Visegrád Group – In February, the V4 countries had two meeting in order to strengthen their cooperation in tourism and on constitutional law.
On February 14-15, the V4 countries held a meeting in Warsaw. A common marketing plan has been set up. More and more people from the V4 travel to other countries of the group, and also many tourists from countries such as China, Korea and India do plan trips including several countries of the V4, making it important to enhance common touristic policies and strategies. Hungarian representatives underlined this point, explaining that Hungary 2016 new record in the touristic area is partly due to this cooperation.
The V4 members agreed on new targets for their marketing, namely young people by using the social networks, and countries such as Russia, USA, China and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
During the meeting, it has been said that the CEEC could be represented at Macao’s 6. Global Tourism Economic Forum, which could be a huge opportunity to make know the region’s potential.
A historical conference about constitutional law
Hungarian Constitutional Court organized a conference with their Polish, Czech and Slovak counterparts in Budapest on February 16. The topic of the judicial meeting and of the conference was “Preserving Constitutional identity within the European Union” and all four participating Constitutional Courts exchanged their views and experiences related thereto.
Despite the different scope of Constitutional identity´s content in particular countries, there was a univocal consent on the role of Constitutional Courts in description and protection of fundamental values established by national constitutions, reports usoud.cz.
Pavel Rychetský, the President of the Czech Constitutional Court, expressed his satisfaction to see the cooperation of the V4 countries extended to the level of the constitutional courts. The President of the Slovak Constitutional Court, Marianna Mochnáčová, made clear her joy to answer the invitation of the Hungarian Constitutional Court with which they have a very good relation. She underlined that Slovakia is a sovereign, democratic state of Law, and that the conditions to hand over some competences to the EU are that the EU does not threaten in any form the sovereignty and the state of Law of the country.
Lech Morawski, representative of the Polish Constitutional Court, spoke about the current crisis in Poland, explaining the political nature of the conflict.
Finally, at the press conference hold after the meeting, Tamás Sulyok, president of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, explained that questions such as the defense of Human dignity and its fundamental rights depend on the Constitutional Courts. Therefore, it is important for EU members to discuss on these topics. This is why, he said, Hungary wanted to start this cooperation on the V4 level, giving the V4 cooperation a new dimension, namely the collaboration of the Constitutional Courts.
