Hrnko: V4 Security Committees Agreed on Co-operation

Bratislava, January 23 (TASR) – Representatives of the defence and security committees of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) committed themselves to closer co-operation, with one of the main topics of their talks in Bratislava on Wednesday being the priorities of the Slovak presidency in the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), TASR learnt from Slovak parliamentary defence and security committee chairman Anton Hrnko (Slovak National Party/SNS) after the meeting on Wednesday.

“We concurred that the informal association of V4 countries within NATO and other organisations is extraordinarily unique, which enables us to better and more loudly promote our interests within the groupings we’re in,” said Hrnko, adding that in the discussion they identified many problems the OSCE should deal with also within the priorities of the Slovak presidency. According to Hrnko, the V4 partners agreed with the Slovak OSCE presidency focusing on the issues of the situation in the east of Ukraine.

Hrnko stated that they agreed on the need to address, for example, migration, but also terrorism and international crime. “In all the main issues we discussed, there was a high degree of consensus among our committees. We found that the V4 countries really approach these things in a similar way,” added Hrnko.

In addition to Hrnko, the meeting was also attended by vice-chair of the Hungarian defence and law enforcement committee Simon Miklos, chair of the Czech security committee Radek Koten, chair of the Czech foreign affairs, defence and security committee Pavel Fischer, chair of the Polish national security committee Michal Jach, and chair of the Polish national defence committee Jaroslaw Rusiecki.