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Central Europe
February 2, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 14
“EU institutions should treat all member states equally and act strictly within the remits of their respective competencies. The right of member states to carry out domestic reforms within their competences should be respected,” the V4's joint declaration read.
The view of a strong Europe based on the cooper- ation of integrated sovereign states was echoed by Morawiecki, who also called for the creation of Europe's own defence force to be used against terrorism, the migration crisis and “Eastern ag- gression”, referring to Russia.
Hungary and Poland, allies for centuries, are at loggerheads with Brussels over many issues, with the populist governments of the “illiberal axis” Central European states seeking to push back
EU power to retain national sovereignty.
Hungary has received sharp warnings for its controversial NGO law and attacks on civil soci- ety, while Poland has come under scrutiny since the rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party won the election in late 2015 and swiftly acted to tighten control over publicly-owned media, as well as the judiciary.
The European Commission triggered the “nuclear option” against Warsaw in December, which may lead to stripping Poland of its voting rights in the
EU. Budapest has already made it clear that it would veto such a decision. The Polish govern- ment did the same after the European Parliament adopted a resolution to trigger Article 7 against Hungary in May after the government approved controversial legislation on asylum seekers and NGOs and the Central European University.
Migration remains a divisive issue
A major division between old and new mem-
ber states has been the question of migration,
as eastern states have been rejecting the EU's migration quotas. The commission stepped up infringement procedures in July against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for refusing to take part in the programme to redistribute 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece.
On migration issues, the heads of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary restated their focus on “effective, responsible and en- forceable (EU) external border protection to avoid obligatory quotas (being) applied. There was a consensus that key goal was not to “relocate but to prevent the pressure of immigration in Europe.”
At the summit, Orban also pushed for the EU enlargement to the Western Balkan region.
The integration of Montenegro and Serbia would strengthen Central Europe and would stabilise the Balkan region, he said.
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