Taking place at the Károlyi Castle in Fehérvárcsurgó on 16 July 2021, the first meeting of the Speakers of the National Parliaments of the Visegrád Group during the Hungarian Presidency was attended by the Slovak Speaker of the Parliament Boris Kollár, Hungarian Speaker of the Parliament László Kövér (host of the event), Czech Speaker of the Upper House Miloš Vystrčil, Czech Speaker of the Parliament Radek Vondráček, Polish Speaker of the Senate Tomasz Grodzki, and Polish Speaker of the House of Commons Elžbieta Witeková. The meeting focused on questions on Central European cultural heritage and identity, and common V4 positions within the European Union.
The Visegrád countries came together to develop a common position that can be taken into account in Brussels and in all member states of the European Union, said Hungarian Speaker László Kövér after the consultations. He emphasised that the V4 would like to participate on equal grounds in the debate on the future of Europe, and that the opinions of the National Parliaments of the European Member States should also be taken into account. The Speaker called the last ten years of the V4 a success story, because the four countries have always sought what unites them, which made the V4 an indispensable factor. Besides their common history, he sais, the V4 countries are connected by their present coinciding interests, which include the prominent topic of improving North-South infrastructural links in the region, making up for at least a hundred years of deficit in this field.
Mr. Kövér argued that, based in part on historical experience, the similarity of the V4's respective national cultures creates a Central European identity that enables their citizens to discover what unites them, even if having different opinions on some issues. In this context, new and comprehensive people-to-people programmes would be essential to strengthen the thought of regional cooperation among future generations as well.
