V4 PMs to miss migration talks, but will attend EU summit: Polish FM

Jacek Czaputowicz was speaking after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a day earlier announced that the four prime ministers would not take part in a mini-summit on migration being organised by the European Commission in Brussels on Sunday.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has said he is convening an informal “mini-summit” on migration in Brussels on Sunday.

Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia together form a regional cooperation platform known as the Visegrad Group (V4).

Czaputowicz said in a media interview on Friday that Sunday’s mini-summit in Brussels was an "informal preparatory meeting" ahead of the official EU summit due to take place next week.

He was quoted as telling Polish public broadcaster TVP that attendance at the mini-summit was not mandatory.

"The formal summit, that is the European Council [meeting], will take place on June 28-29, and, of course, all the [V4] prime ministers will be there," he said, as quoted by public broadcaster Polish Radio's IAR news agency.

Czaputowicz added that the position of the four Visegrad Group countries on migration “is known.”

He specified that the countries in the region were in favour of strengthening the EU's borders and helping migrants in their countries of origin, the IAR news agency reported.

Meawhile, the V4 nations oppose any forced relocation of migrants across the European Union, Czaputowicz said, as cited by IAR.

Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki, Hungary’s Orban, the Czech Republic’s Andrej Babiš and Slovakia’s Peter Pellegrini put on a united front on migration when they met Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in the Hungarian capital on Thursday, according to reports.

(gs/pk)

Source: IAR/PAP