Rasi: It's Necessary to Use V4 Potential to Boost Europe's Competitiveness

Budapest/Bratislava, 26 February (TASR-correspondent) – The potential of the Visegrad Group (V4: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) must be used so that its members contribute to Europe's competitiveness, the heads of the parliaments of the V4 countries agreed at their meeting in Budapest on Thursday, TASR's special correspondent reported on the same day. Slovak House chair Richard Rasi (Voice–SD) expressed Slovakia’s position on Ukraine, which he said would “partly have problems existing” without Slovakia. Rasi described the meeting as very open, saying there had been frank discussion including critical views, with the sharpest statement voiced by Hungarian Parliament's head Laszlo Kover, who said the European Commission should be dismissed. "In principle, what we can agree on and what resonates is that we must seek common ground where it exists. We must use the potential of the Visegrad Four as a market of almost 65 million inhabitants – 14 percent of the population – and use it so that we also contribute to making Europe competitive, so that it does not lose out to America or to China," Rasi said. He also pointed to Green Deal measures which, although "important and green", are in fact destroying industry. It is also necessary to unite on the issue of future EU funds and to ensure that "we do not overregulate ourselves". Rasi outlined Slovakia's problems, such as high energy prices, which he described as absolutely uncompetitive. A second "message", he said, was that Slovakia opposes a ban on internal combustion engines after 2035. He argued that Europe is not ready for this. "And above all, we are already unable to handle electric cars from China, which are becoming dominant, and European industry is not prepared for this,” he stated. Another issue was emission allowances, the so-called ETS2, which he also considers currently unfeasible. Migration was also a major subject of talks. "We are all in favour of migration, but regulated migration," Rasi noted, adding that migration from geographically and culturally closer countries is preferred, as such people "assimilate more easily into our environment". EU funds and the future programming period were also discussed at the meeting. "I believe we will come together and fight for EU fund conditions as we want them, not as someone dictates them to us – meaning that we will be able to use EU funds for measures and in a form that is advantageous for our countries," he said. mf