Current priorities of cooperation within the Visegrad Group (V4) and the general programmatic assumptions of the upcoming Hungarian presidency were on the agenda of the V4 foreign ministers meeting held on Friday in Łódź, central Poland.

EU lacks joint stand on Western Balkans: FM

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The event was organised under the Polish presidency of the V4 Group and on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Visegrad cooperation.

Zbigniew Rau, the Polish FM who hosted his counterparts from the Czech Republic (Jakub Kulhánek), Slovakia (Ivan Korčok) and Hungary (Péter Szijjártó), said that the talks confirmed the support for the Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans countries would be one of the priorities for the coming months. The aid is to be focused both on the field of curbing the COVID-19 pandemic as well as support for their Euro-Atlantic geopolitical orientation.

Another topic of the talks was the possibility of strengthening the V4 partnership in the forum of international organisations. The ministers also discussed further tightening of cooperation in the field of economic diplomacy and new technologies, especially in the context of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Polish presidency of the V4, which began in July last year, will last until the end of June 2021. Minister Rau recalled the event in Łódź was the seventh meeting of the V4 foreign ministers since the beginning of the Polish presidency.

In June, further consultations of the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group and with their counterparts from the Western Balkans are also planned.