Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Press Statement following the Meeting of the Visegrád Four

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen!

This press conference, in which we will all take part, will be an extremely short one. There are two reasons for this. First of all, we have already held a public event today at which we spoke honestly and openly about the most important issues, and secondly we must allow President Barroso to board his flight.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Before saying anything about the cooperation between the countries of the V4, I would like to thank President Barroso in the name of the Visegrád countries. This has been a decisive period in our lives and our nations owe a debt of gratitude to those people who stood by us and helped us at the most difficult times, whether with regard to gaining accession to the EU or during our first period as members of the EU, which was especially difficult. There are a few people of this kind in Europe. One of them, who we express our thanks to for this, is President Barroso himself. Thank you very much, José Manuel, for having been with us during these past years. We wish you mush success in your life following the Commission presidency.

It is also important to mention that Commissioner Hahn was also with us today, because he supervises an area that is vitally important to all four countries, and all four countries have achieved success in recent years with regard to the application of funding, and it would seem that the adoption of plans for the future is moving forward more quickly than expected, and for this we would like to thank Mr. Johannes Hahn, who has helped the people of Central Europe as Commissioner. With regard to Visegrád cooperation, I would merely like to draw your attention in short to the fact that energy security has been a key issue. The Polish Prime Minister has in fact put forward a European-level proposal on this topic with regard to energy unity and the energy community. I would like to remind you of the fact that, together with the Prime Minister of Slovakia, we have jointly put into commission the gas interconnector, which was a unique experience from the point of view of the life of our homeland, Hungary, because this is the first time in the history of Hungary that, thanks to the agreement concluded with the Slovakians, gas that does not originate from Russian sources is able to enter the territory of Hungary. This is a fantastic success of geopolitical significance and we are grateful to the Commission, which contributed one third of the funding, and we are grateful to Prime Minister Robert Fico for having been a partner in this endeavour.

I would also like to remind you that one of the objectives of our presidency [of the V4] was also the conclusion of the political agreements necessary for the construction of the north-south transport corridor. These have all be signed, and so it is not an illusionary assumption that within a few years we will be able to travel by car from the Adriatic right up to the Baltic Sea using the most excellent quality highways.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to tell you that we have also opened a parliamentary dimension in Visegrád cooperation; this did not exist previously. And I would like to remind everyone that there will be a NATO summit in Wales in the autumn, in preparation for which our Ministers of Defence have elaborated a joint standpoint, which the Prime Ministers have accepted, and which includes our joint views on defence policy with regard to the future. These were the most important achievements of Visegrád cooperation. I am grateful to Prime Minister Donald Tusk for having passed on the Presidency of the Visegrád Four in a way that it was easy to continue the task. Thank you to my colleagues for their cooperation and much success to Robert Fico, who will be leading us during this next year.

(Prime Minister’s Office)