian leaders. Soder, he added, saw historically close Bavarian-Hungarian relations as a vital asset.
“What happened has happened, but this is not an obstacle to looking ahead,” Stoiber said, adding that Weber was ready to work with everyone, including Orbán.
Meanwhile, Stoiber said
deepening cooperation between Germany and the Visegrad Group would be indispensable, especially in light of Germany’s key role in backing these countries’ EU accession.
The Visegrad countries as economic partners, he said, were “much more important to us … than France, the United States or China”.
The European Union budget proposal put forward by the outgoing European Commission is “unfair”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Prague on Tuesday. “We want justice,” he said.
After the Friends of Cohesion summit held together with Visegrad Group leaders, Orbán said the proposal under discussion across Europe contained faults that could be laid at the doorstep of the outgoing commission.
Orbán identified changes needed before the budget could be declared fair.
He said rebates should be scrapped because if member states’ rebates were recalculated taking into account the size of its payments in relation to its national product, “then we get a completely unfair picture”.
Further, the fact that much of the funding received by central European countries “goes back” to western member states should be taken into consideration in the budget proposal, he said.
Moreover, it was unfair to reduce cohesion funds on the basis that “the poorer someone is, the more money they lose, while the richer loses less”.
Orbán also called for more flexibility in the budget.
The commission’s proposal “goes in the opposite direction,” he added.
“Nevertheless, we’re optimistic,” he said, adding that “fortunately” two of the Visegrad premiers are former finance ministers.
The prime minister insisted that the EU’s Horizon R and D programme was especially unfair as 95 percent of its financing was ploughed into “old” member states. He said “a national element” should be introduced in this respect.
Orbán said the situation was similar in respect of climate policy. In order for Hungary’s economy to become carbon-neutral by 2050, 2.5 percent of GDP will have to be spent each year on economic reforms. The Netherlands would have to spend 0.5 percent to achieve the same outcome, he said, adding that Hungary was ready to hit its 2050 target but wanted to see funding sources in the EU budget to help the country achieve it.
Meanwhile, on the topic of EU enlargement, Orbán said
there was widespread disappointment that talks with North Macedonia and Albania had not begun.
Talks with Serbia and Montenegro should be speeded up with a view to alleviating the “bad decision” not to embark on accession negotiations with the former two, he added.
The Friends of Cohesion Group was established in 2005 on Poland’s initiative to represent the interests of net beneficiary member states and to raise awareness of relevant cohesion policy matter, as well as to coordinate their positions.
Hungary will continue to support the Euro-Atlantic integration of the western Balkan countries which is in its national interest, the house speaker said in Parliament on Monday.
László Kövér spoke at the 9th meeting of parliamentary speakers of southeast European countries.
Hungary’s strong support over the past years played a role in Croatia’s accession to European Union, and in the accession of Albania, Croatia and Montenegro to NATO, Kövér said in his opening address.
“Despite all the crises in the European Union, we believe that the process of reuniting Europe must not stop and that there should not be white spots left as regards EU membership in the continent’s southern region,” he said.
“There is currently no political alternative for the EU in terms of European peace and prosperity,” House Speaker Kövér said, adding that Hungary’s interest lies in a strong EU formed by sovereign nation states capable of cooperation.
Kövér noted that
the parliamentary speakers of the Visegrad group, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, have been invited to attend this year’s event because for them the enlargement of the EU is as important as for the Hungarians.
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
In László Trócsányi, Hungary nominated an excellent man as its European commissioner, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday.
Orbán said that in the course of Trócsányi’s European parliamentary hearing “further hot moments” were expected, but his personal aptitude was the key issue.
He praised Trócsányi’s “intellectual ability” and noted Trócsányi’s achievements such as his many years of experience in the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters.
Orbán said that trends in diplomacy in recent months had been good for Hungary’s national interests. He said Visegrád countries had strengthened and the IMF was on course to be led by a Bulgarian, he said.
Commenting on EU enlargement, he said western Europe had tired of it and explained away their own political and economic failure by blaming it on the previous round of enlargement.
Had the EU integrated Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, illegal migrants would not have reached Germany in 2015, he argued, adding that he sought to convince EU leaders of the importance of enlargement, noting a joint statement by the Visegrád group’s prime ministers at their recent Prague summit in its favour.
Commenting on the post of commissioner for the protection of the European way of life, Orbán said it was “sad” that some people were attacking the portfolio. The chief responsibility of every politician, he insisted, was to protect people’s way of life. He added that the debate was over nature of migration and most Europeans saw it as a threat.
Asked about outgoing commission president Jean-Claude Juncker’s description of Orbán in a recent interview as a nationalist rather than a European politician, Orbán said: “I’m European because I’m Hungarian; if I were not Hungarian I wouldn’t be able to be European.”
The EU, he added, must be built on nations, their identities and their pride.
He said the starting point of Hungary’s strategy was to create stability, and this involved strengthening the Visegrád Group and its strong relationship with other neighboring countries. Further, alliances must be made with “old” EU member states in order to achieve goals such as border protection. Austria, he added, had been just such a country and “hopefully after the Austrian election the old situation will be restored”.
He said Italy was also a key player in protecting the bloc’s maritime borders. He said Matteo Salvini, the former interior minister, was “a great friend of Hungary” who had been forced out of his position, but his absence was keenly felt since Italy had returned to “a dangerous leftist policy of taking in migrants and demanding their relocation”.
Asked about graft in Hungary, Orbán said that “if there were corruption there would be no economic development”. He added that whereas “corruption is everywhere”, the problem was not decisive.
On family policy, the prime minister said he was considering the details of a second and third family protection action plan.
The distribution of top positions in the European Commission reflects the strengthened position of the Visegrád Group, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Thursday in Prague, after attending a summit of the V4 and Western Balkan states.
Two vice-presidents in the new commission were nominated by Visegrád Group countries, Orbán noted. The Hungarian commissioner-designate, László Trócsányi, has the “beautiful and big” task of managing the EU’s enlargement, he added.
Trócsányi grasps the complicated aspects of enlargement, he said, adding that, hopefully, the former Hungarian justice minister would receive the backing of the EP.
European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen presented her team in Brussels on Tuesday.
Photo: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Szecsõdi Balázs
The European Parliament must give its consent to the entire College of Commissioners after hearings of the commissioners-designate in parliamentary committees. Once the EP has given its consent, the European Council formally appoints the commission.
Regarding the bloc’s enlargement, Orbán said had the EU integrated North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia earlier, “many millions of illegal migrants would not be in western Europe today”.
“Together, we could have defended the Balkan route,” he said, adding that the space between Greece and Hungary had been left “unguarded”.
“This space has to be filled by integrating the countries located there, and then the EU would be able to protect itself,” Orbán said. He noted that migrants had not arrived in the EU via Romania, a member state. “They crossed non-member states” before being stopped in Hungary, he said.
It is evident from the history of the past few years that enlargement lies in the interest of both the EU and North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, “and if it comes to that”, Albania, Orbán said.
Admission of the Balkan countries is not a burden on, but an opportunity for, the European Union which would then become stronger, Orbán said, assuring the countries in question of Hungary’s support.
Concerning the EU’s next financial framework, he said that new common policies may be opened but funds earmarked for older policies should not be cut on this pretext.
Hungary does not oppose generating new common sources of revenue if the EU wishes to finance new policies and maintain current ones, he said.
Orbán said the member states needed a greater deal of flexibility in terms of how EU funds are used.
In response to a question, Orbán said Trócsányi’s selection for commissioner for EU enlargement was good news for Serbia. He added that when Hungary held the EU’s rotating presidency in 2011, it handled the difficult issues in the last phase of Croatia’s accession effectively.
“I have no doubt that Serbia will greatly contribute to the EU’s economic performance,” Orbán said, adding that “solving” Serbia’s integration would speed up and “solve” that of the whole region.
Many issues have to be addressed before accession, “but they are all manageable,” he said, citing the issue of Kosovo as an example.
Regarding migration, Orbán said western Europe was building a “multicultural immigrant society” while central Europe avoided doing so. “Our countries are not immigrant societies”. The question, he said, was how those two worlds can coexist.
Up to now, the response of the European Commission was to “force central Europeans to assimilate … and we resisted.” “Hopefully, the new body will realise that the issue is about managing the coexistence of two different approaches to life.”
“We trust the new commission will show us more respect … and will use a new tone, promoting agreements rather than using force,” he said. “In that case, Europe has a future, and we are looking forward to a fantastic five years. But if the policy of using force against us continues, we’ll have to resist and we’ll all be where we are now.”
The prime ministers of the Visegrád Group held a separate meeting on the sidelines of the meeting, and attended a working lunch with the leaders of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
The planned 20 percent cut of European Union funding in the 2021-2027 financial cycle is “unacceptable”, officials of the Visegrad Group countries said at a meeting in Sárospatak, in north-east Hungary, on Monday.
At the meeting attended by parliamentary European affairs committee members of the Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak parliaments, Richárd Hörcsik, the (Fidesz) head of parliament’s European Affairs Committee, noted
the participants had agreed to call on their governments to take a stand against cohesion and agricultural funding cuts at the upcoming EU summit, Hörcsik said.
He noted the Visegrad Group countries had already spent “substantial funds” on the development of poor regions, and curbing those resources would not make sense.
The groups also opposes making the funding conditional on “various requirements”, he said, adding that such measures were not a part of the Lisbon Treaty.
Meanwhile, the Fidesz official said the election of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had shown that the Visegrad Group could lobby successfully for its interests on important issues.
Local council leaders representing the historical districts of the capitals of the Visegrád Group (V4) countries met for talks at the Buda Castle on Saturday, the castle district local council said.
The mayors of the 1st districts of Budapest, Prague, Bratislava and Warsaw discussed matters of sustainability concerning their cities as well as opportunities in central European cooperation, the statement said.
At the end of the meeting, the mayors signed a declaration in which they pledged to share their experiences with each other in the future, too, and to work together on preserving their cultural values and traditions.
The meeting was attended by Miroslav Vrabel, deputy mayor of Bratislava’s 1st district, Pavel Cizinsky, mayor of Prague’s 1st district, Pawel Martofel, deputy mayor of Warsaw’s 1st district, and Budapest 1st district mayor Gábor Tamás Nagy.
The common positions taken by the Visegrád Group countries are “fully in line” with Hungary’s national interests, and upholding them is therefore also in Hungary’s interest, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Warsaw on Thursday.
He said the alliance comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia had remained successful despite efforts by the international media and the “political elite” to “tear it apart”.
“Perhaps few would have thought in the past couple of years that we’d mount a successful challenge against the mandatory migrant quota scheme,” the minister said.
“I think many people believed there was little chance we could prevent the appointment of Frans Timmermans as European Commission president.”
“There’s a completely false and deceitful depiction of the Visegrád Group within the European Union: they’re trying to position us as a kind of black sheep and paint us as an entity going against European unity, whereas the reality is that we want a strong Europe, but we think that this requires strong member states,” he said.
“We believe that if European nations stay strong and insist on preserving their national identity, cultural, religious and historical heritage, then we can build a strong European Union again together,” the minister added.
He said that although this position was in the minority in the EU today, it was still a European one.
The V4 agree that central Europe’s competitiveness can be traced back to a responsible economic policy, “which is why we refuse to support any western European proposals that would lead to tax hikes in Hungary or central Europe or those aimed at debt communitisation”, Szijjártó said.
He said the V4 firmly believed that central Europe was a contributor to Europe’s economic performance, arguing that four out of the bloc’s five fastest-growing member states were central European countries, and three of them Visegrád countries.
During his visit to Warsaw, Szijjártó also met Kazimierz Nycz, the Archbishop of Warsaw, and Jadwiga Emilewicz, Poland’s minister of entrepreneurship and technology.
Without families and children, a national community could end up disappearing, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a speech to the Budapest Demographic Summit III on Thursday. “And if a nation disappears, something irreplaceable disappears from the world,” he said at the event held in the Várkert Bazaar, where he said one of the state’s goals and the government’s task was to pursue a vigorous demographic policy.
The prime minister said the “solution of immigration” and the “mindless green argument that the Earth would be better off with fewer births” were off the table when it came to the issue of demography.
He said Hungary’s family support scheme would only reach a turning point when those who decide to have children enjoyed a higher standard of living than if they had opted against having children.
The Hungarian family support model rests on a foundation that has “a constitutional nature”, Orbán said, adding that this was essential for pursuing a long-term family policy.
These constitutional foundations protect Hungary against court rulings that are detrimental to families and against attempts by “anti-family” international organisations, NGOs and networks “to penetrate” into the country’s state affairs and decision-making, the prime minister said.
Good family policy needs economic foundations as well, Orbán said, noting that allocations in the central budget to support families had doubled over the past ten years. The prime minister highlighted the need for a predictable family support system over the long term.
Orbán said the key to the success of Hungary’s demographic policy was “Christianity regaining its strength in Europe”.
Partners in this endeavour such as Serbia and the Czech Republic, represented at the summit at presidential and prime ministerial level, are already on board, Orbán added.
The prime minister said the demographic policy’s success would be ensured if the country’s annual economic growth rate exceeded the EU average by at least 2 percent between now and 2030, Orbán said.
Orbán said there was abundant skepticism in Europe as to whether Hungary could achieve its demographic policy goal of a 2.1 fertility rate.
But those people said the same before about other Hungarian government measures such as “sending home the IMF”, introducing a banking tax and a progressive income tax, levying a tax on multinational companies, cutting utility costs, creating one million jobs in ten years, stopping migration and building a border fence, he added.
He greeted Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abott who are attending the summit.
Hungary supports the accession of the Balkan countries to NATO, the head of parliament’s defence and law enforcement committee said on Wednesday, arguing that a stable Balkan region was in Hungary’s interest.
Addressing a panel discussion at the 30th “Tusványos” Summer University in Baile Tusnad (Tusnádfürdő), in central Romania, Lajos Kósa underlined the importance of the Balkan countries’ role in curbing migration.
Hungary’s interest also lies in a strong, unified and competent NATO, Kósa said, arguing that Hungary could only protect its citizens as a member of NATO.
He said Hungary supports every endeavour within NATO that is in line with its founding treaty, noting its provision that NATO is open to the accession of all European countries.
It is also in Hungary’s interest that NATO be able to take effective action in regions deemed to be security risks, Kósa added.
As regards NATO-Russia relations, he rejected accusations that Hungary’s government was pursuing pro-Russia policies. Hungary adheres to its international commitments, including the economic sanctions imposed on Russia, “even though it only hurts Hungarian exporters and doesn’t even come close to bringing Russia to heel”, he said.
Meanwhile, Kósa said
Germany was “helping the Russian energy sector to billions of euros worth of investments” via its gas imports through the Nord Stream pipeline.
Igor Merheim-Eyre, programme director at the British International Republican Institute, said Russia was a threat to the region and urged central European NATO member states to boost their cooperation. He said the Visegrad Group comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia should work together to have their voices heard on security policy.
Gergely Berzi, director for foreign affairs at Hungary’s 21st Century Institute, said
the enlargement of NATO to include the Balkan countries could be achieved quicker than many would hope.
He did not rule out that Serbia, too, would eventually have an interest in deepening its ties with the Euro-Atlantic bloc.
“It has once again been made clear that pro-migration forces want to make the United Nations’ global migration compact, the world’s most dangerous migration document, mandatory,” Hungary’s foreign minister said on Monday.
At the UN General Assembly’s recent vote on the implementation of the global migration compact adopted last December, 118 countries voted in favour of the document, five against it, with 13 abstentions and 57 countries not voting, Péter Szijjártó told MTI.
None of the Visegrád Group countries backed the compact’s implementation, with the Czech Republic abstaining and Slovakia staying away from the most recent vote, he said, arguing that this again demonstrated the strength of the V4’s unity.
The minister said he had reached an agreement with Poland’s inerior minister and his Estonian counterpart on establishing a warning mechanism enabling their countries to “move against such pro-migration proposals in their early phases, whether they are drawn up in the UN or in Brussels”.
Ursula von der Leyen would not have been nominated for the post of European Commission president without support from the Hungarian government and the Visegrád countries and she “could not have been elected without the votes of (Hungary’s ruling) Fidesz MEPs,” the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Thursday.
“We have trust in the president-elect but that trust has been vested in advance,” he said, adding that the new commission would have to “fix many mistakes left behind by outgoing EC head Jean-Claude Juncker” such as the way the body handled the migration crisis. He also criticised the EC for delays in increasing the efficiency of border controls and its “failure to reimburse Hungary for its border control measures”.
He also blamed the EC for uncertainties around Brexit.
Gulyás insisted that the EU’s spitzenkandidat system has failed, as “none of the top candidates were supported by a majority of EU heads of state and government” and the council’s candidate won the post in the end. Neither Frans Timmermans nor Manfred Weber have been elected, Gulyás said, adding that the commission is now “not headed by a person who attacked any members states before or someone who is made by his political past unsuitable to act as a coordinator or guardian of the EU treaties”.
Concerning the election of officials to commissions of the European Parliament, Gulyás said that “national interests must be promoted in international organisations, too”. He insisted that “if a politician is given a mandate by Hungarian voters, they must represent the Hungarian interest”.
Fidesz would “observe the consensus” even if “we did not find a communist, liberal, or green candidate eligible”, he said.
Answering a question about remarks by Von der Leyen concerning her commitment to European values, Gulyás said that “we could fight together against those seeking to weaken Europe’s values” such as ethnic minority rights.
Concerning a call by a United Nations rapporteur that the Hungarian government should reconsider its decision to extend a state of crisis with regard to a migration pressure, Gulyás said that it was up to the interior ministry to come up with a proposal once the current crisis state term was over, which the government would consider. He added that the UN report “should be taken with reservations” because “the UN position on migration has been well-known”.
Employees of the judiciary sector may see their wages raised as soon as next year, Judit Varga, who was sworn in as justice minister last week, told public news channel M1 late on Monday.
Varga said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had voiced support for the wage hikes as current wages in the sector are “humiliatingly low”.
On policy issues, Varga said
she would follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, László Trócsányi, who has gone on to work as an MEP. The ministry is also taking on the task of supporting Hungary’s EU policy, she said.
The EU’s objections to the Hungarian judiciary system are part of a “witch hunt”, and are politically motivated, Varga said. She said she would continue to represent Hungary’s interests in the Article 7 procedure started last year that could eventually strip the country of its voting rights in the bloc.
Regarding the Visegrad Group, Varga said the cooperation among the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia was “incredibly successful”.
“We managed to stop” EPP candidate Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans, the spitzenkandidat of the Party of European Socialists, from becoming head of the European Commission, she said.
The final candidate German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen’s “past and personality” suggest that she will be more open to the problems specific for central Europe, she said.
On the issue of migration, Varga said the goal was to find a long-term solution respecting all states’ interests.
The European Commission needs a leader who respects countries in Central Europe, cabinet chief Antal Rogán said on public radio on Sunday.
Rogán said on Kossuth Radio that voters had given the government a mandate to stop immigration, thus supporters of immigration could not be among those nominated for the European Union’s top jobs.
He said the Socialists’ candidate Frans Timmermans as well as the European People’s Party spitzenkandidat Manfred Weber were clearly supporters of immigration, adding that Weber had insulted Hungary and Hungarians in his statements on a number of occasions, saying he did not want the votes of Hungarians.
“Somebody who doesn’t enjoy the support of the new member states in Central Europe cannot become the head of the European Commission. That is a new development,” Rogán said. “The voice of Central Europe has now been heard.”
Rogán said central European countries want leaders who won’t force upon them the will of other countries. He added that Western Europe has experience with immigration, while Central Europe does not.
He said Viktor Orbán had asked Ursula von der Leyen on the phone whether, as the candidate for the position of EC president, she was prepared to give the appropriate degree of respect to Hungary and Central European nations. He added that von der Leyen promised she would.
Rogán said von der Leyen was supported by 27 of the 28 members of the European Council.
The recent summit of European Union leaders was a successful one for the Visegrád Group and central Europe, the incoming justice minister told a joint session of parliament’s EU affairs and justice committees on Thursday.
She said it had become clear at the summit that “the old routine of the largest EU member states dividing up posts among themselves does not work anymore.”
Varga hailed the success of the V4 at the EU summit, saying those that formed alliances and stood up for their own interests while representing them consistently achieved their desired outcomes.
A new era has begun in Europe, Varga said, adding that the bloc now had a chance to “correct certain mistakes” in areas such as economic policy, migration and the rule of law.
She said the EU’s success lay in maintaining a community that respects nation states and cooperation based on mutual respect.
Referring to changes in the Hungarian government, she said it was logical to put judicial and EU affairs under one roof, since most EU legislation has an impact on the national legal system.
Varga has been nominated by the prime minister for the post of justice minister. She is to replace László Trocsányi, who will take up his post as an MEP in Brussels.
Varga said that the solution to migration must be for the long term and take into consideration the interests of all countries. Member states should not be punished if their response to migration diverges from the mainstream, she added.
Meanwhile, she said the EU should take its enlargement policy more seriously, adding that a larger EU was needed without deepening integration.
Regarding the EU budget, she said that quality was more important than speed. Further, current disputes over the rule of law should be concluded rather than new tools created to handle them, she said.
On domestic matters, Varga said it was important to prevent overregulation and cut red tape in order to boost competitiveness.
The justice committee supported Varga’s nomination with 8 votes for and 2 against, while the EU affairs committee voted 6 – 2 in her favour.
Serious mistakes were made in the European Union in the past few year which will have to be set right, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public news channel m1 after the extraordinary meeting of the heads of state and government of the European Union to nominate the new heads of EU bodies after the May elections.
The extraordinary session was convened for Sunday, and postponed on Monday after the European Council failed to reach an agreement in a marathon session.
The meeting resumed on Tuesday, when the council nominated German politician Ursula von der Leyen for the position of head of the European Commission, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel for head of the European Council and Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell for High Representative for the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Orbán said in the interview that although economic policy, migration policy and “respect for the nations” were still problematic issues, the chances to find a solution were much better now.
The future still “holds battles” as differences in opinion prevail, he said.
“An important victory has been achieved but new debates keep coming up in international politics,” he said. “At least now we have the strength to stand up for ourselves,” he added.
The Visegrad Group‘s role is especially important now, and not only in light of the recent events, Orbán said. The alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland is a “success story”, he said, as the group of nations showing the most solidarity with each other within the bloc.
Orbán praised Andrej Babis, prime minister of the Czech Republic which currently holds the V4 rotating presidency, for keeping the group united.
The Visegrad Group leaders represent 62 to 63 million people together, their combined trade volume with Germany exceeds that of France or Italy, and these countries have the fastest economic growth and fastest falling unemployment rate, he noted.
Two politicians were considered for EC head who would have been “more than bad” for Hungary, as they had demonstrated that they did not respect the country or its citizens, Orbán said. Their nomination was successfully “thwarted”, he said, and they were replaced with a German mother of seven.
“This in itself shows that change is afoot in Europe,” he said.
The seventh Antall József Summer School will provide the backdrop to discussions about Visegrád cooperation and pressing topics affecting the region, Peter Dobrowieczki, the head of the Antall József EU-V4 Knowledge Centre told public media on Sunday.
The goal of the two-week professional training programme, held every year since 2013, is to highlight the strong presence of the central European region and the Visegrád Group in particular, Dobrowieczki told the M1 current affairs channel.
Students from the neighborhood to the west or east do not necessarily see clearly what central Europe wants to achieve in Europe in the second decade of the 21st century, he said.
The school’s foreign policy, security and cultural programme will allow participants to gain insights into the life of the region, he added.
This year, security will be the primary topic in light of the NATO accession anniversary of the Visegrád states and current security challenges facing the EU.
Each year, 30-35 students arrive from various countries and a total of 250-300 students have participated in the programme so far, he noted.
Visegrád Group leaders are in agreement that only candidates for European Union leadership positions who understand central Europe’s problems and identify with its viewpoint would be acceptable to them, Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international communications and relations, told a press conference on Saturday.
The V4 prime ministers held a meeting in Prague and agreed on the principles for choosing leaders and the positions they would represent in Brussels at the summit of EU leaders on Sunday.
He said top-tier candidates such as Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans were unacceptable and neither could count on V4 support. European People’s Party candidate Weber, he added, had insulted other European states besides Hungary.
Commenting on a report in German paper Die Welt that EU leaders had agreed at the G20 summit in Osaka on Friday that Weber should not be the next European Commission president, Kovács said such reports must always be treated with caution.
Kovács underlined that the V4 had not supported the spitzenkandidat system for five years, since this method of selecting the EC chief did not reflect the will of the European people.
He added that it was in everyone’s interest to make a decision on the EU leadership as soon as possible.
