V4 presidents agree on support for Ukraine

The heads of state of the four Visegrad Group countries (Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary) all expressed their support for Ukraine at a press conference after Wednesday's V4 summit at Prague Castle. Even Hungary's president, Katalin Novák, said that the common position of the V4 is that Russia must not win the war.

Recently the V4 countries appeared to have differing opinions about the war in Ukraine, with Hungary refusing to supply weapons to the country and the new Slovak prime minister Robert Fico running on a campaign to cease military support to the country, while Czechia and Poland continue to staunchly provide support.

The V4 presidents also discussed Ukraine's potential accession to the EU, a point of contention because while Czechia strongly supports Ukraine's membership and has advocated for it to join as quickly as possible, Hungary has reservations regarding the protection of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Hungarian president Katalin Novák said after the summit that the protection of minorities should not be up for negotiation and that Kyiv should repeal the statute that Hungary considers a restriction on minority rights.

According to Czech President Petr Pavel, the summit helped to find areas of intersection where the neighbouring central European countries could agree. Aside from Ukraine, the heads of state also discussed the conflict in the Middle East following the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, the development of infrastructure, and projects financed by the joint International Visegrad Fund, which Mr Pavel said could expand to Ukraine and also to other Eastern Partnership countries and the Western Balkans in the future.