The Visegrád countries will jointly protect the acquired rights of the Central-European nations in the European Union after Brexit, the Government Spokesperson said on Thursday evening on the programme of the public service television news channel M1.

Zoltán Kovács said: they will also jointly work towards maintaining strategic cooperation with Britain even after its exit.

He pointed out that the weight of the V4 (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia) was duly demonstrated in the EU already last year in the form of their joint action related to migration.

In response to the report that at a hearing held in Brussels American financier of Hungarian origin György Soros estimated the costs of the migration crisis in the EU to be around thirty billion euros and argued that in order to raise the required funds, it will be necessary to cut agricultural subsidies and the cohesion funds as well as to introduce a pan-European petrol tax, Mr Kovács said: the hearing itself demonstrates that Brussels has not learnt from recent events. We must fight against these voices, he stated.

Our stance is that the migration situation should not be managed, but migration should be stopped at the borders, he added.

The Government Spokesperson additionally remarked: the reduction of agricultural subsidies and the cohesion funds would stop the programme – the vision – that the Central- and Eastern-European countries should be allowed to converge to the level of the Western Member States to the fullest possible extent.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)