{"id":2397,"date":"2022-11-26T14:48:08","date_gmt":"2022-11-26T14:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=2397"},"modified":"2025-05-27T14:52:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T13:52:34","slug":"visegrad-group-summit-in-kosice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2022\/11\/26\/visegrad-group-summit-in-kosice\/","title":{"rendered":"Visegr\u00e1d Group Summit in Ko\u0161ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slovakia<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Visegr\u00e1d countries have held their planned summit despite press reports that the event would be postponed or even cancelled. Things actually seem to have gone smoothly, and there was plenty of agreement among the four Central European countries.<\/p>\n

After the dispute\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

The week before, the speakers of Czechia\u2019s Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Mark\u00e9ta Pekarov\u00e1 Adamov\u00e1 (TOP 09) and Milo\u0161 Vystr\u010dil (ODS), had decided to boycott a meeting with their V4 counterparts, which was to be held in Slovakia\u2019s capital Bratislava. The parliamentary summit was therefore cancelled, but this did not prevent the four countries\u2019 prime ministers from meeting as scheduled on Thursday, 24 November in Ko\u0161ice, also in Slovakia.<\/p>\n

The two Czech speakers, who are central to the five-party coalition that has been in power in Prague for almost a year, strongly condemn what they see as an excessively conciliatory attitude on the part of the Orb\u00e1n government towards the Kremlin since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. They also reproach Budapest for its energy policy, which they describe as \u201cnon-collegial\u201d vis-\u00e0-vis its European partners.<\/p>\n

Milo\u0161 Vystr\u010dil\u00a0said to\u00a0Seznam Zpr\u00e1vy<\/em>:\u00a0\u201cConsider, for example, the fact that the Hungarians are negotiating bilaterally with Russia on the supply of certain energy commodities. This does not allow for a united stance by the EU countries, and thus for the promotion of our objectives in this energy crisis.<\/em>\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark\u00e9ta Pekarov\u00e1 went even further when explaining her decision to boycott the parliamentary meeting:\u00a0\u201cIt is always the Hungarians who are the last to agree to a sanctions package, demanding concessions and threatening not to support further sanctions. Moreover, they are capable of using the issue of war internally against the EU. They are Russia\u2019s Trojan horse and I feel it is important to send them a clear signal that this is unacceptable.<\/em>\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

These are accusations to which the speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, L\u00e1szl\u00f3 K\u00f6v\u00e9r, a close ally to Viktor Orb\u00e1n, responded on 17 November: \u201cThe four countries have succeeded over the past thirty years in overcoming their ideological differences and cooperating at the regional level to represent our common interests. The remarks of the Czech Parliament\u2019s speakers towards us are unfair and disrespectful. They do not match the facts and they question the Hungarian government\u2019s right to pursue the country\u2019s national interests.<\/em>\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 a show of agreement<\/strong><\/p>\n

But despite some disharmony among the Visegr\u00e1d Four due to\u00a0Hungary\u2019s divergent attitude towards the war in Ukraine, the heads of government of the Visegr\u00e1d Group did meet again on 24 November, for a new summit in Ko\u0161ice, in the east of Slovakia, the country which currently holds the group\u2019s rotating presidency until July 2023.<\/p>\n

On this occasion, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n recalled that the V4 countries\u2019 cooperation is a 30-year success story, which came into being because these countries were convinced that they had common interests and many common positions. He also pointed out that there is \u2013 in relation to the Russian\u2013Ukrainian conflict \u2013 an agreement on strategic objectives within the V4.<\/p>\n

His Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki \u2013 whose country is spearheading European support for Ukraine against Russia \u2013 summed up the context of this summit\u00a0in the following way\u00a0on his official Facebook profile: \u201cThe Visegr\u00e1d Group has firmly established itself in the European security architecture. Some have recently looked at us only through the prism of what makes us differ.<\/em><\/p>\n

We, on the other hand, have met face to face to talk about what unites us, because the V4 is a very important forum for cooperation in many areas.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today we focused on the topics of energy and military security. We discussed all the most important issues \u2013 with very positive conclusions for the region.<\/em><\/p>\n

Our position is clear. The war in Ukraine must end, with full respect for its independence and borders.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We have also reached agreement on the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. There is a concrete date. Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n has given his assurance that Hungary will ratify their accession at the beginning of the year, for which I thank him very much.<\/em><\/p>\n

The high price for gas is paid by all citizens of Poland, Slovakia, Czechia and Hungary. We call on the European Commission to react decisively. The maximum gas price currently proposed is far too high. The Visegr\u00e1d Group, together with Spain and Greece, are calling for it to be lowered.<\/em><\/p>\n

Another thing is the European Trading System, which in our opinion should be frozen for at least two years at a level of \u20ac20\u201330 per tonne of CO2.<\/em><\/p>\n

The aid we give to Ukraine as NATO\u2019s eastern flank countries will continue to flow. We must also ask Western Europe and the rest of the EU not to lose their vigilance. The coming months could be very difficult, and we are appealing to the European Commission to increase funding and humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees.<\/em><\/p>\n

The cooperation of the Visegr\u00e1d Group sets an example for the rest of Europe. Remembering that we are different, we are able to come to common solutions that are good for all.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala explained that he was convinced that the V4\u2019s cooperation made sense and had a future, and that it would continue at ministerial level. About the Ko\u0161ice summit, he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to have an open dialogue on issues where we have different positions.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that this was happening while respecting those positions, with a consensus emerging on many substantive issues concerning Ukraine, including on the need to preserve Ukraine\u2019s territorial integrity and to assist it militarily and financially in its fight against Russian aggression.<\/p>\n

Finally, Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger, who was hosting the summit, asked for help from his counterparts in dealing with the impending health crisis in Slovakia, where his government has not been able to reach a final agreement with the doctors\u2019 unions on salary increases, a situation which has led to the resignation of more than two thousand doctors.<\/p>\n

Referring in passing to the reaction to Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s supporter\u2019s scarf at a recent football match \u2013 a scarf with a map of Hungary in its pre-1920 borders, a motif that is ubiquitous in Hungary \u2013 Eduard Heger\u00a0took a diplomatic tone, saying:\u00a0\u201cI noticed that Viktor Orb\u00e1n had an old scarf, so I gave him a new one today.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0To which Viktor Orb\u00e1n replied\u00a0\u201cHungarian and Slovak, two good friends!<\/em>\u201d\u00a0(Magyar-szlov\u00e1k k\u00e9t j\u00f3 bar\u00e1t!<\/em>) before posing with his Slovakian counterpart under the new scarf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Slovakia\u00a0\u2013 The Visegr\u00e1d countries have held their planned summit despite press reports that the event would be postponed or even cancelled. Things actually seem to have gone smoothly, and there was plenty of agreement among the four Central European countries. After the dispute\u2026 The week before, the speakers of Czechia\u2019s Chamber of Deputies and Senate,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"acf":{"subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}