The Presidents of the Visegrad Group Parliaments met in Budapest to discuss the achievements of the Hungarian Presidency of the V4 so far. The main topics of the meeting were the place of the Visegrad Four in the EU, also in the face of Brexit, the problem of migration, the disappearance of European values, joint economic and transport initiatives.
- I believe that during all possible international meetings, not only at the level of parliament presidents, we should draw attention to the fact that these fundamental European values are not only those that stem from free market principles or certain formal and legal mechanisms that organise our international life, but that the foundation of these values are, coming from the axiological spirit, Christian values," said Marek Kuchciński, Speaker of the Sejm.
The Marshal emphasized that meetings of representatives of committees and industry groups are a very good direction and he hopes for its continuation. - I mean the practical dimension, but also the area of developing this in the future, e.g. by visits of parliamentary groups or experts to different places in our countries to discuss "hot" issues related to our entire Central Europe, if I may say so about the Visegrad Group, and the best example is the infrastructure issue, the need for development of communication in various infrastructure areas on the north-south axis.
During the meeting the question of the future of the EU was raised, the need to reform it - not only in the direction of strengthening economic competition, solidarity, maintaining subsidiarity, better cohesion policy, common agricultural policy. - We should strongly emphasise that a multi-speed Europe is a very dangerous direction for the future development of the EU - said Marek Kuchciński. - The challenge for us is to find good solutions between countries that are in the Eurozone and countries - members of the EU that are outside the Eurozone, also for us in the Visegrad Group. It would be a positive action to look for a recipe for this. If we limit ourselves only to creating two camps: ours and foreigners, it is a dangerous thing. We should emphasize this and direct it to those countries that want to expand the Eurozone and build a two-speed Europe - emphasized the Speaker. - The issues of migration, attention to border security, and cooperation in Central Europe have led to a situation where we, as four countries, are a very serious partner that the biggest players in the EU pay attention to. And I am not at all surprised that Germany is interested in a meeting with the Visegrad Group. This signals the need to strengthen cooperation, so that the biggest EU players can see that we are a monolith and we want to cooperate with them for the good of all,' argued Marek Kuchciński.
The Speaker of the Sejm thanked the President and the National Assembly of Hungary for the resolution on Poland's support against the pressure from Brussels. - I think that in the history of our countries, over the centuries of the history of our parliaments, even in the last hundred years, our parliaments have passed many important and obligatory laws, thousands of resolutions, but there are not many of them, which will go down in history, which will pave the way for our cooperation in the future. I include this Hungarian resolution among them. For the first time, we have a situation where the parliament of one country supports another country in the process of international relations and calls on its government for cooperation and political solidarity with the other country. - The rule of law is not broken in Poland. More, we want to restore the rule of law in Poland. We want to fight against the judges' corporation, which has not been decreasing but increasing since the fall of communism in Poland. The main EU players are trying to prevent us from doing this. Why? We can only guess. We want solidarity, the rule of law, and equal treatment of all of these Montesquian powers: legislative, executive, and judicial,' said the Speaker of the Sejm.
- When we passed this resolution, we were not under any pressure. We are bound by a 1000-year friendship. We do not want to take part in a political farce," said László Kövér.
During the Conference of the Heads of Parliaments enlarged with the experts of the committee, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó emphasized the great importance of the Visegrad Group in the European Union. - There is no other group in the EU which cooperates so closely as the V4. The Visegrad Group is becoming the leader in this part of Europe. V4's trade turnover with Germany is over 50 percent higher than Germany's trade with France. We are a large, resilient market of 65 million people and we are developing faster than most countries of the so-called old Union. You can see our strength - said the Hungarian politician. Minister Szijjártó emphasised the huge role of the V4 group in defending Christian Europe. He paid attention to the problem that Europe is facing now. - We cannot allow Europe to be seen as a post-Christian continent - he warned.
Concluding the meeting, the heads of V4 parliaments signed JOINT DECLARATION concerning the official meeting of the Presidents of the Parliaments of the Visegrad Group
During the conference, the Sejm was also represented by the Vice-Chairman of the EU Affairs Committee, Piotr Apel, MP, and the Chairman of the Economy and Development Committee, Jerzy Meysztowicz.
