For the first time in the Visegrád Group’s history, the leaders of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia will hold a summit outside of Europe, notably in Jerusalem. It is known that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán maintains a close working relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that Fidesz has borrowed some elements of its political strategy […]
Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government plans to turn the Budapest International Book Festival (April 20–23) into a political propaganda event. The festival is supposed to be for book lovers. It is an annual four-day extravaganza with panel discussions, book signings, readings where thousands of newly published and older books can be purchased. (Click here to see this year’s program of the […]
A couple of weeks ago in Prague, the prime ministers of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic declared that they would oppose the European Commission’s plan to redistribute 120,000 refugees across the European Union. They resolutely rejected the proposed quota system. The Czech Republic hosted the meeting as current president of the Visegrad 4 Group (V4). Polish Prime Minister […]
The 25-year-old Visegrad Group, also called the Visegrad Four, is supposed to be an alliance of four Central European states – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland andSlovakia – for the purposes of furthering European integration and advancing political, military, and economic cooperation. As it turns out the Visegrad Four is dead. In the last couple of months it has become clear that the Visegrad Four members fundamentally disagree on how to approach […]
