Hungary wishes not simply to observe, but to shape what is happening on Europe’s eastern borders, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared at the Summit of the Visegrád Four (V4) and the President of the Swiss Confederation on Tuesday in Bratislava (Slovakia).

It was a strategic error not to have constructed the pipelines of the north-south energy corridor over the past 25 years, because the corridor is also important from the perspective of security, the Prime Minister declared.

Mr. Orbán explained that Hungary is working to make sure that projects that enable the construction of the energy corridor are also included in the current economic stimulus package, the so-called Juncker package.

The Prime Minister called the conflict in Ukraine, which was the other main topic of the meeting, “Europe’s great challenge”, because it foreshadows the question of whether the Europeans are capable of establishing peace on Europe’s eastern borders.

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Hungary is doing everything possible in the interests of achieving peace, he added.

At the press conference following the summit, President of the Swiss Confederation Didier Burkhalter stressed the importance of concurrently achieving both security and growth, and highlighted the importance of European security, which “must be a joint project of the Europeans”.

The Swiss politician also pointed out that the heads of government attending the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) meeting in Basel, Switzerland, had voted in favour of implementing the Minsk Protocol and had agreed to set up a separate working group to ensure the implementation of the agreement.

At the Bratislava meeting of the V4, the Prime Ministers of the Visegrád Group pointed out the importance of Swiss investments in Europe, and with reference to the order of magnitude of those investments voiced their request that the V4 should benefit more from them in accordance with the Group’s significant role.

The Summit’s participants also adopted a joint statement in which, among others, they declared their support for the security of the region.

(Prime Minister's Office, MTI)