Representatives of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the V4) and the Pacific Alliance (PA), incorporating Chile, Columbia, Mexico and Peru, met for the first time on 5 June 2018 at a meeting organised by the current Hungarian presidency of the V4.

The expert-level forum was opened by Deputy State Secretary for Hungary’s Southern Opening Policy Szilveszter Bus, who stressed that both the V4 and the PA are their respective region’s most dynamic integration, and accordingly their cooperation holds true potential.

Mr. Bus also welcomed the fact that following the reopening of Hungary’s embassies in Lima and Bogota in autumn 2017, Columbia and Peru established a joint embassy in Budapest this spring, meaning all four PA member states now have diplomatic missions in each other’s countries, which is an important engine for the further development of relations.

At the meeting, experts from the ministries of foreign affairs of the eight countries identified the three main areas that provide major opportunities for cooperation between the V4 and the PA: improving the international relations of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), training and education, and science, technology and innovation.

The parties stressed that ongoing bilateral cooperation with the PA (all four Visegrád Group countries have been afforded observer status in the Latin-American organisation) continues to play an important role in their relations, within the framework of which they welcomed the water engineering scholarships offered to the organisation’s member states by Hungary, but underlined that further cooperation between the two alliances holds many more valuable opportunities.

During their first meeting, the participants determined concrete project areas within the highlighted fields of cooperation, including water-related research and cooperation between foreign affairs research institutes (joint research on global issues, research exchange programmes).

The experts agreed that the successful dialogue has laid the foundations for the organisation of a political-level meeting between the two organisations.

((Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade))