Eastern policy, relations with the Western Balkans, counteracting disinformation, the V4’s relations with London following Brexit, and transatlantic relations were on the top of the agenda of the Thursday’s talks. The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister Marcin Przydacz and his Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and British counterparts.

“For us, the cooperation between V4 and the UK complements and extends our excellent bilateral relations with the United Kingdom,” highlighted Deputy Minister Przydacz. “Thanks to the collaboration, we can coordinate our priority activities, such as the Eastern Partnership and transatlantic relations in its regional dimension,” he added. The ministers agreed to tighten cooperation between the five countries at an expert level, especially in such fields as the policy towards the Western Balkans or broadly understood cybersecurity.

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Poland took over the annual rotating presidency in the Visegrad Group on 1 July 2020 under the ‘Back on track’ motto. In this context, the cooperation within the V4 focuses not only on acting together against the COVID-19 pandemic, but also on boosting and facilitating regional collaboration, as well as fostering people-to-people contacts between the Group’s societies after the pandemic-related restrictions are lifted. Since the European Union remains the key platform of the V4 engagement, under the Polish presidency the Group centres its works on the current European agenda. Important topics include deepening cooperation in the digital sector, collaboration in the area of security and infrastructure, as well as international agenda, such as supporting pro-European aspirations of the Western Balkans and the development of the Eastern Partnership.

It is Poland’s sixth  presidency of the V4. The Group has separate formats of consultations with Germany, France, Benelux countries, Nordic and Baltic states (NB8), as well as with the Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans’ countries.

 

MFA Press Office

 

Photo: Tymon Markowski / MFA