The Visegrad Group (V4) countries should act together in a more decisive way, otherwise they will still be treated differently from the rest of the European Union, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Tuesday quoted by the Hungarian Origo website.

Central European countries would lose significance without Poland: PM Orbán

Poland is the flagship of Central Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview for the conservative Slovak website Postoj,…

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“The V4 countries have not managed to achieve the implementation of their interests in an adequate way within the EU. This is a fact, and so is the issue of treating the people of Central Europe differently,” PM Orbán stated.

The Prime Minister of Hungary referred to his words in an interview for the Slovak portal Postoj on May 5 that “so far the EU has been spinning on the German-French axis,” and now “we are aiming to become a third pole by 2030: the Central Europe, or V4.” As Mr Orbán assessed on Tuesday, “it can only be imagined under Polish leadership.”

According to the Hungarian PM, the V4 countries are at loss when it comes to the money inflow through EU transfers. Viktor Orbán said that the disproportionate participation of the V4 in EU centrally managed programmes was “not only deplorable but also degrading.”

He added that the countries that joined the EU from 2004 received 5.1 percent of the EU support fund, although their population accounts for more than 20 percent of residents of the entire Union. In this context, Mr Orbán recalled that the V4 proposals “to heal this geographic imbalance have been rejected.”