Prague, June 4 (CTK) – The Czech Republic will symbolically hand the presidency of the Visegrad Group (V4) to Poland next week and the prime ministers of the group countries’, which also include Hungary and Slovakia, will assess the ending Czech presidency at their meeting in Prague on Wednesday, June 8.
They will also formally approve the priorities of the six-month Polish presidency that will start on July 1.
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and his Slovak, Hungarian and Polish counterparts, Robert Fico, Viktor Orban and Beata Szydlo, respectively, will also discuss migration and Britain’s referendum on staying in the EU scheduled for June 23.
The prime ministers will also speak about the NATO summit in Warsaw in July.
The V4 countries attracted attention during the Czech presidency because of their criticism of the EU stance on the migrant countries.
Despite criticism by EU institutions and other member countries’ representatives, they have been strongly opposed to the proposed migrants redistribution across the EU based on quotas.
They stressed that the illegal migration must be solved based on consistent control of persons entering the Schengen area of free movement.
The Visegrad countries have been labelled as countries which do not show solidarity in connection with the migrant crisis, but diplomats and experts in international politics agree on that this is for the first time that the countries have succeeded in consistently presenting their joint stance.
According to information from diplomatic sources, Poland would like to make the V4 voice in the EU even louder.
The Poles also want to focus on boosting cooperation in the spheres of joint security and transport infrastructure. They place emphasis on underlying the values that join the four Central European countries and the social aspect of cooperation within the region.
The prime ministers’ meeting in Prague on Wednesday will follow up the Prague European Summit which will start in the city on Monday.
All four prime ministers will jointly take part in the final debate at the conference that will be moderated by Matthew Kaminski, editor-in-chief of the European edition of the U.S. daily Politico.
ms/dr
