BRATISLAVA, April 17. /TASS/. Part of the European Union, realizing that the Visegrad Group (an association of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic) is very strong, did everything to destroy it, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said in a video posted on Facebook (banned in Russia).
"We represented 65 million residents of the European Union. They [in the EU] should have listened to us by now. When part of the EU realized that the Visegrad Four is very strong, they did everything to destroy it," Fico said.
He noted that the main topic dividing the member countries of the regional association is Ukraine. According to Fico, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose mandate expires in May, shared his view that assistance to this country should be curbed.
Fico called for reviving the Visegrad Group, in which Slovakia will assume the duties of the chair state from July 1. He expressed hope that the new Hungarian prime minister would also be interested in effective cooperation between the four member states and that Poland rethink its negative attitude towards this union.
"It is likely that [the principles of development of] regional cooperation will underpin some kind of an EU reform," Fico said.