Hungary takes over V4 presidency from Poland

Christian Keszthelyi

Poland handed over the presidency of the Visegrád Four (V4) to Hungary, which will hold it from July until next June, in Warsaw’s Royal Castle on Tuesday afternoon after a summit of prime ministers of the Visegrád countries - Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - and the Benelux states.

Orbán speaks about migration at the summit. (Photo: Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI)

Once again, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán did not miss the opportunity to speak about the migration issue. He said that different cultural foundations produce different migration policies and stressed that there are countries that have made it clear that they do not wish to change their cultural pattern, “while others already live in a more diverse world than we do,” official government website kormany.hu reported.

While Orbán described the European Union’s attempt to build a common migration policy as admirable, he stressed that “we are progressing in small steps.” Orbán also said that “despite widely diverging positions, we continue to encourage the EU to seek to create a common concept.”

Orbán said the participating leaders agreed that borders must be protected, refugees should be separated from other migrants as early as possible, every country of origin and transit country should conclude its own agreements. and a joint EU list of safe third countries and countries of origin should be compiled.

The prime minister closed his speech by acknowledging that at this “interesting” meeting the V4 leaders had got closer to the Benelux prime ministers than he had ever thought possible, kormany.hu reported.