"The future of the Union will largely play out in Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Bratislava", Tusk told reporters at Bratislava Castle, crediting the Visegrad Group's cohesion with helping the region integrate into the EU "not only politically, but also in economic and civilisational terms" since the end of communism.
Tusk was joined by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar, who used the meeting to warn Brussels against any measures that would raise energy costs in the region. Tusk said the bloc's emissions trading schemes would face resistance if they threatened to push up prices.
"Anything that introduces the risk of more expensive energy for us will be blocked by us", he said, describing the stakes as "a matter of life or death" for both the Visegrad Group and the EU.
Fico echoed the message, saying the four countries were aligned on electricity prices and emissions trading rules and would keep pressing Brussels to bring costs down. Hungary's Magyar went further, telling the gathering that state subsidies propping up fuel prices across much of Europe were no longer sustainable given the prolonged crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. "State budgets don't have the means to keep subsidising and keeping prices lower [...] We agreed we cannot continue in this direction", he said.
The energy dispute formed the backdrop to broader talks on the EU's next multiannual budget, covering 2028 to 2034, which Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin attended as his country's six-month EU Council presidency, begun in July, gets under way. Fico said the four leaders wanted the bloc's cohesion and agricultural funding left intact, insisting that "the specificity of each of our countries" be taken into account. The Czech Republic's Babiš called for a budget that is "fair and balanced", and that reflects differing levels of economic development among member states.
Martin, for his part, said finalising the budget was among the presidency's most urgent tasks and that Ireland would circulate a fresh proposal within weeks based on consultations with member states.
He also placed EU enlargement high on his agenda, saying candidate countries should be able to advance "as quickly as possible" once they complete the necessary reforms, and calling enlargement "a great investment for the whole of Europe".
Migration also featured prominently. Babiš argued the Visegrad states had flagged the problem of illegal migration to the rest of the EU as far back as 2016 without being heeded. "They only woke up now, after 10 years, and for some countries that may already be too late", he said.
Tusk, meanwhile, pointed to the nearly two million Ukrainian refugees Poland has taken in and to what he called continuing Russian pressure, sabotage and provocation, arguing the war remains "a real problem" rather than an abstraction for the region.
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Source: PAP