FILE PHOTO: Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (not pictured) hold a news conference after a meeting at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal
January 26, 2018
By Krisztina Than
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The European Union needs a “new blueprint” and Central European member states want a say in reforms of the bloc, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after meeting counterparts of three fellow Visegrad states on Friday.
Orban said the Visegrad group in the EU – Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland – share common values regarding family, God, sovereignty and opposition to immigration, and are able to understand Europe “from a joint dictionary”.
The premiers of the four, formerly communist countries met with the EU facing the challenge of negotiating Britain’s exit from the bloc and girding for deep reforms driven by western powers Germany and France.
“Europe needs a new blueprint,” Orban told a panel discussion. “We must speak about an alliance of free nations.”
Orban said Central European member states made a strong economic contribution to the EU, and wanted to make Europe stronger, while resisting migrant quotas set by Brussels.
The four premiers said Visegrad states were in favour of a joint defence force, and making the EU more competitive.
But the eastern members should not be punished for having different opinions within the bloc, they said.
Visegrad states should not be treated as “black sheep” in the EU, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said.
Fico urged a deeper integration of the EU, stressing that Visegrad states were a pro-Europe grouping.
“I reject any criticism of us just because we have a different opinion … about the (migration) quotas. We are not black sheep,” Fico said through an interpreter.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he believed in a “strong, integrated Europe” but one of sovereign member states where members freely reform their own national institutions – rather than within an increasingly centralised federation.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
