At a meeting in Prague on Friday, the Prime Ministers of the Visegrád Group (V4) countries agreed that they can only accept candidates for the European Union’s top positions who also understand Central Europe’s problems and are capable of identifying with the region’s criteria, State Secretary for international Communication and Relations Zoltán Kovács said at a press conference in Budapest on Saturday.

Mr. Zoltán told the press that prior to Sunday’s EU summit they had agreed on the principles relating to the selection of EU leaders and on the criteria that they will be representing in Brussels.

“The V4 reinforced their unity and the fundamental principles that they are insisting on. These include stopping migration, the concept of a Europe of nations, and the fact that Christian culture represents the foundations of the European Union”, he explained.

“Based on this, none of the so-called top candidates are acceptable, meaning that neither Manfred Weber nor Frans Timmermans can count on their support”, the State Secretary underlined.

Mr. Kovács said that Manfred Weber had insulted several other European states in addition to Hungary, while Frans Timmermans “essentially spent the whole campaign lying”.

With relation to a report by German daily Die Welt according to which at the G20 summit in Osaka the heads of state and government had agreed that the top candidate of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, will not be the next President of the European Commission, Mr. Kovács said news reports should always be treated with caution.

In reply to another question, the State Secretary declared that the V4 was already against the top candidate system five years ago in view of the fact that it is incapable of mirroring the will of the European people.

Mr. Kovács said that in his opinion it is in everybody’s interests for a decision on the EU’s next leaders to be arrived at as soon as possible.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)