French President Meets V4 Premiers in Budapest

The President of the Republic of France, Emmanuel Macron paid a one-day visit to Budapest this Monday to attend a meeting with the prime ministers of the Visegrád Four (V4) Group. He also met held brief discussions with the Hungarian president and prime minister as well as opposition politicians, including the mayor of Budapest.

At the V4-France meeting, held under the Hungarian Presidency of the Group, the French President held talks with the four prime ministers (Andrej Babis of the Czech Republic, Viktor Orbán of Hungary, Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland and Eduard Heger of Slovakia).

According to the Hungarian PM, "we have spoken extensively and exhaustively on the issue of migration. We have talked in depth, exhaustively and passionately about the rule of law. We talked about the Western Balkans. We talked about energy, we talked specifically about nuclear energy."

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Emmanuel Macron, for his part, described the issue of the rule of law and anti-gay discrimination as a sensitive and vital issues, and said that a solution must be found to break the deadlock betwen the Hungarian government and the European Union.

The French President held one hour of talks with four Hungarian opposition leaders: Péter Márky-Zay, the joint opposition candidate to face Viktor Orbán at next year's parliamentary elections, Members of the European Parliament Klára Dobrev of the Democratic Coalition, Anna Donáth of the Momentum party and Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony.

Péter Márky-Zay pointed out that they share Emmanuel Macron's values of a stronger, safer, more democratic and freer Europe and they can get political support from the French community in this.