Government: Balkan states should be helped to become members of the EU
The Balkans are likely to present “the next big opportunity” for the European Union, and the region could become the bloc’s next economic motor, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday, addressing the Conference of Speakers of Parliaments of the Visegrád Group and south-eastern Europe. The V4 and Balkan countries may end up building together the most significant economic area of the entire European continent, he said.
“If the Balkan nations get an opportunity, just as the Visegrád countries did, they will pick up speed within a few years, strengthen their economies and real growth, and economic progress will come to the EU from the Balkans,” he said.
The EU membership of Balkan countries is even more in the interest of the EU
than the other way round, not only from the point of security but also in terms of Western economic interests, he added.
“If they are unable to channel the Balkans’ vitality and endeavours into EU economy, they will miss a great opportunity,” he said, and encouraged the Balkan countries to present their demands for EU membership with “the utmost self-confidence”. Orbán said that had the predecessors of current western leaders not taken the step for enlargement, the EU would be much weaker today. Because, he added, that extra growth and performance currently came from central Europe.
If central European countries were not members of the EU today, living standards in the west would be much lower than they are, Orbán said. Combined trade between the Visegrád Group countries and Germany is double that of France-Germany and three times trade between Italy and Germany, he added. “It is not an exaggeration to say that the Germany economy would collapse without central Europe,” he said.
Orbán said the path to the EU for the peoples of the Balkans led through central Europe.
The countries of the Balkans should not be made into a buffer zone but should instead be integrated into the bloc,
he added. No matter how strongly the commissioner in charge of enlargement works on this, the real integration of the Balkans requires political and strategic decisions that are made not by the commisioners, and not even the European Commission, but the European Council made up of the prime ministers and presidents of European countries, Orbán said.
“As long as they do not decide to integrate the Balkans, we will be part of a continually extending process where we get lost in detail, with regulatory issues in focus instead of strategic matters; and actually it is all about playing for time,” he added.
Orbán said western European heads of state and government currently lacked the will for further enlargement
which, he added, was a “serious mistake”. At the same time, central Europe has been continually and persistently supporting it, he noted. The prime minister proposed that the V4 and Balkan countries should jointly develop the most significant economic region of Europe as a whole.
“We have a chance to do that, and … there will come the moment when the Balkan countries will be as crucial for the European economy as the V4 countries already are,” Orbán said. To this effect, these nations should first join the European Union, integrate themselves through the central European region and make themselves indispensable to the German, Italian and French economies, he said.
The V4 countries see the Balkans not only as an economic target but also as a strategic opportunity, providing security and helpig to expand Europe’s most dynamically developing region, Orbán said.
“We want railways, bridges and roads to emerge, to connect our energy supply networks,
and see that Balkan countries are not only on the receiving end of foreign investments but manufacture competitive products and then come to us as investors,” he said.
Speaker of Parliament László Kövér said that over the past three decades
25 million workers had left the region covering the Baltic states to the Balkans, heading to western Europe, and another 20 million were expected to follow by 2050.
Citing estimates, he said: “This way our region has financed the welfare of western Europe to the tune of 1,000 billion euros”. “It follows that all countries in the region have the right to be self-confident if they are blackmailed by Brussels — as is the case when it comes to what EU calls as support or the post-pandemic recovery funds due to Poland and Hungary,” Kover said.
Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi told the event that Western Balkan countries had a place in the EU. Nobody needs to be convinced anymore that the accession of the Western Balkans is a social, economic, geographical and historical reality and political necessity, he added. At the same time, this recognition must be followed up by action, he said. The EC in its current composition supports EU enlargement to embrace the Western Balkans and offers real integration to the region, he added.
Does Hungary still want to be part of the EU? – Foreign Affairs Minister answers
A strong European Union is in Hungary’s interest, but for the bloc to be strong it must embrace change, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said ahead of an annual right-wing event held in Kötcse, in western Hungary, on Saturday.
Noting that 77-78 percent of Hungary’s exports end up in the EU, Szijjártó said it was in Hungary’s interest to be an EU member, though this also applied the other way round. He added that he still backed Hungary’s EU membership.
Referring to a recent meeting of EU foreign ministers in Slovenia, the minister said
it was a matter of concern that the bloc’s largest countries “cannot grasp that giving migrants carte blanche to enter the EU in 2015 caused the bloc its biggest crisis”.
He warned that the same mistake may well be repeated, “although now there are more and more of us who dare to speak out,” he added.
Szijjártó declared the Visegrád Group to be the strongest alliance within the EU “despite attempts to weaken” it.
Meanwhile, answering a question about the recent England-Hungary football match held in Budapest, Szijjártó condemned the racist abuse used by fans, though he said it was “offensive” to tar all Hungarian fans with the same brush.
“There were racist expressions, but passing judgement over 60,000-70,000 people on that basis is absurd,” he said.
Last year’s Kötcse Picnic, which would have been organised for the 20th time, was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Featured image: MTI/Máthé Zoltán
V4 countries to help Lithuania halt migrants, says Hungarian minister ?
The Visegrad Group countries, which oppose the mandatory resettlement quotas and Brussels’ immigration policy, have agreed to help Lithuania contain the wave of refugees from Belarus, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said after talks with his V4 counterparts on Monday.
The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia will specify the details in the days to come and coordinate the various forms of aid to Lithuania, including human resources, technical equipment and erecting a fence along the border, Szijjártó told a press conference in front of the town hall of Komarom in northern Hungary.
“The Visegrad countries will jointly help their Lithuanian friends defend the external borders of the European Union,” he said.
Szijjártó said
the Hungarian presidency of the Visegrad Group gave priority to boosting quick economic recovery in the whole region.
As tax rises would not help the economy restart, Hungary continues to oppose the introduction of the global minimum tax, he said.
Praising the four countries for the fiscal and financial discipline, Szijjártó said that
“those who are unable to conduct disciplined policies should not impose higher taxes stemming from their incorrect fiscal policies on us.”
The minister said that Hungary’s trade with its three Visegrad partners amounted to 30 billion euros last year. He added that the three countries concerned accounted for 15 percent of Hungary’s trade turnover in 2020 and the first four months of this year.
Asked about press reports suggesting that an Israeli spy software had been used in Hungary to collect information on opposition politicians and journalists, Szijjártó said
the Information Office under his control had never used the software in question and had not entered any kind of cooperation in connection with it.
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Slovak counterpart Ivan Korcok told the press conference that the foreign ministers’ exchange of ideas about the future of the EU had been extremely useful and important. He said
it must be noted in Slovakia and in the Visegrad Group that “we cannot see the danger of the EU moving towards a superstate” and pursuing ambitions to become an empire.
At the same time, it must be made clear that the EU is not above criticism, he added.
The Visegrad Group should state it more often that there is no alternative to being in the EU and the countries should discuss more often “what and how we want to do in the EU”, he said.
Korcok and Czech counterpart Jan Kohout both said that their respective countries supported Lithuania and they praised the planned programme of Hungary’s V4 presidency.
Kohout said
the Hungarian presidency’s targets were important not only for central Europe but for the whole of Europe and welcomed its priority target to strengthen neighbourly relations.
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said that Poland wanted to see Europe’s population getting more involved in the debate about the EU’s future. Only politicians have had experiences so far about the workings of EU institutions, yet the majority of their decisions affect ordinary citizens, he added.
Commenting on the migration situation in Lithuania, he noted “the Lukashenka regime’s extraordinary pressure” and said that Vilnius had asked for help from each of the V4 countries separately and the group wanted to coordinate their effort to give help, acting as “a strong advocate” for Lithuania “when the Baltic country faces such a unprecedented challenge”.
Hungary builds new nuclear reactors but is committed to green transition, too
Governors of the central banks of the Visegrád Group countries and the region’s leading financial experts on Thursday held a conference on green transition in the region, organised by the National Bank of Hungary (NBH). The Gradual Transition into a Greener Economy – Challenges and Opportunities conference was opened by NBH governor György Matolcsy, NBH said.
The alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia is prevalent in several policy areas, including cooperation between the countries’ central banks, the statement said. NBH is committed to supporting regional cooperation and strengthening ties within the group, it said.
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown into relief the importance of the green transition,
a task seen as a priority by the region’s central banks, the statement said.
Matolcsy said in his address that gradual transition to a green economy was key to a successful Visegrád Group. While the pandemic has opened new opportunities to such a transition, the process is most effective in international cooperation, the panelists said.
Ministry: Croatia key player in building up Central Europe
Croatia is a key player when it comes to developing central Europe, Zsolt Nemeth, the head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said at an event marking the start of Hungary’s presidency of the Visegrád Group, at the Hungarian embassy in Zagreb on Tuesday.
Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the V4 from Poland on July 1.
“When we talk about the V4, we mean all of central Europe, and this also carries great opportunities for Croatia,” Németh said.
He said the V4 presidency was the second most important leadership role for Hungarian diplomacy after the country’s current six-month presidency of the Council of Europe.
“Central Europe is a success story and we want to make it even stronger but also expand it to all of Europe,” Németh said.
He underscored the importance of linking the countries of central Europe, noting that Hungary will extend its M6 motorway to the Croatian border, from where it will pass through Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, leading to Ploce on the Adriatic coast.
Németh said the ongoing debate on the future of the European Union was an “excellent opportunity” for Hungary to share its vision for a Europe of nations over a “federal, imperial EU”.
Gordan Grlic-Radman, Croatia’s minister for foreign and European affairs, expressed his country’s support for Hungary’s goal to overcome the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.
Children’s programmes, folk dance, concerts, bike competition today in the Várkert Bazár, Budapest!
Hungary’s presidency of the Visegrád Group will feature several cultural events, programmes and campaigns, the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTÜ) said on Friday.
Hungary officially took over the V4 presidency for twelve months on July 1 with the formal opening event of the presidency taking place in Budapest’s Várkert Bazár on July 10.
The schedule on Saturday includes children’s programmes beginning at 10am to be followed by
folk dance performances, a BMX competition and meeting with the winner of 2020 Tour de Hongrie, and a pop concert,
MTÜ told MTI in a statement.
Hungary, holding the V4 rotating presidency for the sixth time, has set the goal to successfully relaunch Central Europe, and the whole of the EU, in the economic, social and diplomatic sectors. The presidency also aims to intensify cooperation and partnership among the four member states.
Wall painting marking 30th anniversary of Visegrád Group inaugurated in Budapest
V4 to speed up development plans, says foreign minister
The Visegrád Group countries plan to further and speed up their development plans, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Ljubljana on Friday, after a meeting of the heads of government of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
One key development is a high-speed railway between the Visegrád countries, he said, adding that such railways are scarce commodities in central Europe.
The new railway line is planned to link Warsaw and Budapest via the Czech Republic and Bratislava, Szijjártó said.
The feasibility study for the Hungarian section has already been completed, and the V4 working group for transport issues is convening in September, he added.
The 170-kilometre section will mostly follow a new route, south of the Vertes Hills, to keep environmental stress the lowest possible, and will have a direct link to the western European high-speed railway network near the triple boundary of Hungary, Austria and Slovakia, Szijjártó said.
The track will be suitable for maximum speeds ranging from 230 to 320km/h pending the terrain, he said, adding that travel time from Budapest to Bratislava will be reduced by an hour and a half, to Prague by three and a half hours and to Warsaw by five and a half hours.
Once completed, the high-speed railway will have a capacity to carry 20 million passengers a year, Szijjártó said. Further, it may help reduce annual carbon emission by 400,000 tonnes in central Europe, he said.
PM Orbán: Hungary to back Slovenia’s EU presidency
The European Union will have to address a number of serious issues over the next six months, but it is fortunate that the European Council will be headed by Slovenia during this period, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said after a summit of the Visegrád Group countries and Slovenia in Ljubljana on Friday.
Addressing a news conference, Orbán identified the relaunch of the economy as the bloc’s most pressing issue. This, he said, required investments, security and the expansion of markets.
The key to boosting investments, he said, was keeping taxes level or cutting them. Security is conditional on central Europe maintaining a joint position on its opposition to migrant redistribution quotas, he added. The prime minister also said that the EU markets could only be expanded if the Western Balkan countries are admitted into the bloc as soon as possible, thereby making the EU stronger.
“Over the coming months, Hungary will do everything it can to support Slovenia’s EU presidency so that it is successful,” Orbán said.
The cooperation of central European countries is “no theory but practice,” Orbán said, pointing to the “exemplary” aid the countries provided to each other during the coronavirus pandemic.
Slovenia, with Janez Jansa as prime minister, has acted as EU president once before, Orbán said, adding that “Jansa, as one of the anti-Communist camp, has the historical perpective to assess European matters.”
In response to a question, Orbán said migration had two sources: Asia and the Sahel region. “We are withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and cutting the number of men in Sahel, too,” he said, referring to NATO’s recent withdrawal from the central Asian country. The decision will have consequences, “everyone will have to prepare for migration waves from Afghanistan,” Orbán warned.
The European Union should focus on “important issues” such as the pandemic, the restart of the bloc’s economy and migration, Orbán said.
Instead, the European Union is “waging a rule-of-law jihad to divert attention from real problems,” Orbán insisted, adding that the rule of law should not be used as a political weapon, he added.
Orbán said the European Union’s situation has changed since the mid-00’s, when “there were new member states and old ones.” By now, the rift is between countries with “high state debt, low growth and scores of migrants destabilising security, and those which keep debt under control, grow swiftly and have protected themselves from migrants and so they are stable,” he said, adding that central Europe belongs to the latter category.
Janza’s “great task” is to unite those two “very different” camps, Orbán said. Slovenia, as “the westernmost central European country,” is ideally suited to the task, he said.
Jansa told the same news conference that since its accession to the EU, Slovenia has cooperated well with the Visegrad Group and often “coordinated priorities”.
As the country holding the rotating presidency of the European Council since July 1, Slovenia has a responsibility to find solutions to the challenges the bloc is facing, he said.
Jansa thanked the Visegrad Group countries for their support of Slovenia during the coronavirus epidemic. “While the European Union failed to organise aid, these countries supported Slovenia with shipments of protective gear and vaccines,” he said.
PM Orbán: imperialists always exploited the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia
It is important that the Visegrád Group (V4) countries get to know each other’s culture as much as possible, Bence Rétvári, parliamentary state secretary of the Ministry of Human Resources, said in Nagymaros on Thursday.
Rétvári addressed a cultural event celebrating Hungary’s taking over the presidency of the Visegrad Group from Poland for the next year. Rétvári told journalists that besides political and economic cooperation, cultural ties were also important.
He said that historically imperialists entering the region, whether from the west, east or south, had
exploited the culture of all four Visegrád countries
— Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — for their own purposes while attempting to impose their own cultures.
V4 cultural cooperation, however, was all about mutual respect and striving to become deeply familiar with each other’s culture.
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.
The world’s largest free trade area has been established in Asia and the United Kingdom quitted the European Union, he said. The prime minister said that good relations with Britain should be maintained even after Brexit.
Orbán said that if the V4 countries were considered a single entity today, they would represent the world’s 17th largest economy, with economic growth twice as fast as the EU’s and public debt representing only 4 percent of that in the EU. After Germany, the V4 countries include the highest number of workers in the EU, he said.
In response to a question, Orbán said that overcoming the area’s lag in infrastructure development was a priority. During the Cold War, connections were established in east-west direction and the situation has not changed since, he said. However, building north-south links have now become vitally important for the V4 countries. It remains to be seen, however, how much EU funding can be involved in this programme, he said.
Orbán said central Europe represented considerable economic weight in the EU economy. The central European nations are full members of the European Union with major contributions to its overall performance that help the bloc keep pace with other regions. Accordingly, they demand due respect, he said.
The prime minister said Hungarians will never accept other EU members telling them how to raise their children. Nor will they accept anyone saying that a central European nation should be brought to its knees, he said.
Wall painting marking 30th anniversary of Visegrad Group inaugurated in Budapest
A government official on Wednesday inaugurated a wall painting in downtown Budapest, marking the 30th anniversary of the Visegrád Group, and praised the group as Europe’s strongest political alliance, which is gaining economic weight, too.
The alliance comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia is “synonymous with common sense, cooperation and strength, and the restart after the pandemic” in Europe, Tamás Menczer, a state secretary of the foreign ministry, said.
“We want a Europe in which cooperation is based on mutual respect and strong nation states,” he said.
Jerzy Snopek, Poland’s Ambassador to Hungary, noted that the painting was being inaugurated on the last day of Poland holding the group’s rotating presidency. He said that Hungary, which will start its one-year presidency tomorrow, will hopefully be able to lead the V4 in a “better epidemiological situation”.
Péter Fekete, the state secretary in charge of culture, said the V4 will organise a joint conference on cultural innovations borne out of the pandemic during the Hungarian presidency, which will be followed by an exhibition in Strasbourg.
Joanna Urbanska, the director of the Polish Institute in Budapest, said the wall painting designed by Magda Miszczak is also being inaugurated in Bratislava, Prague and Warsaw.
The painting adorns a wall of 32 Klauzal Street, in the 7th district of Budapest.
PM Orbán: Ties with Slovakia better than ever
Taking the past ten years into account, ties with Slovakia have never been better than they are today, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said after talks with Slovak counterpart Eduard Heger in his office on Tuesday.
With trade turnover of over 10 billion euros, Slovakia is Hungary’s third biggest trading partner, trailing only Germany and Austria, Orbán told a joint press conference. He added that the year-on-year increase exceeded 9 percent so far this year.
The government is happy to see Slovak investors show an increased interest in Hungary, Orbán said. He welcomed that Hungary continued to see investments from Slovakia in 2020 as well.
“We’ve looked at the last ten years of our partnership,” the prime minister said. “We must say that our ties have never been better than they are today.”
This, Orbán said, required a meeting of two successful countries. He praised the last ten years of Slovakia’s economic achievements as a “fantastic success story”, noting that the two countries also had “shared success stories”.
In terms of the EU’s enlargement with the Western Balkan countries, Hungary and Slovakia “are playing from the same score”, Orbán said, adding that the two countries have an identical approach to the issue of migration and have a high regard for Visegrad cooperation. The V4 are set to meet in Katowice, in south-western Poland, on Wednesday, he said, adding that Hungary would aim to do “the best job possible” in coordinating the cooperation among the four countries.
Concerning Hungary and Slovakia’s shared achievements, Orbán noted the inauguration of a new bridge spanning the Danube between Hungary and Slovakia near Komarom, northern Hungary and the construction of a motorway connecting Miskolc in north-eastern Hungary and Kosice (Kassa) in eastern Slovakia. Also, construction of a new bridge across the River Ipoly is set to begin next week, he said, adding that the two countries will open six new border crossing points between them by 2023.
Furthermore, Hungary and Slovakia have linked their electricity grids and gas pipelines, he said.
Plans are also underway to establish a high-speed rail link between Budapest and Bratislava which will also connect to Prague and Warsaw, Orbán added.
As regards ethnic communities, Orbán said Slovaks living in Hungary would receive all the support they need to preserve their cultural, educational and political identity, adding that the government will also contribute to the establishment of a Slovak cultural centre in Budapest.
Orbán thanked Heger for his “generosity” when it comes to the situation of ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia, expressing hope that Hungarian and Slovak ethnic minorities would serve as a bridge between the two nations.
“Now all that’s needed is a bit of luck and we’ll be able to show the world something that few would predict when we reopen our economies,” the prime minister said.
“For now, the vaccine remains the key factor, since the pandemic is only over for those who have been vaccinated,” Orbán said. “Sadly many in Hungary are deciding not to get the jab and remain at risk to the infection.” Orbán expressed hope that both countries would be successful in rebooting their economies so that they could “share another success story”.
Answering a question, Orbán said the Hungarian government will have to make “unexpected, forceful and serious decisions” with regard to the Hungarian economy in order to achieve 5.5 percent GDP growth in 2021, in which case it will be able to afford a tax refund for families.
Orbán warned that developments over the coming weeks would be crucial in achieving that goal. “Unless the operative body overseeing the relaunch of the Hungarian economy, headed by [Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade] Péter Szijjártó, submits 15-20 forceful and occasionally surprising measures to the government in the coming weeks, the 5.5 percent growth will not be achieved,” he said.
Orbán also noted “serious problems” in the construction industry, saying that steep rises in the price of materials had “syphoned away” government support for home reconstruction from families and into the pockets of manufacturers. Countermeasures could be discussed in government as soon as this week, he added.
Asked about the EU’s climate protection goals and a planned carbon tax, Orbán said the government disagreed with taxing households in the interest of climate protection. The V4 have so far been united in their opposition to such a plan, he said, adding that hopefully they would remain that way.
Asked about the debate on the future of the EU, Orbán said Hungary will be an active participant in it.
Advertisements the government has put out in foreign papers reflect its official position in the debate, he said, adding that parliament is expected to approve a resolution regarding the future of the bloc in the autumn.
The prime minister said he hoped that the debate will be followed up with some sort of European convention for talks on possible amendments to the bloc’s founding treaty.
Now not the time for budget cuts, says Hungarian finance minister
Economic policy should be focused on supporting investments, creating jobs and recovering capacities lost to the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Hungary’s finance minister said after a meeting with his Visegrad Group counterparts in Warsaw on Tuesday.
Now is not the time for contractionary measures, but for rebooting the economy, Mihály Varga told an online press conference. Cutting support to economic players too soon would slow the pace of recovery, posing a risk to families, businesses and the economy as a whole, he added.
Even with economy protection measures accounting for almost 30 percent of GDP, Hungary’s budget deficit was around the European Union average, while the public debt level was significantly lower, Varga said.
The minister expressed concern over international proposals for the introduction of a global minimum tax, saying it posed a risk of global tax increases, while the original plan to tax tech giants could fall by the wayside.
Hungary’s stance on the proposal is clear, Varga said, noting that the country rejects any plan that would force it to raise taxes and hurt its competitiveness. Hungary’s 9 percent corporate tax rate brings in investments, he said, adding that a tax increase would hurt thousands of businesses and put jobs at risk.
In response to a question, Varga said Hungary was prepared to take part in the talks on the global minimum tax plan and believed that its partners could be persuaded not to eliminate tax competition.
Hungary will make its position known at OECD and EU forums, Varga said, adding that he had also discussed the proposal with his V4 counterparts on Tuesday as well as with the representative of Italy, which holds the presidency of the G20, at last week’s Ecofin meeting in Luxembourg.
As the incoming president of the Visegrad Group, Hungary is committed to continuing the work started by Poland and to strengthening the alliance, Varga said.
The minister said the Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak economies had all contracted at a lower rate than the European Union average in 2020, adding that their output would be back at pre-pandemic levels this year.
V4, French economy ministers discuss pandemic, strengthening Europe’s economy in Krakow
The economy ministers of the four Visegrad Group countries and France discussed the experiences of the coronavirus pandemic and ways of strengthening Europe’s economy in the post-pandemic period in Krakow on Monday, Hungary’s innovation and technology minister told MTI by phone.
The ministers discussed in detail the economic, health care and social impact of the pandemic, László Palkovics said.
They established that Europe had faced a shortage of essential medical supplies and production capacities it would have needed to tackle the pandemic, Palkovics said, noting that Hungary had responded to the challenge by enhancing its domestic production capacities in ventilators, face masks and other medical supplies.
Discussing the economic aspect and the restarting of Europe’s economy, Palkovics said that global supply chains had posed a challenge but the industrial sector had recovered in a relatively short period of time.
“There is, however, still a shortage of some raw materials which must be tackled,” he said.
The five ministers also touched upon the issue of energy independence and agreed that the option of using nuclear energy and natural gas must be maintained.
The ministers signed a declaration on future cooperation in adjusting supply chains, ensuring financial schemes to European producers, developing the health-care sector and enhancing energy independency.
Speed railway system to link Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary
The transport ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia signed a cooperation agreement on developing the railway network of the region on Friday in Krakow, in southern Poland.
Deputy state secretary Péter Tóth, who represented Hungary at the talks, told a joint press conference that Hungary will see regional infrastructure development as a priority when it takes over the Visegrád Group’s rotating presidency in July.
The Visergád Group will also coordinate during talks with the European Union on the
The Visergád Group will also coordinate during talks with the European Union on the
development of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T),
he said.
The Hungarian stretch of the Via Carpathia, a north-south regional road, will be finished this year, Tóth said.
Andrzej Adamczyk, the Polish minister of infrastructure, said it was in the group’s interest that the region’s important transport corridors be included in TEN-T. Besides Via Carpathia, Adamczyk said the speed railway linking the four countries, the Danube-Odera-Elbe canal and the Polish central airport planned between Warsaw and Lodz should also receive funding.
The Hungarian stretch of the Via Carpathia, a north-south regional road, will be finished this year, Tóth said.
Andrzej Adamczyk, the Polish minister of infrastructure, said it was in the group’s interest that the region’s important transport corridors be included in TEN-T. Besides Via Carpathia, Adamczyk said the speed railway linking the four countries, the Danube-Odera-Elbe canal and the Polish central airport planned between Warsaw and Lodz should also receive funding.
Visegrád Group to set up a joint digital knowledge centre
Representatives of Visegrád Group countries have agreed to set up a joint digital knowledge centre to promote digital transformation in east central Europe and the development of digital economies in member countries, the IVSZ association for digital economy said on Friday.
The New V4lley Regional Digital Knowledge Centre is expected to further strengthen professional cooperation between all organisations participating in the development of the infocommunications sector in central Europe, the statement said.
Due to the unification of artificially fragmented markets, companies in the region can break through their boundaries,
IVSZ leader Balázs Vinnai said. The potentials offered by digitalisation could give a boost to the V4 region to become a European Silicon Valley, he added.
House Speaker: Hungary’s aim is to boost W Balkan states’ EU integration
Giving a boost to the Western Balkan countries’ integration into the European Union will be a priority for the Hungarian presidency of the Visegrad Group (V4), to start in July, Speaker of Parliament László Kövér said on Friday.
The Hungarian presidency will host meetings of V4 parliamentary speakers in July, September and next March. In September, it will be combined with a meeting of Western Balkan House speakers, Kövér told a meeting of V4 speakers of parliament in Wroclaw.
The Hungarian presidency, he said, would coordinate the work done by lawmakers in the Visegrád countries in preparation for European conferences, he said.
The V4 countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — will have a better chance of asserting their interests if they coordinate their positions on the future of Europe and disclose them as a group, Kövér said.
The Hungarian presidency will lay stress on protecting the cultural heritage and the identity of central Europe,
he said.
Further, the four countries are committed to developing regional defence cooperation, Kövér said.
The participants have approved a nine-point declaration on a variety of issues, including the situation in Belarus, the EU integration of Western Balkan countries and the Eastern Partnership policy.
V4 could be winners of post-pandemic ‘new world order’, says Foreign Minister
Through their cooperation, the Visegrád Group countries could come become winners of a post-pandemic ‘new world order’, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday.
Speaking after a meeting of V4 heads of diplomacy in Lodz, in central Poland, Szijjártó told a press conference that the alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia had been pursuing “economic and security policy strategies based on common sense”. Thanks to their joint efforts, mandatory quotas for the distribution of migrants have not been enforced in the European Union and central Europe has become the most attractive target for investment in Europe, he added.
“As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it is not an exaggeration to talk about an emerging new world order both in economy and politics,” he said.
“Close cooperation between the V4 countries ensures swift economic relaunch in the future and enables the group to belong among the winners of the new world order,” he added.
Central Europe has now become a major supplier to German industries, the “backbone of the European economy”, Szijjártó said, adding that trade turnover between the V4 and Germany had exceeded 300 billion euros in 2019.
Szijjártó noted the region’s disciplined fiscal policy and low taxes, saying that “Hungary will never support the introduction for any minimum tax at a global level”. “We will not raise taxes under international pressure; retaining tax policy making as a national competency is a guarantee for our competitiveness,” he said.
In another development, Szijjártó said that the Hungarian government insisted on its earlier position on mandatory migrant quotas. “We have seen that the idea of such quotas has not been given up in Brussels or in New York”.
“We must be alert so that what we managed to prevent once from happening, should not be smuggled back and jeopardise the security and self-determination of Europe,” he said.
Hungary is interested in a strong Europe, which “cannot exist without strong Christian values and communities”, Szijjártó said, adding that the Hungarian government would therefore “continue to support persecuted Christians in the world and insist that Europe’s fundamental Christian values be reinforced.”
The minister also said he hoped that agreements could soon be concluded within the Visegrád Group under which coronavirus vaccination certificates would be mutually accepted.