Austria’s participation in yesterday’s Visegrad4 meeting allowed the four nations to align with a fifth country in many aspects. The meeting took place in Prague castle and results were highlighted by those involved after the conference.
Andrej Babis (ANO) announced that finally finishing the highway connects to Austria would allow better ties and the relationship as a whole. Mentioning that “we a little forgot about” finishing some of the planned highways and need to get them done was a big admission from the Czech side. Babis is looking how to accelerate the finishing of the highway to Linz, the Austrian side is pretty much complete with the exception of a few kilometers to the Czech border. The Czech side is still active in building the alternative route around Ceske Budejovice, with the D3 scheduled to be finished, to the Austrian border, in 2025. The delay is in the section connecting the Stredocesky kraj, which is scheduled to be finished in 2028.
Last year the Brno-Vienna section was completed ALMOST to the border. But the final bit is still not being built and Babis wants to go through Breclav instead of Mikulov. So that may delay it further.
The four leaders of the V4, along with Sebastian Kurz of Austria, readily agreed on not supporting laws within the EU which dictate any sort of allocating of migrants, mandatory acceptance of migrants. Central Europe remains the back-cone of the revolt against liberal migrant rules and settlement.
The five leaders also agreed that the EU could save money on administration for years 2021 to 2028. The savings could come from security, as most countries are being asked to increase budgets for NATO, which should be used for security. They agreed to review and find further support within the EU on cutting unnecessary expenditures.
Lastly the Balkan expansion of the EU was also generally supported by the five leaders as a regional position. Babis believes that the EU should be true to its word and open discussions with North Macedonia over joining the EU. Letting the Western Balkan States join the upcoming Future of the EU summit, starting on May 9th, is also supported by the group.
