After his meeting with the Polish, Slovak and Czech prime ministers, Mr. Orbán said that the time had come for the V4 to adopt such a document.
In his opinion “everything is in flux”, because in our era a new world order is coming into being, and at times like this everyone has an obligation to establish their place in the new order. The Prime Minister pointed out that Europe must also do this, and the current document – which “enjoys Hungary’s support one hundred per cent” – seeks to be a contribution to this process.
In answer to a question, Mr. Orbán said that there is a debate in Europe regarding the future of continental Europe, and in this respect there are two tasks before us: we must set goals for ourselves, and we must decide how to organise our shared life within the EU.
He stressed that as regards the latter the balance between the nation states and EU institutions must not be upset – although the danger of this hangs above our heads. In recent years there has also been a progressive “creeping withdrawal of powers” from the nation states. This, however, is a bad development, and must be stopped. We must not surrender important powers such as the regulation of energy prices, the regulation of migration, independent tax regimes and job creation policy measures, he said.
The Prime Minister said that there have always been internal disputes in the EU, and there always will be, but we must firmly stand by our national interests. This is what Hungary has done to date, and will continue to do in the future, he said – adding that on this issue Hungary found its V4 partners to be understanding.
Double standards exist in the EU market
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that there are double standards in the European Union market as regards food quality.
In this area the nationals of Central Europe are treated as second-class citizens, he said.
He noted that this issue has already been raised earlier, but the European Commission failed to address it. The public must have adequate information on the quality of the food they can purchase, he said, and the Commission must create the legal guarantees needed for this.
The Visegrád Four seeks to play a proactive role in the development of regulations preventing the application of double standards in this area, he stated.
