By: V4 Agency
Having described Central Europe as a community of ambitions, President Andrzej Duda said the times when the region only played a peripheral role were over, as it has become a success story. Mr Duda underlined the importance of the Visegrad Group within the context of regional cooperation.
“The times when our region barely existed in the eyes of the big players of international politics are over,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said.
At present, Central Europe has grown to be a community of ambitions, a dynamically developing structure conscious of its interests, which foreshadow the possibility of it becoming a civilisational hub, Mr Duda said. He said the region shared a common destiny and – even though it has its own geographical, political, economic and cultural dimensions – it is primarily bound together by its common, collective memory.
Andrzej Duda said cooperation in Central Europe is under way on several levels, which has regional as well as trans-Atlantic and global significance. He described the Visegrad Group as such a significant cooperation, which operates in the political dimension and plays a central role in dialogue, as well as the coordination of EU and NATO accession talks.
Mr Duda also spoke of the cooperation within the Bucharest Nine, a group that includes the V4 countries (and was described by the Polish president as “NATO’s eastern wing”), but he also mentioned the Three Seas Initiative, which plays a key role in maintaining EU cohesion.
The president’s article written for the French l’Opinion newspaper has been published in four languages: English, French, German and Italian.
