FOA News – The division between countries in the Visegrad group including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia was shown quite clearly at this group’s summit taking place in Prague on February 27.
Division of views on Ukraine within the Visegrad Group (V4) alliance.
At the meeting, the Polish and Czech Prime Ministers continued to call on the West to continue military support for Ukraine. But their Hungarian and Slovak counterparts say support will prolong the current conflict while the countries need a stronger push for peace.
At the press conference, Slovak Prime Minister Fico said: we can send weapons, money and equipment to Ukraine, but in two years there will be tens of thousands more victims on each side. He argued that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be resolved by armed means. A cessation of fighting would allow peace negotiations to begin.
The EU needs to have its own peace plan and try to end military operations. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban also expressed support for this viewpoint and said that there should be measures to promote peace negotiations. He also supports solutions that provide humanitarian aid rather than military support.
However, this viewpoint was deemed inappropriate by the Czech prime minister and the Polish prime minister. Countries cannot stand in a neutral position in the current context and need to fight for peace because this is the only way to ensure long-term security of countries in the bloc.
In a related development, several groups of protesters gathered outside the Palace in Prague, where the V4 summit was held, to protest the views of the prime ministers of Slovakia and Hungary.
Although the V4 group is now divided over approaches to the conflict in Ukraine. However, leaders in the V4 group also agreed to cooperate in a number of areas, especially on energy, infrastructure and migrants.
