European integration can only be strong if it is built on strong member states, and “there is a strong consensus on this in Central Europe”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared in a statement to the press in Bratislava in Friday, where he and his counterparts from the other Visegrád Groups (V4) countries are taking part in a panel discussion at the Globsec Global Security Forum.

The main topics of the panel discussion were the future of the European Union and opportunities for making it stronger.

“There are two opposing strategies for making the EU stronger: one relies on making Brussels stronger, while the other is based on the fact that the EU should be made up of strong member states”, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said, pointing out that Hungary had cast its vote in favour of the latter, and there is also a strong consensus in this regard among the countries of Central Europe. “Those in favour of this approach are losing their strongest member because of Brexit, as a result of which the countries of the Visegrád Group (Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland) must represent this standpoint “with even greater unity and even more loudly”. “The situation that has arisen because of Brexit increases the opportunities of the V4 countries, but also their responsibility”, he noted.

“The concept according to which we should remove spheres of competence from member states and give them to Brussels has come to a dead end; we have seen what this has resulted in”, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted, pointing out that the good solutions to the historic challenges facing the EU today have always come about at member state level.

On the subject of Visegrád integration, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said it was extremely important that the V4 is the closest and most effective cooperation in the EU today, which is made even more important by the fact that the Group’s members often represent a fully unified standpoint in debates on the future of Europe.

“This unified standpoint is very important with relation to negotiations on Great Britain’s exit of the European Union, because it is in Central Europe’s absolute interests for the EU to not commence negotiations from a position of grievance, but to want to conclude a comprehensive agreement”, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted. “This is in the interests of the full Central European region, because many of our citizens live and work in the UK, and our expectation with regard to the EU is that it must protect the rights and interests of these citizens, in addition to concluding an agreement with the United Kingdom that enables a continuation of its existing close economic, trade and other relations with the European Union”, he explained.

Mr. Szijjártó will also be meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu for a working dinner on Friday in Bratislava, with relation to which he told reporters: “It is in the interests of both Hungary and the European Union itself for the EU to maintain a strategic partnership with Turkey, including in view of the fact that while Turkey is progressing to become one of the world’s ten most highly developed economies, the EU’s competitiveness is steadily falling”.

“In this respect too, Central Europe’s standpoint is much more rational that the general European approach”, he noted.

Mr. Szijjártó will also be holding several other bilateral meetings during the course of the day, in addition to attending the official inauguration of the new headquarters of the International Visegrád Fund.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)